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living in sin
these terms, at least in the 1830s. Most couples were already married when
they arrived there, so the numbers were few, but the possibility remained.
Other communities were more radical. The most notorious Owenite
community was Manea Fen, led by William Hodson. Hodson lived with his
deceased wife’s sister and so had little respect for the marriage laws, though
he insisted to the national association that he followed Owenite principles.
All the same, he wrote to a friend in 1839 that he wanted to abolish ‘the
buying and selling of each other’ in his community. Whatever the actual
practices, the Manea Fen community boasted to the local press that they
did not follow the regular English customs.54 In addition, the Lawrence
Street chapel, a Southcottian church, offered a place where ‘couples simply
married themselves.’ Owenites may have taken advantage of this option,
though after 1840, Owen urged his followers to marry civil y.55
Self-divorce, as opposed to self-marriage, was a more difficult
proposition. Southwell insisted that Owen supported divorce only when it
was mutual, rather than the repudiation by one party of the other. Southwell
admitted that the distinction could be hard to make, since when only one
partner wanted to leave there would be ‘some difficulty’.56 Southwell himself
left his wife because she was unfaithful, and later cohabited with his wife’s
aunt. He complained about the lack of provision for divorce: ‘The woman
with whom I lived was faithful; the woman I married was false … which of
these two women best deserved all the kindness and consideration in my
power to bestow?’ Nevertheless, when his wife became ill and begged him
to return, he did so; he did not practice repudiation himself.57
Owenite self-divorces indeed were usual y mutual. In a much
publicised case in 1842, the Cheltenham Owenites drew up a divorce
contract between Amelia and James Vaughan. The Vaughans agreed to
separate, and William Stanbury contracted to take over the care of Amelia.
If either man reneged on the contract, he had to pay a fine of £10, while
James got custody of their son once he turned two years old. As Taylor has
pointed out, despite their disdain for wife sales, the Owenites had drawn
up a contract similar to those already used in plebeian circles, transferring
responsibility for Amelia from one man to another. In addition, this ‘divorce’
led to a long, scandalised story in the newspaper, in part because Stanbury
had left his wife and children, though the paper grudgingly admitted he
gave them ‘a weekly allowance.’ The ire of the local population showed the
difficulty of allowing divorces; the newspaper insisted that Socialism ‘has
become a mere byeword [sic] for immorality and licentiousness.’58
Of course, those who were married only by agreement could be
Copyright © 2008. Manchester University Press. All rights reserved.
divorced even more easily, and this situation was risky for women. For
instance, Southwel ’s cohabitee wanted him to marry her bigamously (and
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radical couples, 1790–1850
illegal y, because of the affinal tie). She hoped this would protect her from
desertion, but he refused. Her concern was justified, since he later returned
to his wife. In 1839, a servant named Mary Bennett accused John Joyes of
marrying her in the ‘socialist’ manner, and then abandoning her after the
birth of their child. The local Owenites disputed this story, but it pointed up
the difficulties for women, particularly after several Owenite communities
failed in the early 1840s.59 After al , the only reason women could take part
in free unions was the promise of communal support. Without that, they
had only the dubious mercy of the Poor Law if their relationships failed.
Some Owenite leaders did take that risk. As mentioned earlier in this
chapter, Frances Cooper and James Morrison cohabited for five years (1822–
27), though they later married. Emma Martin, a crusader against religion,
lived with Joshua Hopkins, a labourer, in a free union for six years until her
early death in 1851. When young, Emma had married Isaac Martin and had
three daughters with him, but she was miserable in the marriage. In 1839,
she left him, and became a lecturer for Socialism, particularly debating
with others on ‘Marriage and Divorce’. In 1845, after a struggle to support
herself and fierce criticism from religious groups, she formed a free union
with Joshua and retired from lecturing, giving birth to a daughter in 1847.
