{"petition":[{"petition_analysis_number":"21284008","petition_url":"https:\/\/dlas.uncg.edu\/petitions\/petition\/21284008","state":"North Carolina","county":"Guilford","location_type":"County","file_date_circa":"y","file_year":1840,"filing_court":"Superior","enslaved_count":0,"fpoc_count":1,"total_people_count":3,"repository":"North Carolina Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina","abstract":"William King charges that his \"young & handsome\" wife Mary was accepting \"the embraces of other men.\"  Standing by a window near their house, he overheard Mary and her sister planning a rendezvous.  A few evenings later, he followed his wife to the house of her mother, \"old lady Coley,\" where she said she was going for a visit.  King discovered the mother was gone, while his wife and her sister entertained \"two Mulatto fellows.\"  Peering through a window, he saw Mary with her head on the lap of one of the men.  He seeks a divorce.  In her related answer, Mary denies her husband's allegations and charges that he left her alone many nights without any explanation, and that he subsequently moved in with a man of color and his three daughters.","subjects":[{"subject":"Adultery"},{"subject":"Divorce"},{"subject":"Interracial socializing "},{"subject":"Interracial relationships"},{"subject":"Sex workers\/Promiscuity "},{"subject":"Illegitimacy "}]}]}