Families in Crisis in the Old South: Divorce, Slavery, and the Law

by Loren Schweninger

Book Overview

In the antebellum South, divorce was an explosive issue. As one lawmaker put it, divorce was to be viewed as a form of "madness," and as another asserted, divorce reduced communities to the "lowest ebb of degeneracy." How was it that in this climate, the number of divorces rose steadily during the antebellum era? In Families in Crisis in the Old South, Loren Schweninger uses previously unexplored records to argue that the difficulties these...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1469619113
• ISBN13: 9781469619118
• Release Date: August 2014
• Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.1" x 9.1"