The Matrimonial Mess at Windsor Hotel
A court case involving a domestic disturbance and accusations of stone-throwing unravels a web of illegal marriages and divorces.
Justice Neagle's court was the scene of a hearing where the original charge of stone-throwing against Mrs. Lizzie Daniels was lost in the complexity of her husband’s matrimonial history. Fred Daniels had been married to Mrs. Emma Lamont, but they divorced in June. Shortly after, Mrs. Lamont married a man named Lamoni in Victoria, and Fred Daniels married the woman now known as Mrs. Lizzie Daniels. The justice found that both new marriages were illegal because they occurred within the six-month limitation period following the divorce. Daniels was permitted to testify against his current partner because the court determined he was legally divorced from neither, nor married to either, in the eyes of the law. The defendant was released on the condition she stop harassing Mrs. Lamont.
“There appears to have been one legal marriage, one legal divorce, one illegal marriage in Seattle and one in Victoria.”
This strange tangle of 'matrimonial affairs' speaks to the strict, often arbitrary moral policing of the 1890s. The court's attempt to sort out the legitimacy of marriages performed across state or international lines reflects the era's obsession with regulating private domestic lives.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.