Category Archives: Marriage

1920: German man spanks American wife to avenge war defeat

In October 1920, a German-born New York man named Paul Schoenhoff appeared before a magistrate charged with “disorderly conduct”. The charge stemmed from Schoenhoff’s regular habit of giving an “old-fashioned spanking” to his wife, Matilda.

This practice could not have been easy, claimed one press report, as Matilda Schoenhoff weighed 200 pounds while the defendant was considerably smaller. Schoenhoff also forced his wife to live in the basement and made her pay rent of six dollars a month.

Asked under oath why her husband spanked her, Matilda Schoenhoff said it was an act of retribution for Germany’s defeat in World War I:

“When asked his reason for spanking her, she said he would reply that he was a German and she an American and he would get revenge by beating her.”

Schoenhoff was found guilty, placed on probation and warned not to mistreat his wife in the future.

Source: The New York Tribune, October 24th 1920. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1657: German woman jailed for not taking childbirth seriously

In 1657, an ecclesiastical court heard charges against Anna Maria Krauth, a married woman from Neckerhausen, near Frankfurt. Krauth had given birth to three stillborn babies in a row. According to several witnesses, including Krauth’s husband, her midwife and the local parson – these stillbirths were “her own doing”, brought about by her bad attitude.

According to their testimony, Krauth had told others that she “had no wish to bear [her husband’s] children” and “did swear, curse and speak of the Devil in her belly” while pregnant. Krauth was also heard to “wish herself dead, drowned in the Neckar [River] or hanged in the gallows at Stuttgart”. Also, when it came to childbirth, Krauth was apparently not enthusiastic enough and unwilling to follow instructions:

“She was without seriousness and did nought but bemoan of her condition…”

Krauth’s husband, an overweight man whose thighs “had the girth that a man usually was on his entire body”, testified that he had tried to “correct” her with beatings, apparently while she was pregnant. To nobody’s surprise, these beatings seemed to make her worse.

The court agreed that Krauth’s fate was her own doing. She was handed a fine and a 10-day stint in prison. Her fate after this is unknown.

Source: Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart, a.209, b.1720, 1657. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1023: Two years’ penance for placenta fish

Burchard (c.960-1025) was the Bishop of Worms during the early 11th century. He was a ruthless political leader and administrator, as well as an influential theologian and prolific writer.

Burchard’s best known work was the Decretum, a 20-book treatise on canon law that took him a decade to complete. The 19th volume of the Decretum is a penitential, a fairly standard guide for churchgoers on what they should do to make peace with God if they have sinned. Three of the more bizarre penitentials listed by Burchard are for women who go to extreme lengths to win the love of their husbands:

“Have you done as some women are accustomed to do? They lie with their face to the floor, bare their buttocks and order that bread be kneaded on their buttocks. The baked bread they then give to their husbands; this they do so that they will burn the more with love of them. If you have done this, you shall do penance for two years on approved holy days.”

Burchard also warns against a more common form of love potion – the use of menstrual blood in food:

“Have you done as some women are accustomed to do? They take their menstrual blood and mix it with food or drink, and give this to their husbands to eat or drink, so that they might be more loving and attentive with them. If you have done this, you shall do penance for five years on approved holy days.”

Arguably the coup de grace was Burchard’s penitential for serving your husband a fish drowned in your own placenta:

“Have you done as some women are accustomed to do? They take a live fish and place it into their afterbirth, holding it there until it dies. Then, after boiling and roasting it, they give it to their husbands to eat, in the hope they will burn more with love for them. If you have done this, you shall do penance for two years on approved holy days.”

Source: Burchard of Worms, Decretum, Book XIX, c.1023. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1846: James Brown finds John Kerry in bed with his wife

In October 1846, the Sunday Times reported that James Brown had appeared in court charged with assaulting John Kerry, after finding Kerry in bed with his wife. The Browns had been married for four years but often quarrelled.

According to James Brown he had left London on business – but returned after receiving an anonymous letter informing him of John Kerry’s dalliances with his wife:

“Determined to sift the matter he came to London, and on proceeding to the bedroom of his lodgings, he heard his wife and Kerry talking together in a loving and affectionate manner. Feeling satisfied that they were on the bed together, he burst open the door [and] commenced beating both of them, giving Kerry a sound drubbing.”

