Early 20th Century Woman Obtained Divorce Because Her Husband Wouldn’t Stop Kissing Her
A very unusual reason was given for formally ending a marriage in 1909
When romantic relationships dissolve, there are usually severe issues or breakdowns at the heart of the matter. However, there can also be more unusual reasons behind the splits. One of the strangest was from more than a century ago when a Nebraska woman divorced her husband because he would not stop kissing her.
The October 4, 1909 issue of the St. Louis Post Dispatch carried the bizarre story of Henrietta McGrew from Trenton Nebraska. Her husband John was a farmer on a tract of land of about 100 acres. They had been married for around a year, but she decided that she was unable to take any more of his incessant kissing, which she claimed both embarrassed her and negatively affected their lives — so she filed for divorce.
In her petition to the court, Henrietta claimed that the persistent pecking had started right after they had married, and that she had tolerated it as best she could for the first six months or so, thinking that it would likely die down after a while. However, as the frequency seemed to increase and the impact on their lives became more noticable, she grew evermore weary. Things had gotten so bad that she told…
