What of Denis Clarke?

History.com had this great calendar reference for Jan 5, 1643 upon which the first legal divorce was recorded in the American colonies. (Actually, it wasn't the first divorce in the colonies but we'll get to that shortly.)

It's the lamentation of one, Anne Clarke, mother of two, who was abandoned by her husband for another woman whom he had two other children. (Boy works fast!)

Denis (Dennis) Clark readily admitted to officials the abandonment but refused to return to his first wife and children. So the Puritan court had no other choice but to grant a divorce to Anne and, as so often repeated throughout referenced documents, punish Denis.

Problem is there doesn't seem to be any record as to what punishment befell Denis for his transgressions?

We can make some assumptions that the notorious other woman may have been placed in the Hester Prynne role: Fined, whipped, and forced to wear the letter A. Course wearing the letter A was a whole lot better than getting branded on the hand or forehead or being sentenced to death. Yet, there is nothing written about what befell Denis or the mother of his two younger children.

In the colonies of the 1600s the court may have given the property held by the husband to the abandoned wife. The adulterer may have also been left to the stockades or banished back to England.

His privilege to remarry may have been revoked so he hadn't a chance to abandon yet another family.

But there is no documentation of Denis having been reprimanded beyond future accounts stating he was punished.

Did someone just throw that in there for good measure, in case a slighted reader became antagonized by the thought of Denis getting off so easily?

If we go back five years earlier than Denis and Anne's marriage implosion, we find documentation of Mrs. James Luxford who queried for a divorce because it was discovered that Mr. Luxford already had a wife!

Yep, seems the mister was a bit of a closet polygamist and the powers that be were so incensed they gave the property to the second missus, charged him a hefty fine, and threw him in the stocks before his passport was rubber stamped back to the Queen.

Not that I want to lay heavily on the male side of adultery, cause many a women folk were bed hoppers it seems, but for colonial wives trying to get the court to do anything about a philandering husband wasn't easy. Often the women would have to trump-up the charges to be granted a divorce, such as the inclusion of extreme cruelty. So it is a little shocking to read as to what transpired for Mr. Luxford. If his penalty is any indication for other philanderous* males, we would have to assume that something negative was bestowed upon Denis Clarke, too.

Perhaps he was dragged down to the nearest frozen body of water, (Because what is an imagine of colonial times without bitter temperatures and desperate times?) where he would have been dunked mercilessly before being hung half-frozen by his big toe in the public square, and not so much sent via ship back to England but forced to swim alongside.

I guess that's not so much realistic as wishful thinking, right?

In the end, the only real conclusion we can draw from the supposed first divorce in the young American colonies was that the court system did not look favorably upon philanderers. This is a far cry from today's divorce courts with the multiple excuse to the failure of the marriage being, irreconcilable differences, which is code for someone bed-hopped in far too many cases.

At least today's powers that be can spell as the Colonial court of 1643 recorded:

"Anne Clarke, beeing deserted by Denis Clarke hir husband, and hee refusing to accompany with hir, she is graunted to bee divorced."

The mother of two munchkins, Bethany J. Royer is an independent contractor and writer currently studying psychology with Florida Institute of Technology. She is actively seeking a publisher for her first completed novel while working on a memoir about her personal trials and tribulations with divorce. She blogs prolifically at motherofthemunchkins.blogspot.com and can be reached at themotherofthemunchkins@yahoo.com.

*philanderous let's make this a new word for 2011, shall we?