North Dakota
Jan. 18th, 2007 10:34 amToday the AP informs us that the North Dakota legislature is considering making cohabitation legal.
Around the time the over-capitalized and over-built railroads were penetrating the plains my great grandfather escaped from his Irish enclave in New York and found himself in the Dakotas. I don't know if he was there in 1890 because the census from that year was mostly consumed in a fire. I know he was there in 1900, but I can't find him in the census.
There seems to be a good explanation for that. He had sent away for a mail-order bride. My great grandmother was from rural Indiana. She was one of the last offspring of what might now be described as a line marriage, but circumstances being what they were in the 19th century it was almost normal for situations with that sort of step-sib and half-sib relations. Anyhow, they had got married within a couple of weeks prior to when the census taker came through their township.
The news story indicates that the law has rarely been enforced. Searching through the census records reveals some arrangements which were almost certainly more complex than monogamous cohabitation. I don't have a close enough relationship with my second cousins to ask, but I get the impression that the law has been irrelevant to them, too. After all, their US postal addresses consist of nothing more than Name, City, ND, zipcode. It's not like there's anyone close enough to be watching aside from all the other folks who all know each other as family.
Around the time the over-capitalized and over-built railroads were penetrating the plains my great grandfather escaped from his Irish enclave in New York and found himself in the Dakotas. I don't know if he was there in 1890 because the census from that year was mostly consumed in a fire. I know he was there in 1900, but I can't find him in the census.
There seems to be a good explanation for that. He had sent away for a mail-order bride. My great grandmother was from rural Indiana. She was one of the last offspring of what might now be described as a line marriage, but circumstances being what they were in the 19th century it was almost normal for situations with that sort of step-sib and half-sib relations. Anyhow, they had got married within a couple of weeks prior to when the census taker came through their township.
The news story indicates that the law has rarely been enforced. Searching through the census records reveals some arrangements which were almost certainly more complex than monogamous cohabitation. I don't have a close enough relationship with my second cousins to ask, but I get the impression that the law has been irrelevant to them, too. After all, their US postal addresses consist of nothing more than Name, City, ND, zipcode. It's not like there's anyone close enough to be watching aside from all the other folks who all know each other as family.