Chapter II: Introduction

“He that telleth a tale to a fool speaketh to one in a slumber: when
he hath told his tale, he will say, What is the matter?”

_Ecclesiasticus_, xxii. 8.

I admire the way in which the old preachers and prophets who failed to make their meaning clear to their neighbours always turned round upon them and called them fools. It is a habit that still obtains with us, especially among modern journalists, but we do it, I think, with less conviction and certainly in poorer rhythm and epigram.

All that the writer in the _Apocrypha_ wanted to say was that when he spoke about the social reforms with which his mind was over-burdened nobody wanted to listen to him, and this was no doubt entirely his own fault. The fact is that every citizen is in a slumber over the affairs of his own generation. He is wide awake enough about the shocking morals of Central African natives, or the awful social system of the eighteenth century, but when you want to tell him tales about slum dwellings, sweating and infant mortality in his own parish, he yawns deprecatingly and asks, “What is the matter?”

I have noticed this attitude of mind among those to whom one has spoken upon the subject matter of this little book. When people discuss the rights and wrongs of Woman, other patient, sensible people are particularly puzzled to know “What is the matter?” Now there is probably a great deal the matter which is wholly outside the Law, and this may safely be left with the neurotic, hysterical and imaginative novelist to make her fortune with. Psychology and physiology are dangerous matters for the ignorant to write about, that the still more ignorant may enjoy unwholesome thrills. Herein I can promise you no such entertainment. All I have sought to do is to make a little practical handbook, stating in everyday language how the Law as administered in our Courts to-day seems to me to deal out to Woman justice of an inferior quality. How far this is so, how it came about, and how with the least alteration and confusion it can be remedied, is the plain tale I have set out to tell.

Let me say at the outset that this is not a law book, and though I do not suppose that there is more bad law contained in it than in many books written solely for lawyers, yet I wish to state that its primary object is not to interest professional legal men, and as unfortunately there are no professional legal women to be interested in it, I live in hopes that it may be found acceptable, as the Victorians would have phrased it, to many “fair readers.”

Though indeed I ought to warn intending fair readers that they may not find it altogether to their mind--I have a feeling that to write a popular book about the Law and the Woman it ought to be written by some far-seeing philosopher who could assure Woman that in the near future simple adjustments and alterations of existing laws would bring about a vast increase in the happiness and prosperity of a large number of women. As I do not believe that this will happen I cannot prophesy it.

I have long come to the conclusion that Law has a great deal less to do with happiness and comfort than people imagine. I am rather of opinion that though it would be well if the laws of our country coincided with the general common sense and humanity of the generation we live in, yet in spite of the antiquated imperfection and even absurdity of much of our law, human beings can to-day, as they have in the past, achieve a certain amount of happiness by the exercise of good sense in the management of their own social affairs.

I remember more than thirty years ago when I was editing Dorothy Osborne’s letters, which were written in 1652-1654, making what was then to me a great discovery. I found that amidst the sweep up of the Civil Wars, when one would expect if ever to find bitterness, hatred and gloom, the social life of the countryside resumed its homely, placid course much as it does to-day within a few months of a general election. Men and women went on with their gossip and their social duties of everyday life, including the courtship and marriage of the young folk of enemy households, and very soon even visits to favourite watering-places and the pleasures of hospitality became the common round and daily task of Dorothy Osborne and her friends.

The historians are no doubt right in impressing you with the idea that history is a matter of governments, treaties and parliaments and laws, but it dawns upon you when you escape from the glamour of the wisdom of professors that not one of these things exercises an overwhelming influence over the happiness of human beings.

Holding this view very strongly, it would be absurd in me to suggest that this little book could possibly bring about any reforms of great social value even if some caliph were to arise and enact it as Law the day after its publication. The best it can hope for is to assist the public in moving away some of the minor legal obstructions that are utterly out of date, and thereby to contribute in a small degree towards social betterment. There is a lot of legal machinery that is merely waiting for a friendly shove to topple on to its last resting-place on the scrap heap. Much of this Law is connected with Woman, and it is only chivalrous and respectful to help to clear it out of her path.

Here is where I think essays of this kind may be of service. Originating in a series of articles in the _Sunday Chronicle_, they have been revised and rewritten for the use of the average citizen who cannot in the nature of things read the multitude of books which deal with the history of the Law in relation to Woman; and without some notion of the evolution of things and how they stand at present there is little hope of his finding out the line of least resistance along which he can advance towards reform.

Real reform perhaps does not come through Law, for Law is only a statement--or more often the repeal of a statement--made long after society has decided for itself what it intends to do. The real reform is made when the will of the people is decided and acted upon, though the legal reform may not come along for years afterwards.

The law relating to marriage with a deceased wife’s sister is an example. Here the reform of the Law did nothing more than formalize what all individuals with any sense of personal respect had long ago decided and enacted for themselves outside the Law. Still there is no doubt that many unjust laws are irksome, inconvenient and the cause of unhappiness, especially to women, and as they can readily and easily be repealed--and it is an undoubted fact that we want fewer laws--the cause is one well worth working for.

In these pages, then, I have sought to point out the paths along which the reformer can make for the heights of greater freedom and justice for Woman as far as these things are attainable by Law, and though I cannot see any Millennium to be brought about by legal reform, yet I do not despise it, for I believe it to be a sensible, practical business, and the study of it leads one among strange forgotten thinkers and writers and is full of entertainment. We cannot all be great statesmen bringing in far-reaching social schemes, nor are our great architects of social salvation palaces invariably successful, for even their magnificent edifices are found sometimes in a few years to be letting in mud and water and showing signs of dry rot in the green timbers of their foundations.

There are many small matters of legal reform touched upon in these pages which could be made Law with very little trouble and which would in my view make for happiness. When the Man in the Street understands a little better how the Law stands in relation to Woman and what are the battles of reform which are already half won, he will be able to help Woman to fight these to a finish, and in this way leave the world a little better than he found it.

EDWARD A. PARRY.

SEVENOAKS, 1916.