Caroline Norton: Letter to the Queen on Lord Chancellor Cranworth’s Marriage and Divorce Bill

Document Text

Madam,

On Tuesday, June 13th, of last session, Lord Chancellor Cranworth brought forward a measure for the reform of the Marriage laws of England; which measure was afterwards withdrawn. In March, 1855, in this present session, the Solicitor General stated, that a bill on the same subject was “nearly prepared,” and would be brought forward “immediately after the Easter recess.” On May 10th, being pressed to name a time, he stated that it would be proposed “as soon as the House had expressed an opinion on the Testamentary Jurisdiction Bill.” That time has not arrived: and meanwhile,—as one who has grievously suffered, and is still suffering, under the present imperfect state of the law,—I address your Majesty on the subject.…

I connect your Majesty’s name with these pages … for two reasons: of which one, indeed, is a sequence to the other. First, because I desire to point out the grotesque anomaly which ordains that married women shall be “non‐existent” in a country governed by a female Sovereign; and secondly, because, whatever measure for the reform of these statutes may be proposed, it cannot become “the law of the land” without your Majesty’s assent.…

A married woman in England has no legal existence: her being is absorbed in that of her husband. Years of separation of desertion cannot alter this position. Unless divorced by special enactment in the House of Lords, the legal fiction holds her to be “one” with her husband, even though she may never see or hear of him.

She has no possessions, unless by special settlement; her property is his property.… An English wife has no legal right even to her clothes and ornaments; her husband may take them and sell them if he pleases, even though they be the gifts of relatives or friends, or bought before marriage.

An English wife cannot make a will. She may have children or kindred whom she may earnestly desire to benefit;—she may be separated from her husband, who may be living with a mistress; no matter: the law gives what she has to him, and no will she could make would be valid.

An English wife cannot legally claim her own earnings. Whether wages for manual labour, or payment for intellectual exertion, whether she weed potatoes, or keep a school, her salary is the husband’s; and he could compel a second payment, and treat the first as void, if paid to the wife without his sanction.

An English wife may not leave her husband’s house. Not only can he sue her for “restitution of conjugal rights,” but he has a right to enter the house of any friend or relation with whom she may take refuge, and who may “harbour her,”—as it is termed,—and carry her away by force, with or without the aid of the police.

If the wife sue for separation for cruelty, it must be “cruelty that endangers life or limb,” and if she has once forgiven, or, in legal phrase, “condoned” his offences, she cannot plead them; though her past forgiveness only proves that she endured as long as endurance was possible.

If her husband take proceedings for a divorce, she is not, in the first instance, allowed to defend herself. She has no means of proving the falsehood of his allegations. She is not represented by attorney, nor permitted to be considered a party to the suit between him and her supposed lover, for “damages.” Lord Brougham affirmed in the House of Lords: “in that action the character of the woman was at immediate issue, although she was not prosecuted. The consequence not unfrequently was, that the character of a woman was sworn away; instances were known in which, by collusion between the husband and a pretended paramour, the character of the wife has been destroyed. All this could take place, and yet the wife had no defence; she was excluded from Westminster‐hall, and behind her back, by the principles of our jurisprudence, her character was tried between her husband and the man called her paramour.”

If an English wife be guilty of infidelity, her husband can divorce her so as to marry again; but she cannot divorce the husband a vinculo, however profligate he may be. No law court can divorce in England. A special Act of Parliament annulling the marriage, is passed for each case. The House of Lords grants this almost as a matter of course to the husband, but not to the wife. In only four instances (two of which were cases of incest), has the wife obtained a divorce to marry again.

She cannot prosecute for a libel. Her husband must prosecute; and in cases of enmity and separation, of course she is without a remedy.

She cannot sign a lease, or transact responsible business.

She cannot claim support, as a matter of personal right, from her husband. The general belief and nominal rule is, that her husband is “bound to maintain her.” That is not the law. He is not bound to her. He is bound to his country; bound to see that she does not cumber the parish in which she resides. If it be proved that means sufficient are at her disposal, from relatives or friends, her husband is quit of his obligation, and need not contribute a farthing: even if he have deserted her; or be in receipt of money which is hers by inheritance.

