 On August 20 , 1845 , Griswold married Charlotte Myers , a Jewish woman ; she was 42 and he was 33 . Griswold had been pressured into the marriage by the woman 's aunts , despite his concern about their difference in religious beliefs . This difference was strong enough that one of Griswold 's friends referred to his wife only as " the little Jewess " . On their wedding night , he discovered that she was , according to Griswold biographer Joy Bayless , " through some physical misfortune , incapable of being a wife " or , as Poe biographer Kenneth Silverman explains , incapable of having sex . Griswold considered the marriage void and no more valid " than there would have been had the ceremony taken place between parties of the same sex , or where the sex of one was doubtful or ambiguous " . Still , the couple moved together to Charleston , South Carolina , Charlotte 's home town , and lived under the same roof , albeit sleeping in separate rooms . Neither of the two was happy with the situation , and at the end of April 1846 she had a lawyer write up a contract " to separate , altogether and forever , ... which would in effect be a divorce " . The contract forbade Griswold from remarrying and paid him $ 1 @,@ 000 for expenses in exchange for his daughter Caroline staying with the Myers family . After this separation , Griswold immediately moved back to Philadelphia . 