James Brown’s wife refused to press the charge of assault against her husband, however Brown was convicted of assaulting John Kerry and fined three pounds or two months’ imprisonment.

Source: The Sunday Times (London), October 25th 1846. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1712: Edmund Harrold records his marital love-making

Edmund Harrold owned a barber shop and wig-making business in Manchester in the late 17th and early 18th century. Between 1712 and 1715, Harrold was also a prolific diarist, making daily notes about his business, his customers and his social life. Harrold was not independently wealthy like many other diarists – his business was not profitable and he spent a good deal of his income on drinking binges, which are often mentioned and lamented in his diary.

Harrold’s chronicle also lists brief but informative accounts of his sexual liaisons with his second wife, Sarah. According to Harrold they made love in both the “old fashion” – missionary position – but also in “new fashion”, though he does not elaborate on what this entailed.

In March 1712, Harrold wrote that “I did wife two times, couch and bed, in an hour and a half’s time”. On another occasion, he “did wife standing at the back of the shop tightly”. Another time they copulated on a bed on the roof, and still another time he mentions having sex “after a scolding bout”.

Not unsurprisingly, Sarah was frequently pregnant. In just under eight years of marriage she bore Harrold six children, though only two survived. The birth of her sixth child took its toll on Sarah’s health and she died in December 1712. According to Harrold’s diary his wife “died in my arms, on pillows… She went suddenly and was sensible until one-quarter of an hour before she died”. The newborn child, also named Sarah, also died four months later.

Harrold was distraught and resolved not to remarry, however, by March 1713 he admitted that his sexual urges were getting the better of him:

“It is every Christian’s duty to mortify their unruly passions and lusts to which ye are most prone. I’m now beginning to be uneasy with myself and begin to think of women again. I pray God, direct me to do wisely and send me a good one.”

Harrold did marry again. In June 1713 he wed Ann Horrocks, a customer who had called on him for a haircut – but she too was dead by early 1715. Harrold did not marry a fourth time and died in 1721, aged 43.

Source: Diary of Edmund Harrold, Wigmaker, 1712-15. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1770: Husband disappointed by what lies under wife’s make-up

In the Georgian period, many well-to-do men became paranoid about women using make-up to embellish or even conceal their natural features. There were several apocryphal stories of men marrying statuesque and ravishing beauties, only to discover something much less appealing on the wedding night.

One account comes from a letter-writer to The Spectator in 1711:

“No man was as enamoured as I was of her fair forehead, neck and arms, as well as the bright jet [black] of her hair… but to my great astonishment I find they were all the effect of art. Her skin is so tarnished with this practice that when she first wakes in the morning, she scarce seems young enough to be the mother of [the woman] I carried to bed the night before. I shall take the liberty to part with her at the first opportunity, unless her father will make her portion [dowry] suitable to her real, not her assumed countenance.”

These stories have given rise to one of the enduring historical myths of the period: the so-called Hoops and Heels Act. According to this story, the following bill was raised in the House of Commons in 1770 to prevent women from using costume and cosmetics to lure and entrap unsuspecting husbands:

“Be it resolved that all women of whatever age, rank, profession or degree, whether virgin maids or widows, that after the passing of this Act impose upon and betray into matrimony any of His Majesty’s male subjects, by scents, paints, cosmetics, washes, artificial teeth, false hair, Spanish wool, iron stays, hoops, high-heeled shoes or bolstered hips, shall incur the penalty of the laws now in force against witchcraft, sorcery and such like misdemeanours… and that the marriage, upon conviction, shall stand null and void.”

A great number of historical texts claim this bill was raised in Parliament and either voted down or passed into law. The reality is that no evidence of it can be found in Hansard or other records of parliamentary debate and voting.

Source: The Spectator, April 17th 1711. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1617: William Zane too free with his private member

In 1617, Somerset magistrates heard several charges against William Zane, a horse-breaker from the village of Long Sutton, near Somerton. Zane had committed a series of public indecencies involving women and young girls. The worst of these was the seduction of Ann West, with whom he had fornicated after promising marriage. He later collected a ten pound dowry from her parents.

According to testimony, their sexual affair was revealed when Zane arrived at the West home and:

“..called for Ann West, she being then at the street door, and because she came not presently unto him, he came forth to her and pulled her into the chamber by the arm, then having his private members showing out of his breeches.”

