Wife's Legal Agreement Not to Have Carnal Knowledge fo Other Men Anymore.
[Legal Issues]. Winch, Hannah. Wife’s Legal Agreement Not To Have Carnal Knowledge of Other Men Anymore. Barre, Massachusetts: 1811.
4to.; single leaf, folded; written in black ink; heavily foxed; light edgewear; creases darkened. In a specially-made cloth slipcase.
Written by Francis and signed by Hannah and two witnesses, the legal agreement laid bare Hannah’s offense of adultery, and defined the austere conditions under which their marriage would continue. The agreement also affirmed that Hannah would refrain from further adulterous acts so long as she remains in the present marriage—the grave repercussions of violating the agreement being her prompt removal from the Winch’s home, loss of all shared property, and the relinquishment of maternal care for her daughter.
The document graphically defines a controversial period in America when social attitudes toward adultery were in transition. In the previous two centuries, most notably in conservative New England, communities and churches strictly enforced marriage contracts by creating a decree whereby the guilty party was required to confess before a community and forced to face legal sanction. The Winch’s agreement is particularly noteworthy because it reflects a custom that was largely obsolete; by 1800, adultery was increasingly an internal domestic matter, rather than a communal, or civic, one.
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