Reform Era and Eastern U.S. Development 1815-1850: Law and Justice Research Article from American Eras

This Study Guide consists of approximately 68 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Reform Era and Eastern U.S. Development 1815-1850.

Reform Era and Eastern U.S. Development 1815-1850: Law and Justice Research Article from American Eras

This Study Guide consists of approximately 68 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Reform Era and Eastern U.S. Development 1815-1850.
This section contains 198 words
(approx. 1 page at 300 words per page)
Buy the Reform Era and Eastern U.S. Development 1815-1850: Law and Justice Encyclopedia Article

The case of D'Hauteville v. D'Hauteville (1840) illustrated the increasing tendency of judges to presume that mothers should receive custody of their children. The highly publicized litigation between Boston textile heiress Ellen Sears D'Hauteville and her husband, Swiss nobleman Baron D'Hauteville, took place in Philadelphia, where the mother had taken their two-year-old son because of Pennsylvania's favorable custody policies. The state supreme court fulfilled her expectations by rejecting the baron's argument that he enjoyed a presumptive right to custody. The court observed that "the reputation of a father ' may be stainless as crystal, he may not be afflicted with the slightest mental, moral, or physical disqualification from superintending the general welfare of the infant . . . and yet the interest of the child may imperatively demand the denial of the father's right" because "every instinct of humanity unerringly proclaims that no substitute...

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This section contains 198 words
(approx. 1 page at 300 words per page)
Buy the Reform Era and Eastern U.S. Development 1815-1850: Law and Justice Encyclopedia Article
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