Members of Va-Hist and Va-Roots will undoubtedly find this review of THE
GREAT CATASTROPHE OF MY LIFE very interesting and its implications very
pertinent to many kinds of research. Please respect the letter and
spirit of the copyright notice at the foot of the review.

Brent Tarter
The Library of Virignia
[log in to unmask]

Visit the Library of Virginia's web site at http://www.lva.lib.va.us


-----Original Message-----
From: Ian Binnington, H-South [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Friday, June 18, 2004 10:08 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: H-South Review: Langston on Buckley, _The Great Catastrophe of
My Life_


H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by [log in to unmask] (June 2004)

Thomas E. Buckley, S.J. _The Great Catastrophe of My Life: Divorce in
the Old Dominion_. Studies in Legal History. Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 2002. xi + 346 pp. Illustrations, appendix, notes,
bibliography, index. $59.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-8078-2712-6; $19.95 (paper),
ISBN 0-8078-5380-1.

Reviewed for H-South by Scott M. Langston, [log in to unmask],
Department of Biblical Studies, Southwest Baptist University, Bolivar,
Missouri

_Exploration of a Southern Society_

Thomas E. Buckley has written a book in which there is something for
almost everyone. Those interested in gender, religion, class, social
structures and relationships, cultural values, racial issues, and
political and economic considerations during the period from the
American Revolution to the Civil War will find this book helpful. By
examining over five hundred divorce petitions submitted to the Virginia
Assembly from 1786 to 1851, Buckley has produced an interesting
description and analysis that brings together many topics that often
receive separate treatment by historians.

According to Buckley, most southern men and women viewed marriage as an
essential element to personal happiness, identity, and societal
stability, and therefore, considered divorce to be a personal, familial,
and social disaster. It brought personal pain, stress and upheaval to
families, and threatened the South's social structure. In making this
argument, Buckley divides the book into three sections relating to the
contexts, causes, and consequences of divorce, and supplements these
with a brief, but helpful appendix that offers statistical analyses of
the divorce petitions. The book is well-documented with both primary and
secondary sources, while the divorce petitions are supplemented with
newspaper accounts, court and church records, and correspondence and
reflection from spouses, family members, and friends. Buckley recognizes
the hazards of using divorce petitions in historical analysis due to
their subjective nature, but he also points out that virtually all
primary sources, especially letters and diaries, must be used cautiously
for the same reason. Furthermore, the public divorce process helped
establish the veracity of the petitions' claims. The petitions also
reflect the cultural values and beliefs of individuals from a variety of
socio-economic positions and thereby present an opportunity for broad
historical analysis.

The book's first section explores the political, legal, religious, and
familial/communal settings in which divorces were played out. Throughout
these chapters, Buckley demonstrates the struggle being played out in
divorce cases between civic republicanism and individual autonomy.
Originally, Virginia gave no judicial jurisdiction for granting
divorces. Although the General Assembly held this power, it rarely
allowed divorces, and did not grant the first one until the beginning of
the nineteenth century. In spite of this low rate of approval,
Virginians continued to submit petitions. For men, the process, even
when unsuccessful, helped maintain or restore their social standing
within their local communities. Women, however, remained legally bound
to their husbands when their petitions were denied. Most legislators,
reflecting public sentiment based originally on Anglican cultural values
and later on evangelical Protestantism, regarded marriage as a sacred
institution necessary to the stability of a Christian society. Seeking
to safeguard one of society's foundations, they placed societal welfare
over that of the individual, and usually refused to grant divorces. This
subordination of private interests to the greater communal good
exemplified civic republicanism. Legislators also did not want to
intrude on the prerogative of the male to control his household.
Compatible with a slaveholding, hierarchical southern society, this
conservative ideology stood against the liberal emphasis on the autonomy
of the individual. Most Virginians during the 1840s, however,
increasingly rejected the common good argument. As a result, the
Assembly began granting more divorces. In reaction to this, legislative
divorce was ended in 1851 with the adoption of a new state constitution.
The termination of legislative divorce did not reflect a liberalizing of
divorce laws because its replacement, the courts, were bound by stricter
guidelines. Yet, Virginians essentially circumvented these laws on the
local level. While family and friends usually reinforced the values of
male domination and the sanctity of marriage, local communities often
asserted individual freedom and autonomy by privileging the injured
spouse even when the Assembly denied a request for divorce. In essence,
these communities exercised ultimate control over marriage and social
relationships.

