KEPT HER FINGERS CROSSED, SAYS HER MARRIAGE IS VOID
UNIONTOWN, FEB. 25 -- Because she kept her fingers crossed during her marriage ceremony, Mrs. Mary Frances Wilson of Connellsville, told her husband that she had a right to break her marriage vows, according to testimony given by Davis Wilson, a P. and L.E. railroad conductor, who formerly resided at Newell, but who now lives at Uniontown. The husband, who was granted a divorce, said that when he objected to his wife's conduct she gave him the "crossed finger" alibi. Wilson declared that his wife's goodbye each morning when he left home for work was to hope that he would be ground to pieces before the day's work ended. The husband declared that he became so worried over his wife's actions that he cut his own throat and for a time lingered between life and death. He recovered weeks later and since that time he and his wife were estranged.
Indiana Evening Gazette - Feb 25, 1930

In Germany, during mediaeval times, domestic differences were settled by judicial duels between man and wife, and a regular code for their proper conduct was observed. 'The woman must be so prepared,' so the instructions run, 'that a sleeve of her chemise extend a small ell beyond her hand like a little sack: there indeed is put a stone weighing iii pounds; and she has nothing else but her chemise, and that is bound together between the legs with a lace. Then the man makes himself ready in the pit over against his wife. He is buried therein up to the girdle, and one hand is bound at the elbow to the side.'