The Express.
London, England, 1857-09-08 00:00:00

THE DIVORCE BILL

TO Tf7 IDITOI OF TIM =PR &

Sta,—As the surely-enacted Law et Divorce may
be considered essentially a woman's law, I trust you
will allow me to offer through your columns to the
public a woman's opinion on a measure which inti-
mately affects the welfare and the happiness of her
countrywomen.
Without denying that this new enactment will
remedy some of the very serious' grievances under
which the married women of England have hitherto
laboured, I do emphatically assert that this act,
valuable in several respects as it may be, is yet ob-
noxious to the reproach of flagrantly contravening
in certain of its provisions the principles of justice
as well as the Gospel code of morality:
That the principles of justice are violated by this
enactment can be easily shown, by a simple state-
ment as to the respective position of husband and
wife in regard to matrimonial unfaithfulness, under
the action of this new law. The wife who infringes
her marriage vows is instantly amenable to punish-
ment. The tie she has dishonoured may be imme-
diately unloosened. Her children are removed from
her contaminating influence. By the means of the
newspapers her shame, made known in a public trial,
is published through the length and breadth of the
land. Severely is she punished—severely, but justly
too ; for the wife who proves false to her highest
duties deserves that a heavy retribution for her sin
should fall upon her head.
But how stands the case with the delinquent hus-
band? In very teeth, I know wertiow to describe his
position under this law except as that of one whose
right to indulge, with certain light restrictions, in
the pleasures of polygamy has been solemnly asserted
and confirmed by the legislature. For what says
do act on the subject of adultery committed by the
husband? Does it not exprray declare that un-
hithfulness on his part, unless accompanied by
ertralty, by bigamy, and still more gross offences,
gives the wife no claim to demand a divorce from
her offending partner ? Now, though it would be •
calumny to assert that the majority of married
Englishmen would be disposed to take advantage of
the virtual license to profligacy thus bestowed, yet
from incidents that are forced upon one's knowledge
through the whispsers of the private circle,
or the columns of the public prints, the
fact stands out palpable and distinct, that
amongst the class m question there is to be
found • far from insignificant number of in-
dividuals fully inclined to avail themselves
of the Muhometan privileges which for the first
time clearly and unequivocally have been conferred
on rich and poor alike by the legislature of this
country. "Sin at your peril," says the new law to the
wife ; one single lapse from virtue shall have power
to drive you from your home, to dissolve the mar-
riage tie, to consign you to public infamy, to reduce
you it mat be from effluence to poverty." " Sin if
you please, says, on the contrary, the law to the
husband, " on condition you reside with your wife
occasionally, and do not maltreat her personally;
end provided you thus abstain from actual deser-
tion and from actual cruelty, we restrict you not
in the number of your mistresses ; we give you full
permission to enjoy their society, even under the
roof that shelters your wife, and we acknowledge
your right to obtain a release from your unfaithful
partner for the same offence in her of which you
may hare set her the example first." Truly, with
each an act before us, with such principles clearly
laid down by the legislature, we women have every
reason to raise • loud protest against the flagrant
deficiency in point of justice of the act relating to
divorce which has been the produce of the recently
terminated session of parliament.
" The grievance of the wife is a mere sentimental
one," said a member of the House of Commons in
support of the distinction made; but surely, if the
utterer of that remark had reflected duly on the sub-
ject, and had reflected on the deep misery resulting
almost invariably to the wife front the grievance
designated in this slighting way, he would
have refrained from characterising an English
wife's deepest injury by such a contemptuous phrase;
" Love is of mans life • thing apart—'tins woman's
whole existence," was most truly said ; and the
keenest pangs that women feel result from the lace-
ration of their affections. The husband, unhappy
in domestic life, may find in the world without, in
work of head or hand, in the pursuit of riches, in the
stimulus of ambition, abundant sources of interest to
attach him to existence. But the wife, the unfor-
tunate partner of an unworthy husband—the wife,
whose avocations, thoughts, and wishes, hopes and
fears, wander not beyond the precincts of her
own fire-side—how utterly, bow irretrievably
is her happiness wrecked on the shoal of marital
neglect, unkindness, and more especially, unfaithful-
ness. For whilst this latter injury almost invariably
implies the existence of the two first-mentioned
sources of suffering, it contains in itself a sting so
sharp, so keen that no frown, no angry word, nor
even the hasty blow of passion dealt by a husband's
hand, has the power to inflict upon the wife such
pain as the thought, the feeling, the conviction that
another woman reigns supreme over the heart that
once was hers. By day and night that remem-
' brance, fed by the fuel of unkind glances
and unkinder words, burns in her brain, consumes
j her peace, and leads her, if meek-spirited, to the
grave ; or, if hot-tempered, goads her on to sin.
" A sentimental grievance !" Truly en injury that
bears such fruits, that preys like • canker on the
heart, and destroys the bnght promise and fresh
bloom of life, deserves to be designated in nil pro-
priety by some more opprobrious term.
j • Ifjustice condemns the distinction made between
the sexes in this new act, no less repugnant will
that distinction be found to be to the gospel code of
morality. So evidently is this the case, that whilst
on all questions connected with the moral law, the
Scriptures are almost invariably referred to as an
authority and guide upon some disputed point, not
one single text was adduced in this particular in-
stance to support the doctrine that adultery was
simply a feminine crime. How, indeed, could it be
otherwise, when every reader of the New Testament
knows full well that parity of thought and chastity
of conduct us therein enjoined equally on man
and women? How presumes then the legislature to
degrade the beauty of the Christian faith, to weaken
the check it places on man's sensual passions, and so
in the very point that agrarian" most this faith
Isom every. other form of religion which has existed
or still exists, to establish distinctions by the high
hand of law at variance with the public good, as
well as destructive of private happiness. Let
not the cods of the world's opinion be brought
in to justify a sin. If the standard of right and
wrong that the world rats up is opposed to the
teachings of our faith, the law should strive to
raise up that code to what it ought to be, end
not to sink itself to a debased level. Powerfully do
the vices of domestic life tell on the national cha-
meter, and from the homes where mutual love, and
trust, and confidence between husband and wife
cannot be found, proceeds a race but little cal-
sedated to reflect honour on their country's name.
Injustice bears always an avenging sword ; and man
sea do no wrong to woman, in regard to her social
rights, of which the consequences will not re-act
most prejudicially on himself. History, both pest
and present, tells moat forcibly
.that tale ; but the
Leon taught thus impressively is for the most part
overlooked or scorned in the prompting* of sel-
sees, and in the tendency that universally
exists of the strong to oppress the weak—
influences to which we Englishwomen owe
that provision in the new act conferring on the in-
jured husband • relief that under corresponding
circumstances is denied to the injured wife.
But it may be said,. why denounce this act or any
portion of this act, since the new law, while it de-
prives no English wife of any privileges she has
hitherto enjoyed, remedies some serious grievances
under which she has been labouring? Granted;
but while admitting that such a statement racorrect,
' there still exist stiong reasons for maintaining that

8, 1887.

women are fairly justified in expressing dissatisfac-
tion with the measure in quests n. Under the old
state of things the principle of the English law
being adverse to divorce, this relief could only be
obtained as a special privilege by the rich at a
high cost; and thus, practically speaking, the
English husband and wife, as far as the
great mass of the community was concerned,
stood on the same footing, the marriage knot being
for them both equally indissoluble. Now, however,
when the former partial privilege has become a
general one, and the principle of divorce has been
recognised by law, the limitation of relief to one
sex alone in a great degree, not only makes the pri-
vation on the other aide more difficult to be borne,
but gives fresh vitality and force to the doctrine
that conjugal unfaithfulness is a mere peccadillo in a
husband-. Besides, in this present era of progress
and improvement when the marks of intolerance and
prejudice are being rapidly effaced from the statute
book of England, the women of this country had
reason to expect that in a nation which arrogates
to itself a foremost place in the ranks of freedom,
intelligence, and civilisation, legislation, when it did
make an onward movement in their behalf, should
not still have left them in a position, as regards
their social rights, inferior to that enjoyed by their
sex in other lands.
MARTHA LENNOX.

LATTA!? FROM INDIA.

The following letter (says the Glasgow Doily
Nag) is how ea oaleer fa the Mabee praidisey to •p'
timer' in °know. The pliant officer has bean ihhey ran
ha ladle

