Perspectives: Robards | Jackson
Marriage in Natchez | Divorce Laws

TIMELINES: Official | Remini's

The Difficulties of Legally Disolving a Marriage in the 1790s
Lewis Robards v. Rachel Robards

Legally Dissolving a Marriage in the 1790s
The difficulties of legally dissolving a marriage in the 1790s were enormous. Prior to the Revolution you could not get a divorce in the Southern colonies, although laws were slightly more liberal in New England. After the Revolution, a more liberated school of thought took hold and people entertained the idea of freedom in general, specifically dealing with social contracts that may limit individual liberties. For example, they fought to break with the government and Church of England, which did not allow divorce but only granted separations.

Once the New Republic was formed states began to consider allowing divorce. During the time period when Rachel got her divorce, the laws were extremely vague and convoluted depending on the state. Some states, South Carolina for example, still didn't recognize divorce but others, chiefly in the West where Rachel lived at the time, were more liberal. Special acts of legislation had to be passed for permission to pursue legal divorce. (Several cases are known, however, wherein couples voluntarily separated without benefit of law and remarried with no legal repercussions.) Rachel and Lewis Robards' divorce was among the first in Kentucky.

Lewis Robards against Rachel Robards
At the time Robards began pursuing a divorce, Kentucky was still part of Virginia, and, according to the code of the Old Dominion, if a spouse wished to obtain a divorce, he/she must procure an act of legislation empowering him/her to bring the case before a jury. The divorce was only authorized upon the jury's finding of a guilty verdict. Through the good offices of his brother-in-law, John Jouett, a member of the Virginia legislature, Robards was able to get an act passed. Another member of the legislature later remembered that a request for divorce was almost unheard of at that time. It was only the second instance of such a request coming to that body, according to Jackson historian and biographer Robert Remini.

The writ of permission from the Virginia State Legislature was not a divorce. It simply gave permission to sue for divorce in the court system. Virginia law at that time required one to take several steps, including publishing a notice to the party being sued for eight consecutive weeks in the local newspaper of record, The Kentucky Gazette. The accused party had a limited amount of time to respond and appeal to the charges. If the defendant, Rachel Jackson in this case, did not appear before the court within the prescribed window of time, the case then went to trial before a jury.

In the case of Lewis Robards versus Rachel Robards, the jury found the defendant, Rachel Robards guilty of desertion and adultery.

Sources:

NPT Producer Kathy Conkwright's conversation with Ann Toplovich, Tennessee Historical Society

Robert V. Remini, Andrew Jackson, Volume One, The Course of the American Empire, 1767-1821 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998) Chapter 5, "Marriage"