A Divorce in Tennessee Really Isn't a Divorce

Prior to 1865 Abolitionist wanted slavery to end.  They wanted the slaves to be set free - immediately.  In an attempt to placate those who despised that peculiar institution those who opposed immediate freedom came up with all kinds of schemes to deny emancipation.  These ideas involved such things as lettting slaves be free when they obtained a certain age, letting them keep a certain amount they would be paid then buying their freedom from their masters. But the Abolitionist knew that freedom was only truly freedom if their was an immediate and total severance and separation of any obligation on the part of the slaves.

Webster defines divorce as:
1 : the action or an instance of legally dissolving a marriage
2 : separation, severance <divorce of the secular and the spiritual>

If you are forced to pay for her lifestyle you are not really separated. Severance would mean there is a total unbinding of the parties. How can the legislature and the legal system possibly believe a divorce is truly a divorce if one party is obliged to support the other party?  If it is really a divorce, then the connection is severed and the marriage is truly ended.  What makes Tennessee divorce even more cruel is the fact it is a one sided extention of the marriage.  The man must continue his financial support, but the woman, who used how she did the house keeping, the laundry and the cooking as an excuse for why she deserves alimony, is not required to do anything after the divorce decree.  It seems hardly fair that one party must continue his pre-divorce obligations and the other party has no post-divorce obligations.