General Chat

My grandmother left my grandfather in 1923 and I have been looking into the possibility that she remarried. Can anyone advise on the likelihood that they would be able to divorce and if so how many years would they have had to wait.
Many thanks

Unless they were very well off it would be unlikely that they divorced. My father-in-law was married in the 1920's and the marriage broke up. He just went on to live with my mother-in-law as if they were married (in fact we thought they WERE married). It was only when I had spent years looking for their marriage that an elderly relative told us that they were not actually married at all.

If your grandparents DID divorce then it would depend on the circumstances and reason for divorce as to how long they would have had to wait.

Kath. x

My great great grandparents both "married" again, when they were still both living, and not divorced.
Liz

Divorce for ordinary folks was very rare until the reasons for divorce were eased

............ which actually was not until the 1950s or 1960s!

Before that, there was really only adultery .... and it had to be proved by the guilty party being found in flagrante delicto by either the police or a private eye.

Usually the husband was gentleman enough to allow himself to be the guilty party, even if he was innocent


It meant that a young lady had to be found who would pretend to be the paramour, allow herself to be caugth in dressing gown and nightie in the same bedroom in a hotel as the husband, and allow a photograph to be taken



add up the cost .......................... young lady, hotel, private eye, barrister or solicitor, etc etc etc




most people just went their own separate ways, and lived common law if and when they found a new partner!


They may marry after the first spouse died .......................... so always look for a marriage in later years. I've seen some who married 30 some years later.


Also remember that in such cases, they may not marry in their "home" town, but may marry somewhere else in the country.

Some divorces before 1940 can be found at the National Archives site -- I just put the surname and the word divorce in the box in the upper right and see what comes up.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

But it's true that divorce was relatively rare because of the law and the cost.

One thing that can be done is to search the indexes, e.g. at Ancestry, for later marriages for the two people, or to find their deaths and see whether, for instance, the wife's death was registered in the husband's surname or another name.

If she died after 1969 and you do have her full name and birthdate, that could find her death. Her death might have been registered in the name of someone she lived with long-term but was not married to.

Assuming they're both deceased and there's no one living who would be scandalized to see the info on the internet, you could give their details here - names, dates of birth, date and place of marriage.

As long as you haven't done that in a thread on another of the boards here, of course!

My great grandad left his wife in London and moved to Bournemouth (at that time in Hampshire) in 1900.
He met my great grandmother, and they moved to Southampton.
Great gran then called herself 'Mrs' - they had 9 children together - all with great gran calling herself 'Mrs' and great grandad as the father.
They married in 1924 (ironically the year before my grandmother married) after great grandad's first wife died - and went on to have another child (she was 47, he 62) who, unfortunately died.

My grandmother only found out about this after her father died. When she confronted her mother she was told great grandad's first wife was in an asylum (you couldn't divorce someone who was in an asylum), but I've yet to find evidence of this!

My grandmother remarried without getting a divorce.
It wasn't for lack of trying that she didn't get a divorce from her first husband - who had walked out on her (about 1930), never to be seen or heard of again (he who has been my brickwall for 30 years because granny refused to have his name mentioned).

Anyway, several years after hubby had disappeared, Granny met someone else, a man she wanted to marry, but needed to do something about a divorce first.
She sought a solicitor's adivce. She had to place notices in the newspaper/s for x amount of weeks, you know the sort, "if anyone knows the whereabouts of Joe Bloggs please contact Fidget, Widget & Smidget, Solicitors...etc" There was no response.
She also had to prove that she had tried to make every possible effort to contact said absconder, with no luck.

After a 7 year period had elapsed (since the last of any contact between her and hubby) he was declared dead thus allowing her to re-marry. Her second marriage cert has her as 'widow.'

I often wonder what happens in cases where the person 'declared dead' shows up. I am sure it has happened.

K

Hmmm thats food for thought,!
I have a guy in 1901 (after the census)that disappears, and his "widow" remarries in 1903. but have not been able to estabilish a death for him....rumour has it that he did a runner to Australia.....

Bob

Karen -- I was reading up on this seven-years-and-you're-dead business for a thread on TTF a while ago.

What actually happened wasn't that the person was "declared dead", it's just that the spouse who remarried had a complete defence against a bigamy charge in that situation.

So even if the first spouse did turn up, the second marriage would be considered valid, I think.

Well I would call a blacksmith working in HM dockyards in Portsmouth an ordinary man and he divorced his wife for adultery with a named sailor in 1903. In 1904 she remarried and into OH's family (different man this time) and it was their gdau and myself who finally untangled the web. Relative actually got copy of the Hearing Papers in London.

On the other hand like so many already mentioned OH's maternal g.father committed bigamy several times up and down the country - four and a live-in relationship - that we know of. A right wee weasel he looks too - not tall, dark and handsome.