[17] Wilson was admitted to the Georgia bar and made a brief attempt at establishing a law firm in Atlanta in 1882.[18] Though he found legal history and substantive jurisprudence interesting, he abhorred the day-to-day procedural aspects. After less than a year, he abandoned his legal practice to pursue the study of political science and history.[19]

Marriage and family
Ellen Wilson in 1912
In 1883, Wilson met and fell in love with Ellen Louise Axson, the daughter of a Presbyterian minister from Savannah, Georgia.[20] He proposed marriage in September 1883; she accepted, but they agreed to postpone marriage while Wilson attended graduate school.[21] Ellen graduated from Art Students League of New York, worked in portraiture, and received a medal for one of her works from the Exposition Universelle (1878) in Paris.[22] She agreed to sacrifice further independent artistic pursuits in order to marry Wilson in 1885.[23] She learned German so that she could help translate works of political science that were relevant to Wilson's research.[24] Their first child, Margaret, was born in April 1886, and their second, Jessie, in August 1887.[25] Their third and final child, Eleanor, was born in October 1889.