The Spectacle of Divorce Law in Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust and A. P. Herbert's Holy Deadlock

Abstract

The article examines the way Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust (1934) and A. P. Herbert's Holy Deadlock (1934) express popular dissent against the divorce laws of England in the 1930s. These novels satirized the legal process of obtaining a divorce as farcical and tainted by parties colluding to stage “hotel divorces” in order to satisfy the single-fault ground of adultery. This article argues that these novels helped to articulate widespread opposition towards the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, which only allowed divorce to be granted for adultery alone. The writings also spurred parliamentary debate and ultimately paved the way forward for the introduction of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1937. Herbert played a unique part in the campaign for divorce law reform. Both as a novelist and as a parliamentarian, Herbert composed legal satires and successfully introduced the Divorce Bill into the British Parliament respectively.

Keywords:

• divorce law
• law reform
• newspapers
• interwar Britain
• Evelyn Waugh
• A. P. Herbert

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Matrimonial Causes Act 1923, 13 & 14 Geo V, c 19.

2. Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, 20 & 21 Vict, c 85.

3. David Ibbetson, “What is Legal History a History Of?” in Law and History, ed. Andrew Lewis and Michael Lobban (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 33–35.

4. Rebecca Probert, Marriage Law and Practice in the Long Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 13.

5. David Ibbetson, “Historical Research in Law,” in The Oxford Handbook of Legal Studies, ed. Peter Cane and Mark Tushnet (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 876.

6. Ian Ward, Law and Literature: Possibilities and Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 7.

7. Kieran Dolin, Fiction and the Law: Legal Discourse in Victorian and Modernist Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 1.

8. Ibid., 4.

9. John M. Gest, “The Law and Lawyers of Charles Dickens,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 53, no. 7 (1905): 401–26; Larry M. Wertheim, “Law, Literature and Morality in the Novels of Charles Dickens,” William Mitchell Law Review 20, no. 1 (1994): 111–54.

10. Henry Kha and Warren Swain, “The Enactment of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857: The Campbell Commission and the Parliamentary Debates,” Journal of Legal History 37, no. 3 (2016): 303–30.

11. Matrimonial Causes Act 1860, 23 & 24 Vict, c 144. The gender of the reigning monarch determined whether the office was referred to either as King's or Queen's Proctor. I will refer to the office as one or the other based on the reigning monarch at the time.

12. Matrimonial Causes Act 1878, 41 & 42 Vict, c 19.

13. Matrimonial Causes Act 1884, 47 & 48 Vict, c 68.

14. Summary Jurisdiction (Married Women) Act 1895, 58 & 59 Vict, c 39.

15. Married Women's Property Act 1870, 33 & 34 Vict, c 93.

16. Married Women's Property Act 1882, 45 & 46 Vict, c 75.

17. William Cornish, “Wives: The Quest for Civil Independence,” in The Oxford History of the Laws of England: Volume XIII, ed. William Cornish, J. Stuart Anderson, Ray Cocks, Michael Lobban, Patrick Polden, and Keith Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 766.

18. Report of the Royal Commission on Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, Cmnd. 6478 (1912).

19. Stephen Cretney, Family Law in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 210.

20. Solicitors’ Journal 54 (November 6, 1909): 24.

21. Lawrence Stone, Road to Divorce (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 435.

22. Report of the Royal Commission on Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, iii.

23. Ibid., 113.

24. Ibid., 89.

25. Ibid., 46.

26. Dodd v Dodd [1906] P 189.

27. Ann Sumner Holmes, “The Double Standard in the English Divorce Laws, 1857–1923,” Law and Social Inquiry 20, no. 2 (1995): 616.

28. Arthur Marwick, The Deluge (London: Bodley Head, 1965), 96.

29. Matrimonial Causes Act 1923, s. 1.

30. Cretney, Family Law in the Twentieth Century, 213–20.

31. Hansard, Lords, November 12, 1918, vol. 31, col. 1184; Hansard, Lords, June 22, 1920, vol. 39, col. 693.

32. Wilson v Wilson [1920] P 20; Rebecca Probert, The Changing Legal Regulation of Cohabitation: From Fornicators to Family, 1600–2010 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 131–33.

33. Stone, Road to Divorce, 435.

34. Lesley Hall, Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain Since 1880 (London: Macmillan, 2000), 84.

35. Marie Stopes, Married Love (1918; repr. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

36. Administration of Justice Act 1920, 10 & 11 Geo V, c 81.

37. Administration of Justice Act 1920, s. 1. Assize judges could exercise jurisdiction over any class or matter of matrimonial causes as prescribed by the Lord Chancellor.

