Although the Aberdeen administration had first proposed to simplify divorces by creating a civil court, the Liberal leader, William Gladstone (1809-98) had vigorously opposed it when Lord Palmerston's administration re-introduced the legislation in 1855. Although a few prominent politicians such as Gladstone regarded the initiative as usurping the authority of the Church of England, with the support of the Archbishop of Canterbury, noted evangelical and theologian John Bird Sumner, it passed the House of Lords, and then the Commons, despite Gladstone's attempted filibuster. Lever’s presenting the discussion of the new divorce law in Chapter Ten as a progressive shows both that he clearly approved of Palmerston's attempts at liberalization but that he believed that the new law’s grounds for divorce still too restrictive — as Dickens's case, much discussed in publishing circles, clearly demonstrated.
To obtain a divorce rather than a mere separation, Catherine Dickens would have had to have proof not merely of Charles's infidelity (perhaps obvious enough, considering his relationship with young actress Ellen Ternan), but would have had to support a charge of bigamy, incest, sodomy, or cruelty. Such evidence Catherine did not have, and it is entirely possible, as Lillian Nayder and Claire Tomlin note, that, although Dickens was infatuated with Ellen and supporting her financially, "they my not have become sexually intimate until the early 1860s" (Nayder, p. 254). Under the ecclesiastical decree that Catherine might have obtained for desertion, she would not have been able to remarry and, more significantly, would not have been able to regain her property rights under common law. Had she had the appropriate grounds for a divorce under the new act, Catherine, like Anna Dickens, would probably have been able to regain her property rights. Reading Lever's novel with an eye to the issue of a putative divorce for Lady Grace Twining, one can see that only aggravated adultery would have given the long-suffering Mrs. Twining the freedom to re-marry.
Related Material: Victorian Divorce
- Doctors' Commons
- "No Escape to be Had, No Absolution to be Got": Divorce in the Lives and Novels of Charles Dickens and Caroline Norton
- The Origins of Victorian Divorce Law
- Art and Life: Dickens's Mistresses and Dickens's Heroines
Bibliography
Davis, Paul. "Divorce." Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life ans Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998. Page 106.
Last modified 6 August 2019