The Law and the Poor

by Sir Edward Abbott Parry

“As I hope to be saved, I have not a penny—I am only a poor man.”

“Well, don’t interrupt me; that may be so, but that will not exempt you from paying the penalty for the felony you have undoubtedly committed. I should have been disposed to have treated the matter more lightly if you had told Maria the real state of the case and said, ‘I’ll marry you if you choose to take your chance and risk it,’ but this you have not done.”

And so the judge gave Hall three months or, as some say, four. But that was because he had not told Maria all about it. It was for not playing cricket, not for breaking the law. And where the parties commit bigamy out of sheer respectability and a desire to placate Mrs. Grundy and have some marriage lines in a teapot on the mantelpiece to show the lady who lives next door, the judges, providing there is no deception, wisely treat the offence as something far less deserving of imprisonment than non-payment of rates. Why the police prosecute in these cases the chief constable only knows.

And the scorn and irony that Maule poured on the law of divorce roused the public conscience, and there was a Royal Commission in 1850 and a Divorce Act in 1857, and the result was the Divorce Court as we know it, an excellent tribunal for the matrimonial troubles of well-to-do people, but of no use to poor Hall and Maria. For Maule’s words slightly paraphrased might be as truly spoken to the bigamist of to-day as they were to poor Hall.

And four years ago we had another Royal Commission, and hundreds of witnesses were examined, and papers and reports handed in, and many days spent in collating and considering the same, and much stationery consumed. It was a shabby thing to the poor to institute this long-winded inquiry. There was nothing to inquire into. The mountain has finished groaning, and the expensive and ridiculous mouse has made his appearance—and all it comes to is that what good old Thomas Cranmer said ought to be done in 1550 the majority think might be experimented on in 1914; only—the archbishop of to-day is no longer on the side of reform.

That, I suppose, shows us very fairly the pace at which the world moves forward and the Church moves backward. In a great and necessary social reform, such as this, the Church occupies the position of the old-fashioned horse lorry strolling down the middle of the road amiably blocking the modern traffic of the city. It is all very pleasant and reassuring to those nervous folk who fear we are rushing like Gadarene pigs into a sea of legalised vice and immorality, but to visionaries and dreamers like myself who would like, as the children say, “to see the wheels go round” in their lifetime, it has its mournful side.

There are two ways in which those who are satisfied that the world is the best of all possible worlds meet proposals for reform. If they are backed up by popular clamour and agitation they say with some show of reason that it would never do to give way to threats of violence. If, on the other hand, the campaign for reform is conducted by mannerly argument it is commonly said that there is no demand for a change. Comfortable clerical persons are never tired of telling you that there is really no demand from the poorer classes for any reform of the divorce laws.

True, people do not go out in the streets and break the windows of Cabinet Ministers or make themselves politically disagreeable after the fashion of the middle classes who have grievances real or imaginary. But anyone whose advice is sought by the poor in their troubles knows that the demand for divorce exists if it were of any use uttering it aloud to our smug and respectable rulers. Of course the demand or no demand is immaterial to anyone who has grasped the fact that it is a principle of elementary justice that the poor should have the same audience and remedies in all our Courts as the rich.

The real demand for divorce is to be found in the circumstances of the lives of the poor. I propose to set down a few typical cases drawn in every instance from public published records.

Jane married Fred when twenty-two years of age. Soon after the marriage he began to ill-treat her and would not work. Jane’s parents helped them in business. Fred continued his ill ways and at length gave Jane a beating. Jane took out a summons, but would not face the Court, and forgave Fred. After five years of unhappy married life Jane went back to her parents taking her two children, Fred agreeing to pay her three shillings a week. At the end of nine months he ceased to send any money and disappeared. For seven years Jane lived with her parents until they died. After their death she found it a great struggle to live and pay the rent. Charles now comes on the scene, he takes lodgings and pays the rent. Ultimately Charles and Jane live happily together and there are two children of the union. Charles provides for Fred’s children as well as his own. Charles and Jane would like to marry for their own sake and for their children’s. In so far as there is any sin or immorality in this story the promoters of it and the sharers in it are those who stand in the path of divorce reform.