Copy of the court ruling in Caroline Rentrope vs. Maxil Bourg, no. 89, recorded in No. III of Judicial Judgments, p. 107, in 2nd District Court, Assumption Parish Courthouse, Louisiana, rendered originally there on 25 May 1822. "This is a suit intended for separation from bed and board. Judgment by default has been rendered and no answer filed or motion made to set the judgment by default aside."
"The plaintiff [Caroline Rentrop] has proved the allegations in her petition. It is therefore ordered adjudged and decreed that the judgment by default be final, that the Plaintiff be separated in bed and board from the Defendant, that all the property held in community between the parties be sold and the proceeds equally divided between them after the payment of the debts due by the community and that the defendant pay costs of suit."
The official document of "separation from bed and board," dated 25 May 1822, also constitutes a page in the Succession record #214 of Caroline RENTROP's father Henry RENTROP.
Light Townsend Cummins, "Church Courts, Marriage Breakdown, and Separation in Spanish Louisiana, West Florida, and Texas, 1763-1836," in Glenn R. Conrad, THE SPANISH PRESENCE IN LOUISIANA, 1763-1803, pp. 530-542. "Separation from bed and board...did not constitute absolute divorce...[but] merely released couples from the conjugal obligations of the marital bond and permitted them to live apart as legally independent persons...Spouses so separated were not free to remarry and, at least in theory, were required to practice sexual abstinence. Significantly, women so divorced did regain control over their dotal property along with their share of community assets." The most common grounds was "cruel and violent treatment or abuse of partner by a spouse...usually by the husband directed against the wife."
