In the United States, in 2024, adultery is still a crime in 17 states, albeit reduced to a misdemeanor. Which is different from the 19th century when it was a severe crime, a felony, punishable by prison, death, or mutilation. 100 years ago, adultery was scandalous and not the run-of-the-mill thing it is today. It was regarded as a grave offense, and the criminal prosecution of this act proved it. At least by many, adultery is not treated as seriously as it once was.
Unfortunately, it was often the women who had to pay the price for adultery because they were the ones who became pregnant and would be stigmatized. And many times, it was one person's word versus another. And with gossip being the way it has always been, you can probably guess how accusations could be made that weren't true but might be believed because of the herd mentality that seems to have always been present in the human race. These days, it's like we have marginalized marriage by shoving aside its sanctity in favor of doing what we want when we want and fulfilling any selfish, sensual desires we have at any given time—the ultimate in selfish humanistic behavior.
Until the mid-20th century, most U.S. States had laws against adultery, fornication, and cohabitation. For instance, in South Carolina in 2024, adultery is still a misdemeanor crime and grounds for divorce. However, across much of the United States, these laws have, by and large, been struck down by courts as unconstitutional.
It's a complex issue, as one could argue that adultery and infidelity hurt other humans just as severely as pollution, cigarette smoke, drugs, abuse, rape, incest, murder, and a multitude of other crimes. Research has shown divorce psychologically damages children many times beyond repair. As of 2022, a reported 60 percent of all failed marriages were due to adultery and infidelity.
In South Carolina, the report of state officers, boards, and committees to the State of South Carolina General Assembly. United States: n.p., 1884. contains lists of crimes committed in 1883 and pardons. On that list, I found one about my family.
Martha Jenkins Boone was convicted of Adultery in May 1883. She was using a false last name to avoid being caught, most likely a desperate act born out of societal pressures at the time in South Carolina. Court records listed her alias as Martha Viner when her real name was Martha Jenkins. Viner was her mother's maiden name. Eventually, she took the surname Boone after the man with whom she had a child out of wedlock, my distant cousin James B. Boone.
When delving into this story, I discovered some intriguing circumstances. In 1880, Martha, then 19 years old, was a boarder at the home of James Boone, an unmarried man of 35. Later, these two would go on to marry. But on October 10, 1882, Martha's first child, Johnnie(who was given the surname Boone), was born out of wedlock. James had been married to Elizabeth Brown and had five children with her. The last child with his wife was born in August of 1881. Sometime in late March 1883, Martha became pregnant again, and this was probably when someone in the community reported her to the authorities as living with a married man and having one child and another on the way. Sadly, the first child, Johnnie, only lived four years.
The interesting twist is that in the 1880 census, James was listed as living alone, and Martha was a boarder. This fact suggests his wife Elizabeth left him and took the children with her. However, James and Elizabeth were still married when James cohabitated with Martha Jenkins. This intrigue is that Martha used a different surname, Viner. Viner was Martha's mother Nancy's maiden name before she married Lewis Jenkins. Lewis and Nancy Jenkins were Martha Jenkins's parents.
The difficulty in understanding this court case comes in asserting why Martha was charged with adultery and not James B. Boone. Technically, he's the one who committed adultery. Martha's crime(under the laws at the time in South Carolina) would have been fornication and then having a child out of wedlock.
At the time of Martha's conviction for adultery in May 1883, she was imprisoned, but later in the summer, as her pregnancy advanced, a petition was made for her pardon on account of her health and that of the baby. Martha Jenkins was pardoned on September 8, 1883, after serving four months of her six-month sentence. Her baby was born November 26, 1883, and named Angeline(Annie) Boone, taking the surname of James Boone, who had been allowing Martha Jenkins to the board at his house.
In further research, I discovered Martha Jenkins had lived with a Boone family when she was nine years old, and they resided beside my Great-Great-Grandparents, George and Rebecca Leigh Jowers. Martha's grandmother, Polly Demby Boan(Boone), was also a sister to my Great-Great-Great Grandfather Joseph Demby(son of George and Celia Patterson Demby) of Jefferson, Chesterfield County, South Carolina. So Martha Jenkins Boone was also a distant cousin of mine.
The story here is why she was imprisoned, not James Boone. He was as guilty, maybe more so, because of his wife and three kids. This shows the problem with enforcing laws like this. They're never equally enforced. Both parties were guilty and should have been charged under the law then. Otherwise, no criminal charges should have been pressed, whether by the county, the state, or James Boone's wife, Elizabeth.
My theory is Elizabeth Brown Boone probably pressed charges against the woman who committed adultery with her husband. Cases like this make me realize why many laws were changed. They were just too difficult to enforce properly. Sadly, the ones who suffer most in this situation are the children. Confusion, misunderstanding, disillusionment, and bewilderment were probably emotions these kids felt. And it ends up being a terrible example for the children of a healthy relationship. Giving in to sin hurts. It hurts others, and it hurts ourselves. We must repent daily for allowing brief sensual pleasures to overtake our moral sensibilities. The temptations have been too great for too many. We're all human; we're all sinners in need of the redemptive blood of Jesus Christ to forgive those sins.
I wonder if Martha ever told her children about this episode. Chances are she and James probably kept this a secret from their children and family to prevent embarrassment.
By all accounts, Martha and James lived peacefully after this incident. They went on to have additional children together. But oddly, James was buried at a Baptist Church in Camden, and Martha was buried at Fork Creek Methodist Church in Jefferson, SC, indicating they were most likely not together, but that's not for sure, just my conjecture. In this time frame, the pattern for almost all marriages in Chesterfield County, SC, was for the husband and wife to be buried at the same church cemetery.
If we were to consider a world where adultery and fornication were still crimes punishable by prison terms, how many of us would be convicted criminals? Life has changed over the past 150 years; however, human sin has not. The human frailty of will and our weakness in the face of desire never change. Our natural flaws remain for time immemorial. I am no different; neither is any other fallible human.
Dallas Reese October 2024
Hilton Head, South Carolina
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