Hello, this is Carl Raymond, host of the Gilded Gentleman History podcast where every two weeks we journey into worlds light and dark in history's most glittering eras.

Marriage in the Gilded Age was unquestionably one of society's most important conventions.

This idea had gone on for centuries, of course, but a marital union in the 19th century

solidified one's place in community and society, and for better or worse, was the core to one's

identity. If one was married, that was an

essential building block to social acceptability. If one was not, for whatever reason, that became

a stigma, a scarlet letter, a source for raised eyebrows, and ensured most of proper society's doors remained shut and locked.

After all, just ask Lily Bart in Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth.

She'll tell you.

But sometimes a marriage ends.

Marriages throughout time are unions based on a number of factors.

We always hope for true love, but sometimes it's really a question of mergers and acquisitions,

an alliance of families, fortunes, or sometimes empires.

Ending a marriage in the Gilded Age, as throughout time, could be problematic and involved

just who was, in fact, allowed to leave a marriage, under what conditions, and just what the

often messy aftermath involved. Joining me today to take a look at divorce Gilded Age style

is social historian Nancy Unger.

Nancy and I will dig into issues of women's control, power, and how these evolved over the

course of the 19th century, through the Gilded Age, and into the progressive era of the early

20th century.

Nancy Unger is Professor Emeritus of History at Santa Clara University.

She has served as president of the Society of the Historians of the Guilded Age and the Progressive Era,

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