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Old 29-07-22, 11:36
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Phoenix Phoenix is offline
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Default Domestic Relations

Best Mate phoned me yesterday: she had found a court case where great grandfather was accused of threatening language towards his wife. She was dreadfully upset, as this shattered her notion of domestic bliss.

He must have been yelling at the top of his voice, so all the neighbours could hear, however there was no suggestion of actual violence, they stayed together, and had an enormous family. There were no other court cases, so in the future he was either more moderate, or more circumspect.

It is hard enough to spot the cracks in modern marriages. Were our ancestors' marriages love matches, or economic necessities?

One of my ancestors ran away from his father's beatings, while his mother was in and out of prison like a yo-yo.
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Old 29-07-22, 12:08
Olde Crone Olde Crone is online now
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Someone once told me that God's only blessing on the poor was that they could marry for love. It seems to be in my family that they married for love (or at least from choice) the first time, but if widowed, then they married expediently. I have quite a few second marriages to relatives pretty quickly after a bereavement and I assume these marriages were head over heart.

I am occasionally surprised by newspaper reports of men being prosecuted for violence or even just shouting, lol, at their wives. This is not my understanding of the society we are led to believe did not value wives at all.

OC
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Old 29-07-22, 19:30
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I've come across quite a few cases where a man was prosecuted for domestic violence, and the magistrate just told the couple to go away and sort it out between themselves.
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Old 29-07-22, 21:54
Olde Crone Olde Crone is online now
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Mary

I think I'm surprised that it ever went to court in the first place! Or course, many women were prepared to put up with domestic violence because how would she live and feed her children if her husband went to jail or was even fined.

OC
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Old 30-07-22, 23:53
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Coincidentally enough, I have just come across this in the British Newspaper Archive regarding a case where my great-grandfather's cousin was attacked by her husband:

Fulham Chronicle 10 Apr 1908
THE CANDID FRIEND
Mr Lane, KC, Peppered.
It will be remembered that I recently called attention to the extraordinary comments made by Mr Lane, KC, during the police-court proceedings against William Allan, the Broughton-road engineer who has just been convicted for attempting to commit suicide and cut his wife's throat with a razor. Allan, who was a very brave man whilst armed with the razor against his defenceless and unfortunate wife, began to play the coward directly he was placed in the dock. "I was not in my right mind," he whimpered, and the misguided magistrate soothed him by remarking "No, I am sure you were not." A more absurd attitude on the part of a magistrate I have never know. For, be it remembered that the defence had not really been raised at the point mentioned, and it was not for Mr Lane above all persons to intervene and anticipate the judgment elsewhere. What Mr Lane's preposterous comment is worth may best be seen by the report of the trial. There has been no suggestion of insanity before Mr. Justice Walton. Upon the contrary, the aspersions upon poor Mrs. Allan have been maintained without jot or tittle of evidence. But the defence has proved utterly futile, and Allan has been properly sentenced to three years' penal servitude.
Well, very few seem to have noticed this very unofficial and mistakenly sympathetic remark of the magistrate until I called attention to it. Then the truth dawned upon people, and it was decided to call the attention of the law officers of the Crown to it. I need hardly say that the lawyers entirely agreed with my views and heartily endorsed the rebuke I administered: I should not wonder if Mr Lane KC had already received something in the nature of a reprimand from a very important quarter. But now the case has been dealt with my criticisms become doubly forceful. True, it is admitted that Allan was in a frenzy at the time of the tragedy, but so is nearly every criminal at the moment the evil is wrought. Allan has been nursing a vile rage against his victim for years, and he had been quite as sane as evildoers can be. But, as I said when I peppered the egregious Mr Lane KC , sanity in the true sense never does accompany wrongdoing. And I take that to be the view of the distinguished Judge when he passed sentence upon Allan last week.
For my part, I should have imagined that Mr Lane would have kept all his sympathy for the cruelly injured wife and the friends of Mrs Turnbull, the Broughton-road neighbour who was rendered insane by shock. Anything more tragic than the life of Mrs Allan for years past I cannot imagine: to find its equal one must turn to the most harrowing episodes in romance. But the police have left no stone unturned in order that the prisoner might have the benefit of any evidence calculated to lessen the character of his crime. And what is the result but this - that not a word in support of the prisoner's miserable defence could be adduced! So far from being the flighty and questionable character suggested by Allan, the unhappy woman has been kept like a prisoner, afraid of the latter's violence, and enduring unspeakable terrors and miseries for the sake of her little children. The prisoner's cowardly reference to his wife's clothing will influence nobody: it implies nothing but the most lamentable ignorance of physical law. I have not a spark of sympathy for Allan. Had there been good ground for his worst suspicions his brutal conduct could not be justified. He has plunged two families in misery, and it may be truly stated that the penalty is comparatively light.
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Old 31-07-22, 09:22
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Kate

That is really interesting and refreshing to see that at least some men saw the facts clearly.

OC
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