How did society work for Lady Chatterly?

November 28, 2006 4:32 PM

I just read Lady Chatterly's Lover, and I'm a little confused by some aspects of society in the novel. (spoilers ahead)

When Mellors is waiting for his divorce, if his wife/the court finds out he is having an affair, the divorce will not be awarded. How does this work? Why is it even relevant, when his wife has been living with another man for years?

posted by jacalata to society & culture (4 comments total)

As far as I understand it, at the time the novel was written one party would have to sue the other for divorce, alleging some misconduct such as adultery or cruelty. If the suing party was not "innocent" - i.e. also having an affair - or the supposed guilty party was innocent, a judge would deny the divorce.

I remember a passage in the Dorothy Sayers novel Busman's Honeymoon written a few years later in which a character talks about a man's wife wanting to divorce him. He spent a fake adulterous weekend with a hired nobody, but the judge denied it because he figured out the setup (the implication was that the judge had also hired the same nobody in the past). Sayers put it much better, really.
posted by expialidocious at 5:00 PM on November 28, 2006

IIRC, the party requesting the divorce had to be seen to be leading a blameless life. There was no such thing as a no-fault divorce, where both parties say 'irreconcilable differences' and that's the end of it (vastly simplified, but you know what I mean). In the era when LCL was set, divorces were only granted 'for cause', and it had to be a major cause. And the requesting party had to be innocent of whatever cause they were trying to get the divorce granted for.

No, it's not really relevant, but that's the way the laws in England worked at that time.
posted by jlkr at 6:05 PM on November 28, 2006

Thanks, both. How .... strange!
posted by jacalata at 6:24 PM on November 28, 2006

For some time it was common practice to fake an affair.

If the wife had an affair then the man would arrange to be 'caught' with another woman, providing a cause for the divorce. Blaming the man meant giving the wife a clean reputation and means the man doesn't get labelled a cuckold.

Not technically relevant, but I thought it might be of interest...
posted by twine42 at 5:25 AM on November 29, 2006