38. Cretney, Family Law in the Twentieth Century, 306–08. The Poor Persons’ Procedure was established in 1914 and managed by the High Court Poor Persons’ Department for a decade. The procedure involved the department referring an application to a reporting solicitor. The lawyers were not allowed to profit for their work and the court would not charge fees or award costs either for or against the petitioner.

39. Gethin v Gethin (The Queen's Proctor Intervening) (1862) 2 Sw & Tr 560, 562–3.

40. Report of the Royal Commission on Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, Cmnd. 6479 (1912), 1: 72.

41. Alexander v Alexander and Amos (1860) 2 Sw & Tr 95.

42. Todd v Todd (1866) LR 1 P&D 121.

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid., 84.

45. Ibid.

46. Ibid., 77.

47. George Lewis, “Marriage and Divorce,” Fortnightly Review 37, no. 221 (May 1885): 649.

48. Report of the Royal Commission on Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, Cmnd. 6480 (1912), 2: 98.

49. Ibid., 99.

50. Claire Langhamer, “Adultery in Post-War England,” History Workshop Journal 62, no. 1 (2006): 101.

51. Judicial Proceedings (Regulation of Reports) Act 1926, 16 & 17 Geo V, c 61, s. 1(a).

52. Ibid., s. 1(b).

53. Russell v Russell [1924] P 1.

54. “Mr. Russell's Story of His Married Life,” Daily Mirror (London) (March 2, 1923), 1.

55. “Mr. John Russell's Divorce Petition,” The Times (London) (March 1, 1923), 5.

56. Illustrated Sunday Herald (London) (March 18, 1923), 2.

57. Stephen Cretney, “‘Disgusted, Buckingham Palace …’ – The Judicial Proceedings (Regulation of Reports) Act 1926,” Child and Family Law Quarterly 9, no. 1 (1997): 43–62.

58. Lucy Bland, “‘Hunnish Scenes’ and a ‘Virgin Birth’: A 1920s Case of Sexual and Bodily Ignorance,” History Workshop Journal Issue 73, no. 1 (2012): 118–43.

59. For example, “Harnett v Harnett,” The Times (London) (January 26, 1926), 5.

60. A. J. P. Taylor, English History 1914–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), 170.

61. The Times (London) (March 11–13 and 18–20, 1920).

62. Hansard, Commons, March 29, 1920, vol. 127, col. 912W.

63. Ibid., Commons, August 9, 1920, vol. 133, col. 32.

64. Ibid.

65. Martin Stannard, Evelyn Waugh: The Early Years 1903–1939 (London: J. M. Dent, 1986), 374.

66. David Punter, The Literature of Terror, Volume 2: The Modern Gothic, 2nd ed. (London: Longman, 1996), 183–84.

67. Avril Horner and Sue Zlosnik, Gothic and the Comic Turn (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005), 95–101.

68. Frederick L. Beaty, The Ironic World of Evelyn Waugh: A Study of Eight Novels (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1992), 104–06.

69. Ibid., 185.

70. Mark Amory, ed., The Letters of Evelyn Waugh (New Haven: Ticknor & Fields, 1980), 88.

71. Cretney, Family Law in the Twentieth Century, 176.

72. Evelyn Waugh, A Handful of Dust (London: Chapman & Hall, 1934), 201.

73. Robert Murray Davis, Evelyn Waugh, Writer (Norman: Pilgrim, 1981), 76.

74. Waugh, Handful of Dust, 147–48.

75. Ibid.

76. Barnes v Barnes and Grimwade (The Queen's Proctor Intervening) (1867) LR 1 P&D 505; Butler v Butler and Burnham (The Queen's Proctor Intervening) (1890) 15 PD 66; Churchward v Churchward and Holliday (The Queen's Proctor Intervening) [1895] P 7.

77. Waugh, Handful of Dust, 151.

78. Ibid., 164.

79. Ibid., 165.

80. Ibid., 166.

81. Ibid., 17.

82. Evelyn Waugh, “Letter to Henry Yorke (Green)” (September 1934), in Evelyn Waugh: The Critical Heritage, ed. Martin Stannard (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984), 157.

83. “Todd” has a similar pronunciation to the German word “tot,” meaning dead; Horner and Zlosnik, Gothic and the Comic Turn, 99–100.

84. Stannard, Evelyn Waugh: The Early Years, 381.

85. A. P. Herbert, Holy Deadlock (London: Methuen, 1934).

86. Ibid., 27.

87. R v Hall (1845), The Times (London) (April 3, 1845), discussed in O. R. McGregor, Divorce in England (London: Heinemann, 1957), 15–17.

