Lord Justice Denning, in an address to the National Marriage Guidance Council at Rustington, Sussex, last night, said the fact that women had gained equality with men had tremendous potentialities for civilization, but whether it was for good or bad had yet to be seen.
Freedom for women proved disastrous to the Roman society. Morals decayed, the marital tie became the laxest the western world had seen, and that decay of morality was a factor in the fall of the Roman Empire. The loose practices of Rome accounted in large part for the attitude of the Christian Church on those matters.
Speaking of the traces of a wife's former servitude still to be found in the law, Lord Justice Denning said that actions for enticement and breach of promise of marriage were now an anachronism: they treated betrothals and marriages as if they were legal contracts, whereas they were in truth solemn promises which were more a matter for the honour and conscience of the parties than a subject for money claims.
GREAT INDEPENDENCE
It could now be said of the Englishwoman, as Sir Henry Maine said of the Roman female, that her situation, whether married or unmarried had become one of great personal and proprietary independence. There were a few inequalities left, such as in regard to savings on housekeeping allowances and joint effects, but those might perhaps properly be left to be decided by agreement.
Against all this independence, the husband still remained under great obligations in law. He was liable to maintain his wife: he must go out and work to support her, but she was not bound to work to support him. She could still pledge his credit for necessaries, but he could not pledge hers, no matter how rich she was and how much she earned. She could sue him in the courts for protection of her property, but he could not sue her. If it came to separation or divorce the courts would enforce his obligation to maintain her, unless she had sufficient means of her own or had forfeited her right by her own conduct, and he was as a rule, compelled to pay the costs.
"She is now indeed the spoilt darling of the law, and he the patient pack-horse," Lord Justice Denning said. "By putting these obligations on the husband, however, the law recognizes the natural state of affairs whereby the man's proper function is to work to provide for his wife and family, and the woman's proper place is to look after the home and bring up the children. If a wife is to do these things properly she has usually to withdraw from the money market and find her reward in the home - a reward which is much more worth while."
"DISRUPTIVE FORCES"
Of the "disruptive forces resulting from the change in status," he continued: "When women are independent and able to earn their own living, they are not so disposed to put up with the monotony and drudgery of housework. They seek the greater interest of the world outside. This is no bad thing in itself, but when mothers go out to work and leave their young children to the care of others, or send them to nursery schools, it does not strengthen the bond between mother and child, and may tend to weaken it."
"When a wife takes work which throws her much into the company of another man she may run into temptation which she could not meet at home. It is not perhaps a mere coincidence that, with the emancipation of women there has come a great rise in divorce. A good deal of it is no doubt due to the fact that women are no longer prepared to put up with the cruelty and misconduct of husbands as they did before, and seek divorce instead."
"It is possible - but I hope it is not the case - that, with greater freedom, there has been greater laxity on the part of women. Freedom had that result in Rome and we ought not to ignore the possibility of it here. I believe, however, that that is not true as yet. The moral standards of the average woman of to-day are as high as those of her great-grandmother: but it is important that this should remain so. The morality of the race depends on the morality of the womenfolk."
