A man begging for his wife’s forgiveness inside Divorce Court. Chicago, 1948.
A man begging for his wife’s forgiveness inside Divorce Court. Chicago, 1948. This decades-old photo is worth more than 1,000 words. The black-and-white image, which has made the rounds on social media and Reddit in recent years, features a suited man on his literal knees, begging for the forgiveness of his fur-clad, soon-to-be ex-wife outside a Chicago divorce court. The looks on their faces seem to say it all: The scorned husband appears desperate, mouth slightly agape as he looks up at his one-time lover; the woman, meanwhile, appears utterly unbothered. "It's a powerful photo today because you can sort of imagine your own story behind it," Jeff Nichols, a Chicago historian who acquired a copy of the 1948 newspaper photo via an eBay listing of the image, said. But thanks to Nichols' sleuthing, as well as the digitization of old newspaper records, we don't have to merely imagine who this couple is. The image depicts one of the final moments in the marriage