Most women stayed at home and raised children. Birth control was not widely used or available to unmarried adults. And abortion was illegal. Most significantly, if a man and woman wanted to have sex, they either were married or had better plan on getting married quickly. Sharp operation seduces young woman, gets her pregnant, and leaves her and her child to poverty and destitution.
Husband beats housewife and kids.
Wife has no where to go and no money to get there. She probably had limited or no financial resources, 2. Society pressured her to stay tied down at home and raise the children, 3. The Family Court system established to administer Family Law attempted to right these obvious wrongs. Because of the wide latitude in the law and broad power delegated by the legislature to the court, Family Law judges were in a position to both make the law as well as interpret it with the resulting separation of powers problems well documented by the framers of the Constitution.