Divorce Should Be Illegal

"In the culturally repressive era of the 1890s, ending a marriage was social anathema — and virtually impossible legally. Most states had near-blanket laws against divorce, which was viewed as a form of moral decay.

Much like antiabortion regulations before Roe v. Wade — and perhaps again now that the Supreme Court has overturned that ruling — divorce laws reflected the religious and political ideology of the day. Many states allowed divorce only in cases where adultery could be proven — a difficult legal process. A few states, like South Carolina, had no provision for divorce.

When divorce was widely banned, desperate women went to South Dakota. Tens of thousands of other women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries — traveled to this remote outpost in search of divorce. They sought marital emancipation by relocating — temporarily, in most cases — to the state with the most lax divorce laws in the country. All that was required was 90 days of residency."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/07/03/south-dakota-divorce-capital/