The English Marriage

The English Marriage: Tales of Love, Money and Adultery by Maureen Waller is interesting reading. It traces the history of marriage in England from Medieval times to the 1960s. Long after Europe reformed ins marriage and divorce laws England's laws were still heavily dependent on the rules of Medieval theology. The status of married women was little better than slaves or lunatics. All their property, until the late 19th century, belonged to their husband and they had no status in law as individuals.

It was very difficult for anyone to obtain a divorce. The poor didn't bother and simply walked away from the marriages and probably committed bigamy at a later date. The rich - because land and money were involved - resorted to law. A woman could be divorced for a single act of adultery. But if she wanted a divorce herself she had to prove cruelty as well as adultery.

When husbands were allowed to beat their wives, starve them and keep them shut up it was virtually impossible for a wife to prove cruelty. There was no doubt who was in charge until the 19th century when women started fighting back and several pieces of legislation improved their lot in life. Paradoxically widows had the best of it as they had virtually the same legal powers as men.

It is always difficult to look back on history and try and judge the events of the time through the eyes of the time. But comparing marriage and divorce in England with the same laws in other countries it is easy to see the English legal treatment of women was draconian even by the views of the times. Financial arrangements before marriage did seek to secure the income of wives if they were widowed in the main but that was all. There was no way out of an impossible marriage if you were a woman.

It was not until 1839 that women could expect to keep custody of children under the age of 7 after divorce - and then only if they successfully petitioned the Lord Chancellor and could prove they were of good character. Husbands would use access to the children as a bargaining counter in divorce or separation negotiations as access was wholly decided by the man and not the courts. Maybe we have gone too far in the other direction now.

Anyone who thinks women have never been oppressed and it's all a feminist con needs to read this book as the individual stories were taken from court records and the correspondence of the individuals concerned and at times show a horrific picture of the treatment of women by the law.

Why is Feminism a dirty word?

Were feminists really as bad as opponents say they were? If so it completely passed me by. Germaine Greer for example - if you read her work with any degree of objectivity at all - is never anti men. She is anti a system which disadvantaged women which coincidentally happened to have been set up mainly by men - which is not the same thing at all.

The only writer and feminist I can find who was outspoken in her desire to rid the world of men was Valerie Solanas who wrote one slim book - The SCUM Manifesto. When you consider the extreme pornography which portrays women as expendable and only useful for beating up and maiming; when you read comments on news stories on the websites of reputable newspapers such as the Telegraph and the Times which suggest women should return to the domestic role because that's all they're fit for you wonder who really hates who.

I am currently reading Susan Faludi's monumental work Backlash which details the opposition to feminism in the late 1980s and early 1990s in both America and Britain. The book makes frightening reading. It seems with recession comes renewed opposition to any sort of equality. The media is currently full of the ideal housewife and how to make yourself look good for your husband. Articles about always making sure your husband is well fed and looked after if you want to stay married and blaming women for the break up of all relationships. Nothing aimed at men telling them how to keep women happy. Women are supposed to put everyone else's interests before their own and accept bad behaviour from the men in their lives because they are so stressed and not used to women answering back.

Which really paints men as the sex which is unable to deal with any sort of change and the only thing which will get society back on an even keel is women going back to the domestic sphere and leaving the world of work to the men. So what about all these menial jobs that men consider it beneath their dignity to do? Just who is going to do those then?