A significant number of contested custody cases involve abusive fathers. It is a sad fact, but one that the courts and legal professionals must be cognizant of. While such cases date back decades, one of the first documented custody crisis cases took place in the mid-1970s and is simply known as the Mary Lou Case.
The setting was the American South and the 70s marked a social and cultural shift in family dynamics. For the first time, women were gaining financial independence and could realistically leave their undesirable or abusive husbands should they choose. In parallel, states were firming up child support laws and this provided both parties – mother and father – a financial incentive to acquire custody.
Custody battles ramped up during this time and the setting was typically women attempting to maintain primary custody with men seeking to exert control as well as reduce child support payments. Author Louise Armstrong tells the story of Mary Lou (an alias to protect the mother) in her book, “Rocking the Cradle of Sexual Politics: What Happened When Women Said Incest.”
Mary Lou had divorced “Harry” in the mid-70s and their infant child, “Alice,” was granted to Mary Lou. A year after the divorce Alice complained to her mother that her father had molested her. Mary Lou sought the assistance of a child psychiatrist and in conjunction with additional medical professionals, they deemed Alice had indeed been sexually molested and advised Mary Lou to curtail future visitations.
Harry subsequently took the case to court accusing Mary Lou of failure to allow him visitation. The judge in the case requested that Mary Lou prove her motion to terminate visitation, and ultimately ruled the following:
“It might be suggested that this time the petitioner has an excuse for at least the denial of visitation, that being a psychiatrist and a psychologist believed the child’s statement of child molesting. The question is not what they believed, hearing only part of the version and not knowing the background or the full factual situation: the question is what the petitioner believed, and … court firmly believed the petitioner … caused the child to make statements, knowing full well the falsity thereof.”
It was a fascinating shift to focusing squarely on the mother as a source of “lies” (… caused the child to make statements, knowing full well the falsity thereof.) Custody of Alice was awarded to Harry and Mary Lou was confined to County Jail for 90 days. After the trial, it came out that Mary Lou had been working for a very outspoken feminist writer that appeared to have irked the judge. He was on record as referring to this person as a man-hater who had successfully brainwashed Mary Lou.
Mary Lou never saw her child again, but Louis Armstrong was an ardent supporter of mother’s rights and the custody crisis that later ensued. Louis passed away fifteen years ago but leaves a tremendous legacy for her validation of hundreds of cases like that of Mary Lou.
