The daughter of John Broughton, "an imbecile man much addicted to the intemperate use of ardent spirits," Parthena Broughton married Alexander Oakley in 1833 primarily to get out of the house. Although the couple had met at a prayer meeting, and he seemed like "a highly religious and worthy young man," she soon discovered that he was a philanderer. She was "deeply offended when the birth of her child and her consequent Suffering and long confinement disclosed to her the fact that the defendant had communicated to her a foul and loathsome disease," a disease that "fell into her breasts on account of which repeated lancing became necessary." Alexander confessed that he had contracted the disease from "a negro woman." Now her husband has been gone for several years, and Parthena seeks a divorce.
Result: Granted.
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Repository: North Carolina Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina
