HUSBANDS, WIVES, AND YOUNG CHILDREN.
MR considerable majority by which Sergeant TALFOURD'S bill concerning the custody of infants was passed in the House of Commons, is one of the few things highly honourable to its Mem- bers. We trust that the Peers will not be behind in wil- lingness to strengthen the law, when it appears that, in its pre- sent state, the strong possess the power to inflict injury, and that the weak have no refuge in the laws of their country from the infliction. The intent of all legislation is to guard the in- offensive weak against the ofiending strong ; and the subjects of a just government have a right to expect this protection from the legislature. When we consider the laws with regard to marriage, we are startled at the defect which the present bill is introduced to remedy. The object of our institutiuns on this subject is to pro- mote fidelity to the marriage cantract. As far as the Ecclesiatical Courts are concerned, both sexes are treated with apparent equality. In the practice of the world a difference is made, be- cause society considers good conduct in a woman as of far greater importance than in a man; and to remedy the code which treats men and women equally, it is the custom, in this country, when a wife is convicted of infidelity to pass a law dissolving the marriage. In some instances the same course has been pursued with regard to a criminal husband ; but this is rare. With that part of the subject we are not now to meddle. A clause in Sergeant TAL- Foulas bill expressly excepts divorced wives, and those against whom a verdict has been found, from participating in its bene- fits. We only consider, therefore, the subject as regards those separated by a decree of the Ecclesiastical Courts. When a wife is proved to have acted criminally, the Court pronounces a decree of separation from bed and board. Criminality, and also cruelty on the part of the husband, is met with the same judgment. On such occasions there are two subjects that ought to demand the consideration of the Court. It has jurisdiction only over one— property. The Court assigns the portion which each party is to enjoy, regulating its decision by the marriage settlement and other circumstances. But another division is necessary—children; and here the Court has no authority. It is not that there is a law in the father's favour, but there is none relative to the mother. A woman having lost her civil rights when she marries, the posses- sion of the children is vested in the father, and there is no power competent to interfere. This is evidently a flaw in legislation—a gap to be filled up. Here brute force is uncontrolled : the weak
remains without protection. In a late trial,* for instance, a hus- band was proved to have been guilty of flagrant misconduct and even cruelty: his wife was released from his control, and an income assigned her—but the law stopped short here. She had no right to the society of her children—the father was permitted to send them among strangers, or to keep them with himself under circumstances detrimental to their morals; and the law could not my that these infants, cast upon neglect, had any right to mater- nal care, or that the mother, released from the tyranny of her hus- band, had claim to the only possession valuable to her, her children's society. If a man be so ill-conducted that it is consi- dered just to release his wife from his control, is it not manifestly unjust to the children, to place them under his protection only, removed entirely from the safeguard of a mother's care? And also, if it be just to afford shelter to the ill-used wife, is it not un- just to leave a power in her husband's hands to injure and outrage her in the tenderest point ? It is evident, that as a decree of separation obtained in a court of law, however founded on the grossest misconduct on the hus- band's part, cannot extend to any regulation with regard to the guardianship of the children, the husband will always have this hold to prevent his wife from having recourse to the laws of her country as a refuge from ill-treatment, since a tender mother will suffer any degree of personal misery rather than lose the valued privilege of watching over the health and welfare of her infant children ; and also in cases of amicable separation, husbands can
barter this privilege, and sell at a price the most virtuous affec- tions of the heart. It has been represented that this is a good, since
it is a benefit to society to prevent separations. But would it not be more just that the laws should tend to render the husband better-conducted, than to enforce patience under injury from the wife ? What would be said if it were argued that we ought to abrogate the punishment for murder, since to punish the murder, another murder must be committed ? Crime and ill-conduct must bring their consequences of evil towards the guilty ; and law is established to prevent the innocent from participating in these. Husbands, no longer corrupted by an unjust immunity, will be led to better conduct. Sergeant TALFOURD'S bill is directed
against bad husbands—men not only guilty of cruelty or infide- lity, but so lost to all moral sense as to wish to divide an innocent
mother from her child. No man of honour and feeling would
prevent a well-conducted woman from having intercourse with her infant children. We unhesitatingly appeal to the nation— to the world, on this point, secure of the answer we shall receive. No man would debar an innocent mother of her childreu's society, except from motives the most base, and interests unworthy to be put for a moment in competition with maternal feelings.
If the passing of this bill do not, therefore, lessen the number of separations, it will at least lessen that of divided households under one roof. A husband no longer able to say "Leave me if you dare! if you do, you shall never see your children more!" must perforce submit not to drive his wife to extremities ; if he do so act as to drive her from her home, he will no longer ha able to make a Jew's bargain, bartering maternal instinct for gold. There exist in the state of society and the distribution of property, multiplied reasons why no wife would desire to separate from her husband, except for flagrant ill-treatment. A separated wife loses every thing, she gains nothing. She loses roatien : in a
great majority of instances, whatever the mutual fortune may be,
she is reduced to poverty. According to the usages of society, she is less free everywhere than under her husband's roof. These
considerations will always suffise to prevent separations on the wife's part from being multiplied ; and we need not add ano her, which only tends to demoralize society. The children are in every instance also the sufferers. It is not projected to take them from the father—from the possessor of the property, and therefore ts a great degree the arbiter of their destinies; but only to insure to them, while infants, some portion of a mother's watchful care.
Let any one look round on the instances when a husband has availed himself of his power, and excluded the mother from the society of her children : are they with their father ? Never. They are invariably sent to some relation or hireling, either of whom is incapable of extending the watchful tenderness necessary for the preservation of life and health in infants, which nature for this purpose has rooted so deeply in the maternal heart.
IWe regard this bill as a protection offered to wives from brute violence—as releasing them from the necessity of bearing the ex- tremity of ill-treatment for their children's sake. Now, when they take refuge in the laws of their country, their persons are protected, and in some degree their property is secured to them ; but they are deprived of wilt is far more valuable than either—the power it guarding their infants from neglect, and watching over them in illness. Still more is this a bill for the protection of children. It
. gives them a right to maternal guardianship, which they do not now possess. It protects them from neglect, and its consequences, ill- health, deformity, and a shortened life. Husbands and fathers,
* Greenhill versus GreenhiP, acting in accordance with their duties, are untouched. The law re. mains unaltered with regard to criminal wives. Nor are hi, chil- dren in any instance to be entirely separated from him : the mother is to be permitted only a limited access to them. While, therefore, mothers and children are largely benefited, men are only ee. priced of the power of being guilty of a cruelty which a savage would shrink from committing—that of bereaving a mother of her young child, whom she bore, and with labour brought into the world; and of depriving an infant of her care from whose bosom it draws its natural nourishment, and whose love is its safeguard amidst the many dangers that beset infancy.
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