Fighting for Her Dignity, and Her Children, at the Cost of Her Reputation

THE CASE OF THE MARRIED WOMAN: Caroline Norton and Her Combat for Girls’s Justice, by Antonia Fraser

Many trendy ladies might nicely bear in mind a time after they couldn’t open a checking account, or signal for a mortgage, and not using a countersignature from their husband or father. Antonia Fraser, in her ninetieth 12 months, definitely will. What none of us, fortunately, can bear in mind is the time when married ladies had no authorized standing in any respect. As soon as a girl married, her authorized identification was subsumed into that of her husband. A married girl couldn’t signal a contract, nor draw up a will. She had no money owed — which sounds nice, till you understand that she couldn’t owe cash, as a result of all her cash, even that she earned herself, belonged to her husband, as did all her possessions. As did her kids.

That this modified was partly because of the heroic campaigning, and the tragic story, of Caroline Norton, as conveyed in Fraser’s new e-book. She was the granddaughter of the playwright and politician Richard Brinsley Sheridan, writer of “The College for Scandal,” a title that will come to appear all too apt. Born in 1808, 30 years earlier than Queen Victoria got here to the throne, she and her two equally lovely sisters made a stir after they debuted in society. Her sisters married titled males, whereas Caroline married George Norton, who, whereas a youthful son, had hopes of a title of his personal — however would additionally grow to be jealous, violent, petty and unremittingly vicious.

Their early married life was comparatively easy. The couple had three kids at the same time as their house grew to become a political salon, with the stunning Mrs. Norton at its middle. Certainly, as she shone and her husband more and more took a again seat, he started to really feel she was maybe an excessive amount of on the middle. He might have been joyful for his charming spouse to make use of her affect with the prime minister, Lord Melbourne, to achieve George a plum sinecure, however at house, he was much less joyful that she wielded such affect in any respect. Equally, whereas George was delighted to spend the cash Caroline earned as a author of modern novels and verse, he resented that others had been extra fascinated by assembly the society writer than the surly, laconic Justice of the Peace.

Since a spouse was the authorized property of her husband, and adultery lowered the worth of that property, the spouse’s lover could possibly be sued for monetary compensation.

In 1836, after yet one more episode of her husband’s violence, Caroline went to stick with her mother and father. George moved their kids (the youngest not but 3) to his sister’s home, the place he forcibly detained them, refusing Caroline entry. He additionally claimed her earnings as a author. All this was, on the time, his authorized proper.