The Alimony Racket in the 1870s

Profits in Marriage.

FULL TEXT: Stenographer Norcross of Brooklyn tells the Standard Union [in 1894] of one that brought riches to the feminine party to the litigation about twenty years ago. H says: “A woman, I don’t remember her name now, married a wealthy man named Hobbs, and they didn’t get along together worth a cent. She got a divorce and an allowance of $5,000 a year alimony, but not long afterward she married another wealthy man named Dobbs, and after a short time got a divorce from him with $5,000 a year alimony. Then she married husband No. 3, and the last I knew of them they were living in royal style on the $10,000 which husbands No. 1 and No. 2 were paying as alimony. But the divorced husbands tried to have the court set aside the decree of alimony, but their petition was refused, and both are subjected to the unpleasant spectacle of seeing their successor in the lady’s affection riding about with his wife in gay turnouts paid for out of the money which they are taxed as alimony.”

[“Profits in Marriage.” The Centralia Enterprise and Tribune (Oh.), Sep. 22, 1894, page unnumbered]

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For more revelations of this suppressed history, see The Alimony Racket: Checklist of Posts

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