She cannot bind her husband by any agreement, except through a third party. A contract formally drawn out by a lawyer,—witnessed, and signed by her husband,—is void in law; and he can evade payment of an income so assured, by the legal quibble that “a man cannot contract with his own wife.”

Separation from her husband by consent, or for his ill usage, does not alter their mutual relation. He retains the right to divorce her after separation,—as before,—though he himself be unfaithful.

Her being, on the other hand, of spotless character, and without reproach, gives her no advantage in law. She may have withdrawn from his roof knowing that he lives with “his faithful housekeeper”: having suffered personal violence at his hands; having “condoned” much, and being able to prove it by unimpeachable testimony: or he may have shut the doors of her house against her: all this is quite immaterial: the law takes no cognisance of which is to blame. As her husband, he has a right to all that is hers: as his wife, she has no right to anything that is his. As her husband, he may divorce her (if truth or false swearing can do it): as his wife, the utmost “divorce” she could obtain, is permission to reside alone,—married to his name. The marriage ceremony is a civil bond for him,—and an indissoluble sacrament for her; and the rights of mutual property which that ceremony is ignorantly supposed to confer, are made absolute for him, and null for her.

Of course an opposite picture may be drawn. There are bad, wanton, irreclaimable women, as there are vicious, profligate, tyrannical men: but the difference is this: that to punish and restrain bad wives, there are laws, and very severe laws (to say nothing of social condemnation); while to punish or restrain bad husbands, there is, in England, no adequate law whatever. Indeed, the English law holds out a sort of premium on infidelity; for there is no doubt that the woman who is divorced for a lover and marries him, suffers less (except in conscience) than the woman who does not deserve to suffer at all—the wife of a bad husband, who can inflict what he pleases, whether she remain in her home, or attempt to leave it.

Such, however, is “the law”: and if anything could add to the ridicule, confusion, and injustice of its provisions, it would be the fact, that though it is law for the rich, it is not law for the poor; and though it is the law in England, it is not the law in Scotland!…

In your Majesty’s kingdom, nothing but “The rapid running of the silver Tweed” divides that portion of the realm where women are protected by law,—from that portion where they are unprotected, though living under the same Sovereign and the same government!…

The gentlemen of England—members of both Houses—have severally denounced in the most unmeasured terms, the present laws for women; and unanimously agreed that they ought to be reformed. …

Why is England the only country obliged to confess that she cannot contrive to administer justice to women? Why is it more difficult than in France? Why more difficult than in Scotland? Simply because our legists and legislators insist on binding tares with wheat, and combining all sorts of contradictions which they never will be able satisfactorily to combine. They never will satisfy, with measures that give one law for one sex and the rich, and another law for the other sex and the poor. Nor will they ever succeed in acting on the legal fiction that married women are “non‐existent,” and man and wife are still “one,” in cases of alienation, separation, and enmity; when they are about as much “one” as those ingenious twisted groups of animal death we sometimes see in sculpture; one creature wild to resist, and the other fierce to destroy.…

No doubt, in numberless instances, condonation is possible.…  A man may yield to the temptation of passion, who yet at heart loves and respects his wife; and feels, after his delusion is over, a real shame and repentance. Nor is want of chastity the only sin in the world;—a woman who is a chaste wife may fill her husband’s days with unendurable bitterness; and a man who has lapsed in his observance of the marriage vow, may nevertheless be a kindly husband and father, with whom reconcilement would be a safe and blessed generosity. If we add to these admissions, woman’s natural lingering love for her companion; love undeniable; indisputable; love evidenced each day, even among the poor creatures who come bruised and bleeding before the police courts; refusing to give evidence, in a calmer hour, against the man such evidence would condemn to punishment: if we add the love of children; the dread of breaking the bond which shall perhaps help a step‐mother into the mother’s vacated place: if we add the obvious interest, in almost every instance, which the woman has to remain in her home; and the horror most women must feel at the idea of the public exposure and discussion of such wrongs; it is evident they would not be so very eager to avail themselves, in usual cases, of the extreme remedy.

