In 19th-century Ohio, Georgiana—cruelly mistreated by her stepmother and her down-and-out sister, Bertha—assumed Bertha’s identity to marry Thomas, a wealthy and handsome trapper, in a desperate bid to escape her domestic hell. After the wedding, Georgiana confessed the truth to Thomas; he forgave her, and the couple resolved to exact revenge on her tormentors. However, during a confrontation, the vengeful Bertha publicly exposed a devastating secret: because Georgiana had signed the marriage documents using Bertha’s name, she was not legally or religiously Thomas’s wife—meaning she had been living in a state of sinful "legalized adultery."
