What Acts Constituted “Extreme Cruelty” and Could Lead to Divorce 100 Years Ago?

While researching a divorce case believed to be the brother of my great, great grandmother, I came across a book on Google Books that tells of those acts of “extreme cruelty” which could make a divorce possible. The book is dated 1917 and the list was quite enlightening!

It starts by stating “it is not essential that the misconduct charged as extreme cruelty should be of a criminal character, or such as the guilty party can be prosecuted for in the criminal courts, but it is sufficient if the acts are such as are calculated to destroy the plaintiff’s happiness, and have that effect.”

Here are the “acts of extreme cruelty” listed, with my favorite being listed last:

• • …the persistent circulation of false and slanderous reports by a husband, derogatory to his wife’s chastity, especially when the wife is of a refined and sensitive nature…
  • …the persistent, willful, and habitual conduct of a wife toward her husband in an offensive and opprobrious manner, accusing him in public and private of infamous conduct in violation of his marriage duties, and calling him vile and vulgar names…
  • Consorting with persons of loose morals, or lascivious inclinations toward the opposite sex, and showing or expressing a preference for them…
  • The communication of a venereal disease…
  • personal violence
  • violence and threats of injury
  • fault finding, nagging, profanity, abuse and violent conduct
  • compelling a wife to submit to an abortion
  • unreasonably and persistently prejudicing children against their mother
  • unreasonable refusal of intercourse by the wife
  • persistently addressing the wife in brutal language, accusing her of adultery, perjury and fraud
  • profane, obscene and insulting language, habitually indulged in towards a wife of refined feelings and sensitive nature
  • accusations against the wife of immoral or unchaste conduct
  • calling vile names and persistently and without cause charging dishonesty and infidelity
  • wife calling husband opprobrious names, accusations of immorality, and unreasonable refusal of cohabiation
  • abusive epithets applied by the wife, and refusal to prepare meals

Source: The Michigan Law of Marriage and Divorce: with Forms of Procedure Conforming to the Michigan Judicature Act by James M. Powers, 1917, online at http://www.archive.org/stream/michiganlawofmar00poweiala/michiganlawofmar00poweiala_djvu.txt (accessed 05 Sep 2015)