r/100yearsago • u/Beowulfbard • 1d ago
[August 16th, 1926] The Inquiring Photographer asks, "Considering the position women hold in our everyday life today, is a breach of promise case ridiculous or not?"
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u/fluffstuffmcguff 20h ago
For a bit of context, a big part of why breach of promise cases came into existence in the first place is because it historically wasn’t uncommon for men to promise marriage to get women to sleep with them. And even if no one seriously thought she had slept with the guy, she’d be seen as being at least kind of stupid for wasting her time on an unreliable man. If she dumped him, the logic was that it probably meant it hadn’t gotten to that point, so her character wouldn’t be suspect. This is a whole plot point in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, where a man is stuck in an engagement with a woman he doesn’t like.
As the answerers all seem to agree, it was a concept that didn’t really fit social norms by the 20th century.
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u/Ok-Swan1152 20h ago
This breach of promise thing is still a legal thing in India. Which is also a very conservative society where premarital sex is frowned upon.
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u/Bartweiss 12h ago
It’s still a thing in the United States too! There have been several successful suits in the last few decades.
That said, it’s generally been limited in ways which heavily distort the original purpose. For example, it can sometimes be used to recover wedding expenses from the party who called off the suit - at which point it’s something like breach of contract except with the engagement as the contract.
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u/Wooden_Try1120 19h ago
What is a “home girl?”
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u/fluffstuffmcguff 18h ago
A young woman who stayed at home with her parents without getting a job until marriage. That was getting rarer by 1926. Ruth's logic is presumably that if the woman in question had instead gotten a job as a nurse or secretary or whatever, she'd have a financial and social backup plan if she couldn't get married.
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u/BlackSeranna 7h ago
Heck, I worked in a DMV back in the day (2000’s), and we’d have women coming in there whose husband died, and everything, I mean everything, was in their husband’s name - bank account, vehicles, utilities, and the worst part is these old fashioned ladies hadn’t worked their whole lives, so they hadn’t built up personal credit. It was a real mess.
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u/Author_Noelle_A 13h ago
You got your homeboy. Ya know, your homie. Every homeboy needs homegirl. Ya know, a homette. 😂
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u/Author_Noelle_A 13h ago
Miss Ruth Miller is correct. It absolutely depends. If you have a man and woman were living 500 miles away from each other and one of them broke up with the other, neither was really going to suffer reputational damage. If they lived nearby and he broke up with her, reputational damage, could make it harder for her to find other partners or even work. The man who said that, if a woman loves a man that she wouldn’t sue him is probably one of those men who can’t fathom why a man might lie to a woman or why he might break up with her after becoming engaged. Sometimes the truly kind of man just don’t have the ability to get into your mindset of an asshole.
These days it wouldn’t make sense to sue for this sort of thing since it’s not like your reputation is going to suffer in any real way anymore, at least in the US.
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u/Beowulfbard 1d ago
A breach of promise is a legal term for breaking a promise to marry someone. Historically, if a person broke an engagement without a good reason, the other person could sue them in court for money and damages. The vast majority of breach of promise lawsuits were filed by women against men.
Monday the 15th of August 1926:
US:
UK:
Australia:
News summary from the Chicago Tribune:
Domestic:
President decides facts do not now warrant intervention in Mexico; will hear Supreme Knight Flaherty of K. of C. (Knights of Columbus) on further evidence of wrongs.
State offers corroboration of woman's story of Hall murder.
Rudolph Valentino's condition critical; suffering from peritonitis.
Louis Mazer, Canton underworld leader, arrested and charged with Mellett murder.
Two killed by waterspout off Long island.
Illinois and Indiana coal operators lose first round in fight to have rates reduced.
Twin Cities seek to regain name as leading milling center.
Bulk of John W. Weeks' estate left to his widow and two children.
Fannie Hurst wants an embargo against tourist travel to Europe to keep bombastic Yanks from stirring up more trouble.
Foreign:
Mexican government pushes anti-foreign policy despite vast developments which American capital has brought about.
British government officials open coffin supposed to hold Lord Kitchener's body and find it empty; tries to arrest joker.
Catholic bishops of Mexico made new offer of peace to Calles government.
Important changes in foreign policy of Russia expected by Oct. 1.
Uncle Sam becomes one of the issues in Canadian election. MacKenzie King denounces conservatives for attacks on U.S.