But in unusual cases—in cases of the dreary, stormy, deserted life—where profligacy, personal violence, insult, and oppression, fill up the measure of that wrong which pardon cannot reach,—why is there to be no rescue for the woman? Why is such a man to be sheltered under the Lord Chancellor’s term of “only a little profligate,”—and “condonation” be supposed the only proper notice of his conduct?

While the laws that women appeal to, are administered by men, we need not fear that their appeals will be too carelessly granted. No statement can be more incontrovertible than the Lord Chancellor’s dictum, that the profligate husband “suffers little in the opinion of the world at large.” It were well if he were held harmless only by public opinion: but he is also held harmless by LAW.…

A third case (to which I shall recur) is my own: in which, after personal violence, ill‐usage, an “action for damages,” and a long separation, the husband—being desirous to raise money,—procured a contract to be signed between himself and his wife, containing certain provisions as to his trust‐funds, and as to her income, both before and after the death of certain parties. That contract was witnessed and signed by the husband himself; by the solicitor who drew it up, —a gentleman distinguished in his own branch of the legal profession: and by the Hon. Edmund Phipps, brother to the Marquis of Normanby, your Majesty’s Minister at the Court of Tuscany, and to the Hon. Charles Phipps, Treasurer to the Prince Consort.

When the income so secured (or supposed to be secured), was claimed for creditors, the husband, in this case, refused to pay it. The law of England proved to be, that the wife being “non‐existent,” or one with the husband, could not legally make any contract with him. The signature of the husband, the signature of the brother of those other distinguished persons in your Majesty’s service,—and the signature of the lawyer who drew up the agreement,—all failed to make it more valuable than a sheet of blank paper. The wife, who might have compelled the execution of such a contract had she been a menial servant, was left without a remedy, because she was a wife; and without further explanation than that “the law” would hold her husband harmless, for mocking her and mocking the gentlemen who had added their signatures, by offering this fictitious security.…

Mr. Gladstone, speaking on the Marriage Amendment Bill, says that “when the gospel came into the world, woman was elevated to an equality with her stronger companion,”—and that there is “perfect equality between man and woman as far as the marriage tie is concerned,”—and he asks whether it is now “intended to have one marriage code for men and another for women?” But I say, there is already one marriage code for men and another for women: and as to the gospel view of woman’s position,—in vain are women pointed out as “the last at the cross, and the first at the tomb;” in vain, one of that humbled sex was made the mother of the Saviour of mankind; in vain, all through the gospel pages, their faith, their sorrows, their errors, are held up as obtaining attention and mercy from the divine “Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,” who wept with the sisters of Lazarus, and comforted the widow of Nain. A sneer is the only answer to Mr. Gladstone’s “gospel” doctrine; and the only text on the subject acknowledged by Parliament, is the Old Testament text: “and he shall rule over her.” We keep the doctrine of the Fall—not of the Redemption. …

The law was, (and I thank God I believe I was greatly instrumental in changing that law), that a man might take children from the mother at any age, and without any fault or offence on her part.… Mr Norton, then, took my little children (aged two, four, and six years); and I traced them to the house of that vile woman [to whom they had been delivered], who threatened to give me “to the police” when I went there and claimed them.

It was not till six weeks after the stealing of my children,—after a long, angry correspondence—and after having attempted to condition that “if my family would retract all that had been said against him, he would retract all he had said against me”—that Mr Norton took higher ground than his real cause of anger,—and appeared before the world in the character of “an injured husband.”…

And here, again, MONEY was his avowed motive; for he first affirmed that the residence of these infants with me might make him liable for the debts of my household; and then, that “others” on whom he himself depended, would not permit him to send back his children, as it would appear to justify me. …

One of my children was afterwards killed, for want of the commonest care a mother would have given to her household. Mr Norton allowed this child to lie ill a week before he sent to tell me he was dying; and, when I arrived, I found the poor little creature already in his coffin.

