Letter to the Queen, A.
“This is my personal cause; it is the cause of all the women of England”
[Norton, Caroline]. A Letter to the Queen… London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1855.
8vo.; contemporary brown cloth; stamped in gilt. In a specially made cloth slipcase.
First edition of Norton’s pamphlet advocating marital legislative reform for women; she explains, “This condition of the English law; its anomalies, its injustice, its actions for damages and discrimination., and its perpetual contradictions, have long marked it out for reform” (p. 16). She wrote it in June, 1855, in anticipation of Lord Chancellor Cranworth’s marriage reform bill that was expected to be brought to the House that month.
Norton makes clear at the outset of her letter to the Queen that although she has personally suffered under the current marriage and divorce laws, her reasons for writing are not entirely selfish: “The vague romance of ‘carrying my wrongs to the throne,’ forms no part of my intention: for I know the throne is powerless to redress them” (p. 4). She even denounces Cranworth by saying his mind was warped by sexism, and that he was proposing a bill that would only “legalise (sic) a special indulgence to the animal passions of men” (p. 22).
Norton points out that, at the time of her writing, married women were considered non-existent – “a married woman in England has no legal existence: her being is absorbed in that of her husband” (p. 8) – yet their country was ruled by a woman and therefore any laws passed have to be approved and passed by the Queen. She goes on to list all of the things a married woman is forbidden to do – own property, make wills, claim earnings, prosecute for libel, sign a lease, claim support from her husband, or leave her husband’s house – even if she is getting physically abused. She continues to note the absurdities of the law by giving examples of cases in which women have been unable to escape from harmful situations – providing details of her own experiences as well – presenting a persuasive argument for reform. She gives examples of how she was stonewalled each time she attempted to divorce her husband:
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-uasge, 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 incredible hardship; but there is no “possible way in which the LAW could assist “you.”
Norton even acknowledges the scandal that further complicated her dealings with her husband and her fight for divorce reform and custody rights for her children – the allegations that she was having an affair with Lord Melbourne. She writes, “I declare, upon the holy sacraments of God, that I was not Lord Melbourne’s mistress; and, what is more, I do not believe (and nothing shall ever make me believe), that Mr Norton ever thought that I was. In that miserable fact is the root of all my bitterness, and of all his inconsistency!” (p. 127). She goes on to proclaim that the current laws are “simply ridiculous” (p. 131). After reading her arguments, one is hard-pressed to disagree.
Norton is so fluent in her understanding of the laws, not only because she experienced their limitations, but also because her husband was a lawyer who taught her about them. For both reasons, she was one of the most qualified women to insist upon reform:
It was meant for me to rouse the hearts of others to examine into all the gross injustice of these laws, – to
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