Ernest Belfort Bax

“ The latest charter of women's privileges—the Act of 1895—enables a woman to commit adultery with impunity—provided she can allege her husband neglected her. As "neglect" usually means that she drove him to the public-house or to his club by overbearing violence and insolence, the present law means that if a woman has a fancy for adultery, all she need do is to pick a quarrel with her husband about anything she likes, then she can indulge in desertion and adultery with impunity, and claim the usual divorce and confiscation from a sympathising tribunal. ”

“ A wife is privileged to recover judgment against, and bankrupt her husband for any money she may have lent him, and this privilege is no dead letter.
A husband does not lend, but gives money to his wife. If he were to attempt by legal documents to turn it into a loan, he would discover once again that what is sauce for the goose, is by no means sauce for the gander. There is no case on record of a husband daring to sue his wife for a loan. ”

“ If a husband has illicit relations, he does not bring home his bastard offspring. But since 1857 the secular court has practically abolished the discriminations. Let the wife prove illicit relations by the husband, and she has always had her divorce for the asking. The reason is simple. The Courts will hold, to oblige a wife, that anything is cruelty if committed by a husband. It is cruelty to come home late from his club; it is cruelty to spend an evening with friends without her company. It is cruelty to hold her hands if she tries to strike or to bite him. ”

“ No matter how flagrant her conduct the wildest dream never suggested that the wife's "earnings" (as artist, opera singer, or what not) no matter how exorbitant, should ever be touched for the benefit even of her children. That a portion should be sequestrated for the maintenance of the husband—even though a husband is incapacitated by disease or accident—of course would be a barbarous suggestion, hardly to be discussed outside Bedlam. ”

“ A wife seeking divorce and confiscation of her husband's property can exercise all her privileges of violence, insolence, and, under her recent charter, of adultery, without inconvenience, but she can in addition make him guilty as well as herself, with the trivial difference that he will be punished. A wife can get female detectives to send female seducers in her husband's path, and can then produce her hirelings in the box with conclusive proofs of the husband's and their own guilt. ”

“ Nothing in the way of compulsion by restraint of person or property is to be applied to the wife. But by a cynical stroke this Act provides that if a husband refuses to obey, his property is to be confiscated. And, more outrageous than all, the wife's power to procure the arrest and imprisonment of the husband by the magistrate's Court is left untouched. A case in which the wife of a clergyman caused her husband to be arrested on board a ship going to America, and sentenced to hard labour by alleging his desertion, deserves special notice. ”

“ No crime is too abominable to be imputed by a wife, with absolute impunity, against a husband. More precise details need not be given, as recent instances will occur to the public mind of notorious and infamous ill-usage of a husband in this way by a heartless and vindictive woman. But the Public Prosecutor is silent when the false accusation is brought by one of the privileged sex. Prosecutions of women for perjury in a divorce suit are unknown. ”

“ No charge, no matter of what infamous crime, falsely made by a wife against a husband, is a ground for his refusing to take her back. If he should refuse, the Court confiscates for her benefit as much of his property or earnings as they think fit. ”

“ Yet, be it observed, it is only the man's denying with the object of protecting himself against his wife that is punished. If the man be not a husband, but a co-respondent: if he deny the truth with the laudable object of protecting a wife (who happens to be an adulteress—but that does not strip her of her privilege) then his perjury is pardonable and chivalrous. The co-respondent is safe under the shadow of the wife. ”

“ In the opposite case, that of killing a wife by the husband, how often have judges been careful to point out to the jury that any unlawful assault, if death happened to result from it, was, in the eyes of the law, wilful murder! ”

“ By the Married Women's Property Acts, a woman has complete power of leaving her property away from her husband, by will, even though in his prosperity he gave it to her. The husband can be prevented from doing so, by the wife's suing him for maintenance, when his property, or as much of it as judges think fit, is settled on her, and can no longer be disposed of by his will. Conveyancers aver that the steady tendency is for a woman to leave property acquired from some man always to a woman. ”

“ A man suing in a like case is laughed out of Court. This may or may not be a just privilege conferred on women—that of breaking their promise free of legal penalty, but it is obviously a privilege conferred by the practice of the Courts on women as such. The rules of law invalidating contracts obtained by fraud, duress, or undue influence, have no effect as against a woman inducing a man, by subtle device or threats of scandal, to marry her. An experienced woman of 30 can entrap a boy of 22 into such a promise ”

“ In the case of a man of property the Courts will expropriate him for the benefit of his wife. In the case of a wage-earner the Courts from police magistrates to Supreme Court will decree him to be her earning slave, bound to work for her or go to prison. A wife, no matter if rolling in wealth, is not obliged to contribute a penny to her husband's support, even if he be incapacitated from work through disease or accident. ”

“ No man can obtain a divorce except by a terribly expensive process in the High Court at a minimum charge of forty pounds. This means a denial of justice to the vast bulk of the male population. Any woman, by the asking for it, can get a summary separation and confiscation of her husband's property, and an order for her maintenance out of his earnings from the nearest police court. ”

“ Even a wife who, against her husband's wish, leaves his house after assaulting and insulting him can obtain against him an order for restitution of conjugal rights. This is a mere preliminary to form a basis for a claim for sequestration of his property for her maintenance. The Act of 1884 forbids the Court to order imprisonment for refusal to obey an order of restitution of conjugal rights, but enables such a refusal to be made a ground for confiscation of the husband's property in favour of the wife. ”

