"…Sixty-three divorce cases filed in San Diego County between 1850-1880. Forty-one cases were filed by women--seventeen of them on the grounds of physical cruelty. {Footnote reads: "California became a state in 1850. The sixty-three cases studied were all filed in the San Diego district court, California's 18^th Judicial District. In 1880, the Superior Court took over proceedings in San Diego County."]

"…Eighty-eight percent--of the women filing who had no choice to file for divorce if they were to have a chance of happy and successful lives. They had either been deserted or were victims of physical abuse by their husbands. They were not seeking, and for the most part did not achieve, independence."

"California's divorce statutes made it relatively easy to obtain a divorce. The laws stated that after six months' residence in the State of California, a person could sue on grounds of adultery, extreme cruelty, willful desertion or neglect, natural impotency, habitual drunkenness, fraud and conviction for a felony. There were amendments to broaden the law, and by 1872, the definition of cruelty included mental, as well as physical cruelty."

Most of the women…were not of independent means. They 'depended upon the charity' of family, friends and other relatives. In some instances, women earned their livelihood as live-in housekeepers for room, board and minimal pay. Others did whatever was available to get by. In San Diego, Nancy McEntee's husband deserted her after one month of marriage in 1872. She supported herself by 'nursing, washing, working and sewing; -- anything she could find. Rhoda Ann Kolb complained nonsupport and adultery when she filed for divorce in 1872. She had eight children, six of whom were minors. She and other witnesses said that her husband was gone four or more months at a time, and the younger children often went naked. She made a living for herself by spinning, knitting, and washing' while her husband sporadically lived away with an Indian woman named Phoebe.

"…only three women in the sixty-three cases studied received alimony.

"…Society considered marriage to be women's most satisfying, acceptable situation. Women knew it as the most economically secure option, since few opportunities existed for women unless they came from wealthy families and were of independent means.

"…Society - clergy, social leaders and the like, encouraged true women in middle and upper-class America to perfect the four important virtues believed inherent in women's nature "piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity."

"…The ideals of true womanhood had come from an elite class of women with leisure time in an established society in the East. On the frontier it was difficult for men and women to maintain the separate spheres which formed the structure for true womanhood, if indeed, they had ever done so.

"…Men and women did not share the same status in society. Literature in the nineteenth century did, indeed, promote the equal importance of women's domestic role, but…equal importance of women's duties did not mean equality between husband and wife. Women were clearly subordinate in the relationship. Victorians believed that the qualities inherent in women included moral superiority but intellectual inferiority to men, a low sex drive, and physical weakness. Women's lower intellectual and physical capabilities, they believed, left them wholly dependent on men, who were designated as their protectors.

"…According to the cult of true womanhood, any wife who filed for divorce was by definition a failure. A true woman would find a way to mend the situation or endure it."

"…in San Diego there was only one case filed solely on the grounds of mental cruelty before 1880. It was filed by a man." (The author relates that story in some detail).