Divorce today means paperwork and lawyers. In the past, and even now in a few places, it has meant markets, courtrooms and rocks wrapped in cloth. These three stories about ending a marriage sound made up, but every one of them is true.
1. How did people get divorced before divorce courts?
Some English husbands sold their wives at market to the highest bidder. Divorce was out of reach for almost everyone, since it took a private act of Parliament, so ordinary people invented their own workaround. Records show fewer than 400 of these sales, mostly between about 1750 and 1850.
The sales were not legal and did not actually end a marriage, but communities widely accepted them. Here is the twist: many were arranged in advance, and in a good number of cases the buyer was the wife's existing lover. One historian called it a sort of customary divorce plus remarriage.
The practice lingered a long time. Historians have also found a handful of cases of husbands being sold. One of the last known sales was reportedly in Leeds in 1913, for just £1.
2. Can you really be sued for dating a married person?
Yes, and the bill can be millions of dollars. "Alienation of affection" laws, nicknamed homewrecker laws, let a spouse sue someone they blame for wrecking the marriage. They survive in a handful of states, including North Carolina, Mississippi, South Dakota, Hawaii and Utah.
North Carolina sees an estimated 200 of these lawsuits a year. In 2011, a Wake County judge awarded a record $30 million to Carol Puryear against Betty Devin. Plaintiffs generally don't even have to prove the affair involved sex.
Critics say it is outdated. One North Carolina judge wrote that such laws were "born out of misogyny" and can be used as leverage in divorces. Most states have scrapped them, but in a few, the other person can still end up in court.
3. Did medieval couples really settle fights with a duel?
In medieval Germany, the law allowed a husband and wife to fight each other in a duel, with the husband stuck in a pit. To even the odds, he stood waist-deep in a hole with one arm tied, while she moved freely and swung heavy rocks wrapped in cloth.
The man fought with clubs, and if he touched the edge of the pit, he lost one. The best-known evidence is a 15th-century fencing manual by Hans Talhoffer. A woman reportedly beat her husband in Berne, Switzerland, in 1228.
One caveat: these were judicial duels over marital disputes, not divorces, and historians note the sources are thin. Some doubt it was ever common. But the illustrations are real, and so is the pit.
