Houston's Common Law Wife

Character Key Number: 
830
Display Name: 
Houston's Common Law Wife
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Houston's Common Law Wife
Ever Present in Yoknapatawpha?: 
No
Biography: 

In The Hamlet Jack Houston lives with this woman for four years in El Paso, after taking her out of a Galveston brothel seven years before. Although they are never married, she is recognized among the El Paso townsfolk as his wife. He renounces their common law marriage to return to Yoknapatawpha. His wife offers to accompany him to Mississippi and to tolerate the woman he expects to marry, but she curses him repeatedly when he abandons her and leaves her half of his savings.