I'm researching genealogy, and I'm new to this subreddit, so if this is the wrong place to post please guide me to the right one.
My great-great grandmother had a marriage from 1908-1918. She was 15 at the time of marriage, he was 38, and they had a child in 1910. I recently found their divorce record. The complainant was listed as the husband (which is the only 'husband' mark on the list, the rest were all wives) and the reason for divorce was 'extreme cruelty'. (Other reasons were 'non-support', 'desertion', 'imprisonment', and several more of 'extreme cruelty'.)
Could someone help explain the context of a divorce at the time? I know it must have been rare, especially for the husband to seek. Does 'extreme cruelty' mean my great-grandmother was abusive, or perhaps that she was having an affair? (She did remarry six years later.) Were the options to select for reason for divorce limited? What were the social implications at the time?
Thank you!
[Edit] Location was Jackson, MI.
The location of the divorce is important and provides context to interpret what was intended here. In general, it was less common for the man to file for the divorce; that "honor" was often yielded to the woman so that she would not be seen as at fault. Lawyers typically crafted the complaint to match the existing laws that allowed divorce to occur - that's why context is important. "No-fault" divorce is relatively recent and not universal, so the need to describe an allowable "fault" was important for a successful divorce complaint.