To a limited extent, the law recognized the situation in which separated working-class women found themselves, though it very reluctantly offered solutions. A wife needed to remain with her family, and the government, parish officials, and the law did not wish to encourage or make it easy for women to leave their marriages. Even if Polly had been able to afford the costs of a divorce, in 1880 a wife could not cite adultery alone as a grounds for ending her union. While a man could divorce his wife for a sexual liaison outside the marital bed, a woman had to prove her husband was guilty of
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