MR. HERSCHELL'S RESOLUTION.
E cannot express or feel any pleasure at Mr. Herschell's success in passing his resolution in favour of abolish- ing actions for Breach of Promise of Marriage. It seems to us one more proof among many that the present House of Commons, while sensitive as to the wrongs of the upper class, and eager for electoral reasons to conciliate the multitude, cares nothing about the middle sections of society. Lady Clara Vere de Vere will never bring an action for breach of promise, having much more powerful social means of obtaining redress. Jane Higg will never bring the action, because actions cost money, and because her brother has fists. But
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Amelia Roper, of Burton Crescent, will bring the action ; and as she has sustained a wrong, she ought to be enabled to do it, and not be told that, being a vulgar young woman, indifferent to the annoyance of a trial, and careless whether her letters are read or not, she is entitled to no protection from the Law. What are laws for, if not for the protection of such as she ? It is nonsense to say she has sustained no damage, unless she has been put to direct outlays of cash. Her engagement may have been protracted for years, may have changed her whole career, may have cost her opportunities of profitable employment, and may have absorbed her youth, leaving her in this world no prospect, except that of an old maid- hood passed in poverty. It may have been broken off for no reason but pure caprice, or because her lover sees a chance of a more profitable marriage. Mr. Herschell and his followers say that, granting all, there is still no reason for compensating her by compelling her suitor to enter a marriage which must be without affection, "loveless and joyless ; " but surely that is sentimentality unworthy of legislators. The law, as it stands, does not compel a marriage. The suit for breach of promise is not a suit for conjugal rights. What the law does do is to compel the man to think seriously before he inflicts an undeserved wrong, and to contribute in moderation to the future independence of the woman who, except in independ- ence, can find no commensation. It seems to us that this is just, and to import into it the argument that the best kind of women will not seek such independence, is simply to assert that none but the refined have a right to justice. The argu- ment that a man has always to take his jilting quietly, and rarely ventures into Court, and when he is there gets no verdict, has little to do with the matter. The man has suf- fered nothing except in his feelings, and it is not for her senti- mental loss, but for her actual loss, that the woman is com- pensated. Or, if the argument is sound, it is, like the argument that jurymen give ridiculous damages, and are swayed by humorous or pathetic counsel,—an argument not for abolishing such trials, but for conducting them like many other civil trials, and all trials in a London Magistrate's Court, that is, before a Judge, instead of a Judge and a Jury. It is impossible, in some parts of Ireland, to obtain a verdict against a man who has shot at an agrarian oppressor. Will this House of Commons therefore abolish the right of a landlord to prosecute his intended assassin ? Many lawyers say, and Mr. Herschell evidently thinks, that Amelia Roper can take very good care of herself, and needs no legal opportunity of claiming compensation ; but what has that to do with the matter? Is no man six feet high to have right of complaint, if assaulted by anybody of five feet eleven? The very object of law is to render self-protection less needful, and enable civilised people to dispense with that permanent attitude of self-defence, the necessity for which makes the Amelia Ropers so hard and grasping and unfeminine. There are entire classes of young men in this country who think nothing so amusing as an engagement which they never intend to fulfil, which is, in one way or another, if broken, a serious injury to the woman ; but which gratifies the vanity of the 'man, and gives him a sense of power. Literature is full of the Lothario who seduces ; but there is a vulgar Lothario in English country towns, who does not seduce, but whose pride is in the "conquest," marked by an engagement, and who rains the careers, though not the characters,, of a dozen young women before he finally "settles down " as the respectable brute he is. The only check on that kind of man is the chance of a fine, which Mr. Herschell, from Motives he would be the last to understand, proposes to abolish.
There is no need whatever to import the question of seduc- tion into this argument. Our contention is that the decent, reputable girl, who can take care of herself, and is no more likely to be seduced than her mother is, who is rather brassy than retiring, and who would go into Court as frankly as a barmaid, has a right, in spite of her objectionable want of high civilisation and gentlewoman's feeling, to the protection of law. But we may just point out that Mr. Herschell's argu- ment that the protection of law impairs the " robustness " of women's virtue is a mere piece of cynicism, disproved by his own statement that the poor never bring the action, and that in cases of real seduction, where the temptation has been a false promise of marriage, no substitute will be found for the present form of action. The danger of extortion will be de- clared too great to -allow of a prosecution, and as to a separate civil one, listen to Mr. Herschell's argument, received by the House without objection. "It seemed to him that it would be impossible to make such an exception as the case of seduction. It would be impossible to afford relief of that kind to a woman whose virtue had failed, when it was denied to a woman whose virtue had been unshaken." That is neither more nor less than an assertion that the woman is always in fault, and must be left to take care of herself. Well, civilisation can be kept up on that basis, for it is kept up in France, but. parents in the vulgar classes will have to pay a heavy price for the new system. Either their daughters must be brought up like the daughters of the very poor, in full light, instead of half-light ; or they must be imprisoned under the rules of etiquette which the higher classes keep up, which are incon- sistent with self-help or active female careers, and from which' English middle-class society is doing its utmost at this moment to break free. That Mr. Herschell does not see it, we fully believe, for he talks of some future law about seduction ; but his practical proposals come to this,—that the deceased clergyman's daughter who goes out as a governess shall have no external protection at all.
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