Date of Award
8-31-2026
Document Type
Open Access Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
History
First Advisor
Roberta Wollons
Second Advisor
Bonnie Miller
Abstract
This thesis examines divorce in Scioto County, Ohio between 1809 and 1851 as a case study of the legal and social transformations that followed the American Revolution. While previous scholarship has focused primarily on New England and the colonial period, Ohio has received comparatively little scholarly attention. Using legislative records, court proceedings, census records, and individual divorce petitions, this study argues that Ohio’s transition from ecclesiastical precedent toward judicial authority reshaped the ways in which marriage and divorce were understood. Divorce became increasingly accessible to both women and men, while changing legal practices reflected broader shifts in gender, family, and state authority in the early republic. By placing Ohio within the historiography of early American divorce, this study demonstrates that the judiciary played a significant role in the transformation of divorce in the nineteenth-century United States.
Recommended Citation
Kidd, Franchesica Lashelle, "From Ecclesiastical Tradition to Judicial Authority: Divorce in Scioto County, Ohio, 1809-1851" (2026). Graduate Masters Theses. 994.
https://scholarworks.umb.edu/masters_theses/994
Included in
Legal Commons, Social History Commons, United States History Commons, Women's History Commons
Comments
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