France, however, was a Catholic state, but the country's views of women's rights and how they were to be treated was very poor.
John Calvin was originally a lawyer, but was dedicated to reform of the Church. He got his chance to build a reformed church when the citizens of Geneva revolted against their rulers, the House of Savoy, in the 1520's. In 1533, Bern sent Protestant reformers to convert Geneva into a Protestant city; after considerable conflict, Geneva officially became Protestant in 1535 (Kingdon, 35).
Calvin, by now a successful lawyer, was invited to Geneva to build the new Reformed church. Calvin's efforts radically changed the face of Protestantism, for he directly addressed issues that early Reformers didn't know how or didn't want to answer. He and Guillaume Farel imposed a strict moral code on the citizens of Geneva. This moral code was derived from a literal reading of Christian scriptures. Naturally, the people of Geneva believed that they had thrown away one church only to see it replaced by an identical twin; in particular, they saw Calvin's reforms as imposing a new form of papacy on the people, only with different names and different people.
Adultery and divorce was an extreme issue in the new Geneva under this strict, biblically derived moral code. In many ways, though the ideals of the government follower the literal interpretation of the Bible, it was very corrupt and unfair. In both the cases of Jean Bietrix and Galeazzo Caracciolo, this corruption is obvious.
In Geneva at the time, it seemed that the only way to receive a divorce was to have a husband claim that his wife was adulterous, and with increasing frequency, this accusation was indeed effective. Though the courts would prefer to force a reconciliation, in the cases of Pierre Ameaux and John Calvin's own brother, Antoine, the men were able to rid themselves of their wives in this manner and continue on with their lives as they so desired.