When it was not a case of death, I was not allowed to hear at all. Once, when they were ill, I wrote to ask news of them; and my own letter was refolded and sent back to me. That husband, whose petition for pardon had touched me so easily, never pitied me. What I suffered respecting those children, God knows, and He only: what I endured, and yet lived past,—of pain, exasperation, helplessness, and despair, under the evil law which suffered any man, for vengeance or for interest, to take baby children from the mother, I shall not even try to explain. I believe men have no more notion of what that anguish is, than the blind have of colours; and I bless God that at least mine was one of the cases which called attention to the state of the law as it then existed.…

I consulted counsel whether I could not now divorce my husband: whether a divorce “by reason of cruelty” might not be pleaded for me; and I laid before my lawyers the many instances of violence, injustice, and ill‐usage, of which the trial was but the crowning example. I was then told that no divorce I could obtain would break my marriage; that I could not plead cruelty which I had forgiven; that by returning to Mr. Norton I had “condoned” all I complained of. I was an ENGLISH WIFE, and for me there was no possibility of redress. The answer was always the same. The LAW. “Have I no remedy?”—“No remedy in LAW. The LAW can do nothing for you: your case is one of singular, of incredible hardship; but there is no possible way in which the LAW could assist you.”…

I am, as regards my husband, in a worse position than if I had been divorced. In that case, Englishmen are so generous, that some chivalrous‐hearted man might perhaps have married and trusted me, in spite of the unjust cloud on my name. I am not divorced, and I cannot divorce my husband; yet I can establish no legal claim upon him, nor upon any living human being! My reputation, my property, my happiness, are irrevocably in the power of this slanderer on false grounds; this rapacious defender of his right to evade written bonds. I cannot release myself. I exist and I suffer; but the law denies my existence.…

The natural position of woman is inferiority to man. Amen! That is a thing of God’s appointing, not of man’s devising. I believe it sincerely, as a part of my religion: and I accept it as a matter proved to my reason. I never pretended to the wild and ridiculous doctrine of equality. I will even hold that (as one coming under the general rule that the wife must be inferior to the husband), I occupy that position. Uxor fulget radiis Mariti; I am Mr Norton’s inferior; I am the clouded moon of that sun. Put me then—(my ambition extends no further)—in the same position as all his other inferiors! In that of his housekeeper, whom he could not libel with impunity, and without possible defence; of an apprentice whom he could not maltreat lawlessly, even if the boy “condoned” original ill‐usage; of a scullion, whose wages he could not refuse on the plea that she is legally “non‐existent”; of the day‐labourer, with whom he would not argue that his signature to a contract is “worthless.” Put me under some law of protection; and do not leave me to the mercy of one who has never shewn me mercy. For want of such a law of protection, all other protection has been vain!…

In our little corner of the earth,—where so much besides is busy and fermenting for change,—the time is ripely come for alteration in the laws for women. And they will be changed.…

That the laws may be changed in your Majesty’s reign,—in the reign of a woman and a Queen,—no very exaggerated dream of romance.…

But let the recollection of what I write, remain with those who read; and above all, let the recollection remain with your Majesty, to whom it is addressed; the one woman in England who cannot suffer wrong; and whose royal assent will be formally necessary to any Marriage Reform Bill which the Lord Chancellor, assembled Peers, and assembled Commons, may think fit to pass, in the Parliament of this free nation; where, with a Queen on the throne, all other married women are legally “NON‐EXISTENT.”

I remain, With the sincerest loyalty and respect, Your Majesty’s humble and devoted Subject and Servant,

CAROLINE ELIZABETH SARAH NORTON.

No. 3, CHESTERFIELD STREET, MAY FAIR,

This 2nd day of June, 1855.

 

---

Source: Caroline Sheridan Norton. English Laws for Women in the Nineteenth Century. London: Printed for Private Circulation, 1854.