Divorce Patterns in Nineteenth-Century New England

Abstract

Sociological explanations of marital disruption and social change have relied on official governmental statistics that trace the emergence of divorce to the late 1800s. New data (N = 2,241) derived from an eight-county sample in three New England states during the 1800- 1860 period are compared with existing evidence for the late nineteenth-century. The findings indicate that divorce rates emerged in the early 1800s, increased sharply in the mid-century decades, and then leveled off toward the end of the century. These patterns are analyzed in terms of such variables as urbanization, the changing status of women, and the divorce laws and policies of the individual states, demonstrating that ideological changes were more important than forces associated with the industrial revolution.