ABSTRACT
Like their upper-class sisters, both the ‘respectables’ and the ‘roughs’ were legally subject to the Common Law with all its disabilities. The law and the courts were things to be avoided wherever possible, and as far as marital relations were concerned only came into play in extremis, when disaster struck in the shape of life-threatening violence, uncovered bigamy, a sick, dead or convicted spouse, or the abyss of poverty. When husbands deserted their wives they rarely took the children with them, so there were few disputes about child custody. In 1909, in evidence to the Royal Commission on Divorce, the representatives of the Women’s Co-operative Guild, representing the intelligent and thrifty working class, said it was commonly thought that women wished marriage to be irrevocable and there was no reason for reform of the divorce law.