88. Langhamer, “Adultery in Post-War England,” 100.

89. Herbert, Holy Deadlock, 109. The PD&A Division of the High Court succeeded the former civilian jurisdictions of Doctors’ Commons.

90. Reginald Pound, A. P. Herbert: A Biography (London: Michael Joseph, 1976), 116.

91. Ibid.

92. Theresa Sanders, Approaching Eden: Adam and Eve in Popular Culture (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), 1–10.

93. 1 Corinthians 15:56 (KJV).

94. Rose Macauley, “Horizon” (London, December 1946), 367, in Stannard, Evelyn Waugh: The Critical Heritage, 158.

95. G. S. R., “Holy Deadlock by A. P. Herbert,” Australian Quarterly 7, no. 25 (March 1935): 113.

96. Pound, A. P. Herbert, 115.

97. Ibid., 116.

98. “Propaganda in Literature: Mr. Herbert on Tradition of English Letters,” The Times (London) (April 13, 1934), 19.

99. Hansard, Commons, June 4, 1934, vol. 290, col. 566.

100. Ibid., Commons, June 13, 1934, vol. 290, col. 1690.

101. Ibid., Commons, June 4, 1934, vol. 290, col. 566.

102. Ibid., Commons, June 13, 1934, vol. 290, col. 1690.

103. A. P. Herbert, Uncommon Law (London: Methuen, 1935), 449.

104. 1 Ed VIII & 1 Geo VI, c 57.

105. E. S. P. Haynes, “Abolish the King's Proctor,” Spectator (London) (February 24, 1933), 7.

106. E. S. P. Haynes, “Lord Gorell's Matrimonial Causes Bill,” The English Review 459 (May 1921), 462–63.

107. Hansard, Commons, November 20, 1836, vol. 317, cols. 2088–89.

108. Ibid., Lords, July 7, 1937, vol. 106, col. 72.

109. Oscar Wilde, “The Decay of Lying,” in Intentions (London: J. R. Osgood, 1891), 31–32.

110. “Undefended Divorce Suit,” The Times (London) (October 28, 1936), 9.

111. The Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police investigated Mrs. Simpson and discovered that she had intimate relations with a secret lover. The police did not communicate this fact with the King's Proctor; Stephen Cretney, “The Divorce Law and the 1936 Abdication Crisis: A Supplemental Note,” Law Quarterly Review 120 (2004): 169.

112. Brian Inglis, Abdication (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1966), 352.

113. Stephen Cretney, “The King and the King's Proctor: The Abdication Crisis and the Divorce Laws 1936–1937,” Law Quarterly Review 116 (2000): 583–620.

114. Simpson, W. v Simpson, E.A. (Application by the King's Proctor for Directions), The Times (London) (March 20, 1937).

115. F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832–1987 (Aldershot: Parliamentary Research Services, 1989), 33.

116. Hansard, Commons, February 7, 1936, vol. 308, col. 505.

117. Ibid., Commons, May 20, 1936, vol. 312, col. 1191.

118. Dorothy Stetson, A Woman's Issue: the Politics of Family Law Reform in England (Westport: Greenwood, 1982), 118.

119. A. P. Herbert, The Ayes Have It: The Story of the Marriage Bill (London: Methuen, 1937), 59; Sharon Redmayne, “The Matrimonial Causes Act 1937: A Lesson in the Art of Compromise,” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 16, no. 2 (1993): 186.

120. Matrimonial Causes Bill 1936, 1 Ed VIII.

121. Hansard, Commons, November 20, 1936, vol. 317, cols. 2126–30.

122. Ibid., 2079–131.

123. Ibid., 2079.

124. Ibid., Lords, July 30, 1937, vol. 106, col. 1071.

125. Matrimonial Causes Act 1937, s. 14(2).

126. Ibid., s. 2.

127. Matrimonial Causes Bill 1936, cl. 1; Hansard, Commons, November 20, 1936, vol. 317, cols. 2084–87.

128. Cretney, Family Law in the Twentieth Century, 245.

129. Hansard, Lords, July 7, 1937, vol. 106, cols. 75–84. Lord Jessel proposed the amendment and considered five years too long.

130. Redmayne, “Matrimonial Causes Act 1937,” 191–95.

131. Ibid., 196–97.

132. Stetson, Woman's Issue, 125.

133. Redmayne, “Matrimonial Causes Act 1937,” 198.

134. Kieran Dolin, A Critical Introduction to Law and Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 140.

135. Probert, Marriage Law and Practice, 15.

136. Ward, Law and Literature, 4.

137. Owens v Owens [2017] EWCA Civ 182, [95].

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Henry Kha

Henry Kha is a lecturer in Law at the University of Auckland.