ABSTRACT
In 1913, divorce was most certainly on Edith Wharton’s mind. January saw the serial publication begin for The Custom of the Country, a novel which expands the portrait of the “marriage market” so incisively developed in The House of Mirth to include the crucial role of the turn-of-the-century divorce industry within that economy. The year The Custom of the Country was published, Edith Wharton was herself divorced from her husband of nearly twenty-eight years, Edward “Teddy” Wharton. Divorce proves the necessary mechanism to maintain leisure-class respectability, and Undine Spragg picks up and discards husbands almost as soon as they fail to please her. While divorce most certainly secures the interests of social climbers and profits those who capitalize upon its business opportunities, it also has its uses among the old guard of New York society. As “a monstrously perfect result of the system”, Undine Spragg both exemplifies and exploits the intimate bond between her consumable and consumer status.