“ If the husband, not to say slanders, but speaks disrespectfully to his wife before servants or strangers, she is quite entitled to leave his house at once, and claim the usual separation and confiscation order, and deprive him of the custody of the children whom he is bound to support.
(d) Impunity for Waylaying and Procuring Dismissal.
A vindictive wife who courts publicity and scandal has the average respectable man—unless he be an angel or a lawyer—at her absolute mercy. If he be a man of the middle-classes, she can waylay him at his office and destroy his business connection. ”

“ The female is privileged to indulge in this form of deceit and theft with impunity.
For, be it noted, it is almost invariably a desire to obtain economic advantage that impels the woman to this particular crime, the essence of which, of course, is the deceit practised on the innocent party. In the cases where there is no economic motive and where no deceit is practised on the second "spouse" (to use the convenient terms of the Scottish Law) no punishment is ever inflicted on the woman, and perhaps none is specially required. ”

“ The law of George III., punishing by damages—usually vindictive damages—violation of breach of promise of marriage. The women's privilege to commit perjury plays a great part in this process. A woman swears a man promised to marry her. Judge and jury hold this statement false, and mark the result. No one suggests that she should be indicted for perjury. ”

“ Here a woman is upheld by the Court of Appeal in deserting her husband and condemning him to life-long celibacy. He has absolutely no remedy against her. If she commits any civil injury against any one, he can be sued. If he should live with any other woman, Mrs. Jackson can get a portion of the property confiscated and settled on herself. She is not obliged to ask for a divorce, she can still keep him bound by limiting her demand to a judicial separation. ”

“ Impunity for Insolence and Insult.
The most elaborate cruelty in the way of insolence and insult is unpunishable by the law when committed by the wife. The husband remains bound to support his torturer, who may publicly waylay and insult him, harass him at his work, procure his dismissal, libel him by postcards sent to his workshop, or to his club. If he be a rich man, he can get some tardy redress in the way of palliation; but he remains liable to divorce and expropriation at his wife's behest. ”

“ The denial to the working man of the same facilities for summary separation, through the police court, granted to every brawling wife who chooses to ask for it, simply means that the man is in a state of legal subjection to his wife. ”

“ Not merely as against the husband, but against her creditors, the married woman is in a position of enviable privilege. A married woman, even when separated from her husband, and released from all duties towards him or her children, retains her privilege of having her property exempt from seizure for debt. ”

“ So enamoured have they become with the new doctrine of feminine predominance in the relation of marriage, that the judges of the House of Lords have actually extended to Scotland their theory of tying the man and letting the woman free. For over three centuries the law of Scotland has provided that desertion for four years on the part of either spouse is ground for absolute divorce, with right of second marriage. ”

“ Obliging maid servants every day come forward to allege their own or some other woman's "immoral relations" with the victim husband. No one ever dreams of prosecuting them. It would be waste of time and money—as no jury would convict. ”

“ He is entitled to damages from the co-respondent for the injury to him, done in breaking up his home, and exposing him to mental suffering and material loss. The damages are supposed to be paid to the husband on this basis—that they were in compensation for his loss. They are still assessed on this basis, but at the end of the nineteenth century we find the judges creating a legal fiction. Influenced by the wave of feminist sentimentality, the judges have actually seized on these damages as a fund for endowing the adulteress. ”

“ The least excuse is sufficient to reduce the crime from murder to manslaughter. (2) All the wife's statements against her husband are assumed to be true until they are proved to be false. (3) The proof of the actual deed of crime must be much more conclusive than in the case of a man. (4) If the verdict be a mere chance one of murder, a sympathetic judge announces he will forward to the proper quarter the sympathetic jury's recommendation to mercy. ”

“ The special facilities for women to obtain divorce, separation, confiscation of the husband's property, do not end with the provision of a cheap and expeditious Court for women alone. If the woman elects to go to the Divorce Division of the High Court, the path is made similarly smooth for her. ”

“ The sole exception which the law makes in derision is that if he be actually in such destitution as to go to the workhouse, then the wealthy wife is obliged to pay, not to her husband, but the local authorities, the cost of his maintenance at the exiguous scale usual in such cases. ”

“ As a matter of course, and without considering in the least the interests of the child, or of society at large, they hand over the custody and education of all the children to the litigant wife, whenever she establishes—an easy thing to do—a flimsy and often farcical case of technical "cruelty." ”

“ It has always in England been laid down as a fundamental law based on public policy, that the custody of children and their education is a duty incumbent on the father. It is said to be so fundamental that he is not permitted to waive his exercise of the right by prenuptial contract. ”

“ If he be a working man she can interview his employer and secure his prompt dismissal. She can render him a laughing-stock to all his acquaintances, and at the same time achieve his financial ruin. The law and its administrators stand idly by. No remedy for the helpless male. The "poor woman" (they are always that) must have been ill-used; there is no such thing as savage vindictiveness and recklessness in the female.
(e) Impunity for Violence and Assault. ”

“ Let a man attempt to improve his financial position, nay, let him, even at a pecuniary loss to himself, exercise the least similar deceit on any woman, and the Criminal Courts descend on him with swift retribution. ”

“ Let a husband untruly deny his illicit connection with a woman if his wife is the accuser. The Public Prosecutor intervenes, as a case decided in June, 1896, shows clearly enough, when the male went to penal servitude. ”

“ But precisely analogous orders as to the hard-earned and miserably stinted wages of the male earner are made with scandalous levity in the Police Court every day. A working man, earning eighteen or twenty shillings a week, is calmly ordered to provide twelve shillings a week for life for the keep of a clamorous and malignant shrew. ”