Buckley takes up the most common causes of divorce in the second
section: interracial sex, male violence, and female infidelity.
Interracial sex, which occurred in all social classes, represented a
challenge to the foundational values of a white society when an
African-American male successfully gained the affections of a white
woman. In spite of the Assembly's resistance to grant divorces,
interracial sex became the most common reason for giving a husband a
divorce from his wife (although it was not automatic). Husbands who
engaged in interracial sex, however, usually were tolerated as long as
their actions did not challenge the hierarchical foundations of a slave
society. Not surprisingly, the views of African-Americans are not
reflected in the divorce petitions, and those who participated in these
relationships did so at great risk to themselves. Infidelity on the part
of the woman, regardless of her paramour's race, became the most common
grounds given by the husband requesting a divorce. The vast majority of
men looked to marriage for personal happiness, whether it was to fulfill
emotional and sexual needs or to have important domestic functions
performed. Men, therefore, presented wives' infidelity as destroying
their idyllic union. While women faced economic disaster from a divorce,
men confronted domestic disaster.

Whereas husbands found most success when they proved their wives were
involved in interracial sex, wives who could prove extensive physical
abuse most often prevailed. Yet, the abuse had to be extreme and
prolonged because Virginian society accepted that violence was an
acceptable means for controlling a wife, and the Assembly was reluctant
to impinge on the male prerogative to rule his household. Nonetheless,
Virginians deemed excessive violence as a threat to the stability of
society. Lawyers representing women typically used social
characterizations and expectations of wives as weak, dependent, and
helpless individuals to argue their cases. Depicting a woman in this
manner magnified the brutality of the husband's violence and often
gained their client a positive verdict.

The book's final section illustrates the disastrous consequences that
divorce brought to men and women by detailing the experience of Sally
McDowell Thomas, wife of Frank Thomas, governor of Maryland, and
daughter of James McDowell, governor of Virginia. Divorce destroyed the
identities of men and women, and subjected them to social stigma and
persecution. The public and cumbersome process involved in obtaining a
divorce took its toll personally and economically, as well as created
great stress among the spouses' families and communities. This chapter
admirably demonstrates the results of divorce within elite circles, but
comparing and contrasting it with a similar case emanating from the
lower classes would deepen our understanding of some of the finer
nuances of divorce's impact, as well as perhaps the impact of class on
divorce. Such a case likely would not have been as well documented as
the Thomas', but this in itself might suggest something of the impact of
divorce among the various classes. While Buckley demonstrates throughout
the book that reasons leading to requests for divorce cut across social
classes, one wonders if the consequences of divorce were identical for
all classes. Undoubtedly they were similar, but further investigation
into the specific ramifications might lead to further insights regarding
the inter-relationship of marriage, divorce, class, and gender.

The strength of Buckley's book lies in its breadth. He brings together
several vantage points -- gender, religion, class, social structures and
relationships, cultural values, racial issues, and political and
economic considerations -- and enables the reader to see these factors
interacting with one another. While the book is chiefly concerned with
the disastrous consequences brought about by divorce, it contextualizes
this experience within the diversities and complexities of southern
societies. He demonstrates that societal values and expressions of
southern culture were contested from a variety of perspectives. The
conflicts reflected in the divorce petitions were not monolithic; the
issues were not simply racial or gender or religious or class issues.
They were a combination of these and other factors. The book presents
southern men and women attempting to manage and integrate the
conflicting demands arising from these factors.

A book of this breadth is understandably unable to analyze these factors
in great detail. Some may find this dissatisfying, but it does not
detract from the book's contributions. A more direct analysis of these
perspectives and their meaning for understanding southern society would
have been helpful. This occurred to some extent in the last chapter
regarding Sally McDowell Thomas' divorce, but its contribution mainly
enhanced our understanding of Virginia's upper class. At times, Buckley
makes tantalizing assessments. For instance, when discussing divorce
petitions involving interracial sex, he concludes that they "suggest an
openness in interracial sexual relationships and a degree of white
acceptance of sex across the color line that challenges historical
generalizations and traditional stereotypes of both free blacks and the
slaveholding society of the early-nineteenth-century South." He goes on
to assert, "these conclusions in turn reinforce the evidence from the
divorce petitions that interracial sexual liaisons involved white women
from every class in society and were far more common and more tolerated,
particularly in local communities, than historians until recently have
noticed" (151). While Buckley concludes that these instances of
interracial sex and their treatment in the divorce proceedings actually
demonstrate the resilience of antebellum values, insights like these
offer the opportunity to explore the dynamics of race, gender, and class
within the South's construction of one of its central institutions, the
home, and in light of the struggle for control between local communities
and the broader culture. The pursuit of these connections would have
further revealed the meaning and significance of divorce. Nonetheless,
Buckley has certainly illuminated the trauma associated with divorce, as
well as provided useful data and perspectives that ought to stimulate
further contemplation and understanding of southern societies.

Copyright (c) 2004 by H-Net, all rights reserved. This work may be
copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit is given to the
author and the list. For other permission, please contact
[log in to unmask]

To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-roots.html