" Walfam, Vizagepetern, July 17, 1867.
" Thanks for your most kind letter, which 1 recolved •
couple of days ago. In tree times of trouble and wrier-
tarty, I am slue that you will be glad to have it under my
own hand end seal that our bade are comfortably on our
own shoulders, end that, so far as human foresight goes,
matters look well for us in Southern India. Our ses
oe have ham instan proved faithless ; they have been see
tried, and Invited to strike a blow for native supremacy
their religion. This Is a religious war, there is not a
doubt of it ; but it is one excited by • mall party, no
doubt of Mahomedsna. In this party the Ring of
Delhi and the ei-K ing of Oude, and their selective fami-
lies, are deeply interested— implicated, I should rather
say. The inetigators of this rebellion knew that Lord
Canning had about as much intention of coercing them into
Christianity as I have of preaching Brahminiem in Glans,
Cathedral; and, whatever may be rid to the contrary, I
enure you that perfect neutrality has ever been the attitude
of the Indian government on this question. When the
notion was once got into the minds of the sepoys and people
it spread like wild-fire; awl so deep was the impression, and
Is, that we were determined on forcible conversion, that even
the well disposed Kends:den In Oude, who humanely gave
protection to our poor fugitive*, were afraid to eras the
Gauges for fear of being made Chrietians, and even wretches
and murderers on the gallows, when about to pay the forfeit
of their crimes, of their good-for-nothing lives. have shouted
out that, if spared, they would be glad to become Christians.
We hope that the tide has begun to turn, or, at least, that it is
now high water in this torrent of disaster. It is difficult,
it is impossible to exaggerate the magnitude of this min-
fortune—of this terrible crisis. The whole of the Bengal
native army, with an insigniacent exception, is gone—guts
only in the Army List. In two months it has melted away;
its officers basely slain under their own colours; their wire
—how shall I write it I—dishonoured first, in many mess,
and then murdered, the children being often car into the
flames of the burning houses before the eyes of the still
living parents, or hewn in pieces. The details are too re.
wiling, and such things may sot Le printed; even now
it is with suppressed breath and grinding teeth that w'
erg of them. It is little of an ezeggeraticn Wry that
we hunger and thirst foe the day of retribution—gray It
is et band ; for every European murdered at leer a
hundred of thane dogs hare died, and that has yet to be
multipled by ten. Nothing could exceed the confuses.
The country, from ten mar out of Calcutta up the greet
trunk road to the Sidl) was lost; nothing remained but
what was within range of the muskets of the European sol-
diers. We bad the ground on which they stood no mote.
For upwards of a month the Govemor-Oeseral knew nothing
that was going on above Berra; not • line reached him;
all was uncertainty. At lase the government, rather than
publiab nothing, were driven to publish scraps out of letters
of native bankers. In this way they published in general
orders the fall of Delhi when it had not fallen; and, when I
now writ* (July 17), we do not know, although we hope
that it has et last lallm ; and Lord Canning was no better
informed so UM as the 10th and Ilth inst. Banana was
saved by the &saner of Colonel Neill and the let Madras
Fusiliers. Angelis& • name that will long be remembered
with sorrow and with game in our annals., was recovered
by the afro officer. Cawnpore, we hope, but are not sum
re been relieved, although two days ego it was believed
that brave old Sir Hugh Wheeler had been killed, and the
email eyries, with all the haplere women end children,
put to the word. Lucknow up to last deer, was held, or
rather the Residency, by Hat fine fellow Sir Henry Law-
rie" whose praise is in ell our mouths, end a small but
gallant band. Agra the mailmen never had • and the Pun-
rub, in the ire reap of Jolts Lawrence mid noble Cham-
berlain, a eplendid our, woe kept quiet. Indoor in gone
the Resident • fugitive; so Is Whew; so is &m-
-gr. But we hope that the force that relieved Caen-
pore, with aid from Agra, will mesh on to relieve Lucknow,
end with Delhi is ashes, the muck king slain or • prisoner

on hiawsit;erlcutta, things will begin to settle down;
soon troops will come to Calentta that were destined for
China—at leant a part of them—and with these we can tide
CVO, until aid arrives from England, end all will go well at
the last; that is, always provided Southern and Western
India keep quiet. The want of EUTOpelig troops with usin
this presidency is Waged ludicrous. Before the mutiny we
had only four regiments of infantry and ons of cavalry, or
rather ha • regiment of cavalry ; and now that we have
sent one to Bengal, we have only three, and theme hundred.
of miles apart. If government at home do not call the
Beard of Control to account, you deserve that we
ahnuld every one of us be cut to pieces, and that India
should past from you The government at home accepted
what I luny mil half of Lord Dalhourien policy; they
accepted hta annexation of Cade without the troops. The
European troop. he declared to beneemeary to hold it; and
more than this, they took away four of the dread,' inadequate
number of regiments, and they left government here wttLoat
theme/um of keeping one regiment at Nag. pore—a newly-
ennsited territory. It has been bell—co thanks to them—
'by our Made... troop.. Far this folly—for this flagrant
military and political Meader—surely you will call them to
account. le Mr. Vernon Smith the man to when to
entrust India? At hie door the mischief lies. Everybody
in authority here, from lend Dalhouaie downwards. ran prove
that. He wan warned of the consequences. The whole
government has to be rwoorufracted ; its whole machinery
I. destroyed. The destraction of property, private and
public' is complete; and, for the future, the government of
India carried on not on the rose-water principle. But, oh,
me 1 who will give no back our dead? who will wipe out
this terrible disaster ? In the dilinem of the tight we fancy
we hear the innocent blood, spilt on the ground like water,
crying nut—' How long ! how long, oh, Lord !' Many a deli-
cate WOMBS, flying to the jungle with her little one, trusting
rather to the tiger, who could but kill, must have thought,
In her agony„ of the words of ear Lord—l read them this
day—' Maud Wow now) are the berm, and the wombs that
SOTO. hen, NA the pap that arm ply suck.' "