This was not the first time Zane had been free with his genital endowments. Several weeks earlier he:

“..came into the house of William Parsons, being one of his neighbours, finding the wife of William sitting at her work, drawed out his private member and laid it upon her shoulder and wished aloud that her shoulder was another thing…”

On another occasion, Zane thrust his hand under the skirts of a young girl, making her cry. When the girl’s mother confronted Zane in public and dressed him down, he responded by sneaking into her yard and soiling her clean washing with “filthy ordure and dung of people”.

The magistrates found Zane guilty and sentenced him to a series of public whippings. He was also ordered to repay the ten pounds to Ann West’s parents and to pay two shillings a week for the upkeep of her child. Ann West was also sentenced to a whipping for premarital fornication.

Source: Somerset Quarter Session Rolls, n.27, 1617. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1776: Hester Thrale tends her husband’s swollen testicle

Hester Salusbury Thrale (1741-1821) was a Welsh-born writer, best known for her friendship and correspondence with Dr Samuel Johnson. In 1763, Hester married wealthy brewer and future MP Henry Thrale. The union was not popular with Hester’s aristocratic family, who considered Thrale too middle-class and flighty.

Shortly before the wedding Hester’s father told her:

“If you marry that scoundrel he will catch the pox and, for your amusement, set you to make his poultices.”

This prediction seemed to come true in 1776, when Hester wrote:

“Mr Thrale told me he had an ailment and showed me a testicle swelled to an immense size… I now began to understand where I was and to perceive that my poor father’s prophecy was verified… I am preparing poultices as he said and fomenting this elegant ailment every night and morning for an hour together on my knees…”

Thrale denied any possibility that he had syphilis or a similar disease, claiming that his testicular swelling started after an accident “jumping from the chaise”. A relieved Hester later wrote that:

“He has, I am pretty sure, not given it [to] me, and I am now pregnant and my bring a healthy boy, who knows?”

Despite a relatively loveless marriage, Hester Thrale delivered her husband 12 babies in just over 13 years. Only four of these children lived beyond the age of 10. Hester Thrale was widowed when her husband died, aged 52, in 1782. Hester soon took up with and later married her daughter’s Italian music teacher.

Source: Journal of Hester Thrale, July 23rd 1776. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1911: Court endorses spankings for talkative wives

In 1911, a St Louis woman named Hannah Yowell sued her husband for divorce, alleging cruelty. According to her testimony, Mr Yowell had risen from bed one night to give her a “good and hard spanking”. She also claimed he attempted to rile her by calling her “redhead”. In the witness box, Mr Yowell confessed to administering the spanking, claiming “the woman needed it”.

According to a press summary of the trial, Mrs Yowell:

“…started talking at 8pm and her tongue was still moving at 2am… [Mr Yowell asked her] to kindly close the gap in her face and go to sleep, or to at least give him a chance to sleep, as he had work to do the next day. The woman kept right on talking and finally the suffering hubby crawled out of bed, lifted his wife out also, dropped her over his knee and gave her an old fashioned spanking.”

The court sided with Mr Yowell and denied his wife’s petition for divorce:

“The provocation was great; no man cares to be kept awake until nearly morning listening to his wife’s learned discourses on the neighbourhood gossip.”

Source: The Daily Ardmoreite, April 23rd 1911. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1832: Cumbrian man sells wife for 20 shillings and a dog

In April 1832, a Cumbrian farmer, Joseph Thomson, took his wife into Carlisle with the intention of selling her to “the highest and fairest bidder”. According to a report in the Annual Register, Thomson:

“…placed his wife on a large oak chair with a rope or halter of straw round her neck. He then spoke… “I have to offer to your notice my wife, Mary Anne Thomson… she has been to me only a born serpent. It is her wish as well as mine to part forever… I took her for my comfort and the good of my home, but she has become my tormentor, a domestic curse, a night invasion and a daily devil.”

Having detailed his wife’s apparent faults, Thomson then gave an account of her virtues:

“She can read novels and milk cows… she can make butter and scold the maid; she can sing Moore’s melodies and plain her frills and caps. She cannot make rum, gin or whisky but she is a good judge of the quality from long experience in testing them.”

Thomson’s initial asking price was 50 shillings – but after an hour without offers, he eventually agreed to accept 20 shillings and a Newfoundland dog. The buyer was another farmer, Mr Henry Mears, who left Carlisle with his purchase.

Source: The Annual Register, vol. 3, 1832. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.