The judge looked between the middle-aged couple before him.

“Are you two sure this is what you want?” He asked, frowning looking down at the divorce paperwork and the empty line awaiting his signature.

The husband nodded, hat in hand, as the wife looked away in disgust.

Sighing and shaking his head, the judge moved to signed the documents. Then, from out in the hall, there was a sound.

At first it was hard to make out, but it grew in intensity, like a storm rolling in over the plain.

“Is that…a marching band?” Asked the judge.

The door to his chambers burst open, and in rushed the singing, dancing, tambourine and accordion playing parishioners of the Holiness Church.

They surrounded the couple, praising the Lord and signing about his unconditional love for the the couple. Also about how, unequivocally, the couple wasn’t getting divorced. They made such a ruckus the judge buried his head in his hands.

“What are we supposed to do?” Shouted the husband, panicking.

The judge tore the divorce papers in half. “Looks like you’d better kiss and make up.” He pointed to the mob of the faithful behind them. “Or answer to them.”

Memphis Note
It was like any other day at the Memphis courthouse in 1933. Until the Holiness Church descended upon an unsuspecting judge’s office to stop the divorce of two of their long standing members. For fifteen minutes, the courthouse was overrun by them, singing and dancing and praising until the judge agreed to tear up the divorce papers. It is unclear how things worked out for the couple.

From the force with which his door was swept aside, the Provost Marshal was expecting a twister to appear in the midst of his office, not blonde of the fairer sex, dressed in her finest.

“I mean to speak with you.” She spoke directly, not waiting for any acknowledgement before continuing. “I require of you a divorce. Effective immediately. The man to which I am married is a cad, and I will no longer suffer his mercurial affections. I have a good man waiting in his stead, and I don’t intend to keep him waiting.”

She stopped, squinted in thought, then continued.

“And I shall also need a guard, to keep the cad away from the other, lest he tease my new husband.”

The Marshal paused a moment, regarding her, cleared his throat and then spoke, deliberately and slowly.

“Madame, I assure you, the only kind of divorce I grant comes at the behest of lead or steel. Unfortunately, a divorce by paper is one beyond my scope.”

At this she froze, then unleashed a torrent of profanity that would blanche his most battle-hardened sergeant.

And the Marshal then found himself doing something most unexpected.


He pitied her husbands.

Memphis Note
The preceding has been a fictionalized account of a real incident from the logs of the Provost Marshal of Memphis during the Union occupation. Which, I think, tells you everything you need to know about Southern women.