Her union with Hopkins succeeded, probably because Joshua believed in
both workers’ and women’s emancipation.60 At her funeral, G. J. Holyoake
described their relationship in idealised terms: ‘no affection was ever purer,
no union ever more honourable to both parties’. Emma suffered from much
criticism, even within Socialist groups, and she was often short on funds,
but at least her home life was happy. Her union was an example both of the
disadvantages and the rewards for working women in ‘true’, but irregular,
bonds.61
Owenites challenged the biblical basis of marriage and highlighted
the problems with England’s marriage laws. Especial y, they combined
women’s and class issues in ways that few others had done. They shared a
belief in reason and perfectability with those who came before them, but
went further in their solutions. Stil , even at the height of the movement,
Owenite couples in free unions were the minority. Most couples who
joined Owenism were already married; others joined after 1840, when
Owen encouraged civil marriage. And many of those who did take part in
free unions eventual y married; those who did not often could not do so.
Furthermore, much of the Owenite practices were in tune with the
working class around them rather than a break with tradition. Unhappy
poor couples practiced self-marriage and divorce; they just did not make a
Copyright © 2008. Manchester University Press. All rights reserved.
public stand about it. And despite many Owenites’ emphasis on feminism,
their communities still expected the women to do the domestic tasks. As it
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living in sin
turned out, Owenite communities were hardly paradises for women, who
were burdened with both domestic and non-domestic work and had little
say in governing the societies. Taylor argues that the Owenite movement
became increasingly conservative about marital
issues after 1840, especial y
among women. Morrison, for instance, insisted that socialists must
continue to marry, ‘“in order to insure that fidelity which the vehemence of
temporary passion could never guarantee.”’ In short, women socialists had
less enthusiasm for sexual experimentation as time went on.62
The Owenite movement’s col apse in the 1840s was due to economic
failure more than these marital dilemmas. Owen became convinced that
the success of the movement depended on upper-class sponsors and lost
interest in experiments. After the movement petered out, couples who had
lived in free unions may or may not have stayed in that situation. Without
the community support, women cohabitees were in a difficult situation,
so they may have insisted on legalising their relationships (if possible).
After the 1840s, the working-class movement focused on Chartism and
trade unions and supported domesticity and male suffrage, thus excluding
women from leadership and limiting their opportunities for marital dissent.
According to Anna Clark, this outcome was the result of ‘bitter political
and trade union struggles’ and was contrary to much working-class history.
Nevertheless, the leadership in critiquing marriage and pushing for gender
equality shifted to the middle class.63
Radical Unitarians, 1820–50
As Kathryn Gleadle has shown, the largely middle-class members of
Radical Unitarianism pushed for women’s equality and marriage reform.
The nucleus of this group was in W. J. Fox’s South Place Chapel in London,
and the vessel for their ideas was the journal The Monthly Repository. The
Radical Unitarians’ core philosophy, based on John Locke, argued for
individual reason and education. Though most Unitarians were liberal
rather than socialist, many supported Owenism, and Owen reprinted
selections from the Repository in his publications. Eventual y, the South
Place Chapel attracted a wide range of liberals and radicals, including J. S.
Mil , George Henry Lewes, W. J. Linton, and Eliza Cook.64
According to Gleadle, what separated ‘radical’ Unitarians from the
mainstream was their devotion to women’s rights. Like many of the previous
writers, they argued that women’s education stressed submission to men
and thus warped women’s development; further, they insisted that women
Copyright © 2008. Manchester University Press. All rights reserved.
should have wider political and economic opportunities. On the issue of
marriage, these writers agreed with Owen’s criticisms of the institution,
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radical couples, 1790–1850
especial y its gender inequality and indissolubility. Mary Leman Grimstone,
for example, related women’s oppression directly to marriage, since women
had no say in the terms of the contract and only men could sue for divorce:
‘there can be no contract without two parties’. She was especial y critical of
the sexual double standard, since a woman ‘binds herself a slave to one to
avoid becoming the victim of many.’65
A particular goal for the radical Unitarians was to promote the idea
of marriage as a civil contract. They argued that the religious part of the
service was hypocritical and that the insistence on seeing the ceremony as
a sacrament made divorce reform impossible. Like their predecessors, they
also insisted that a true marriage was one of hearts and minds, whatever
its legal state. In addition, they detailed many reasons to avoid the sanction
of the church even when love was true. W. J. Linton, for example, disliked
the ‘public exhibition’ of weddings. Thus, though most of these reformers
married, they tried to do so in ways that rejected wifely subordination,
such as eliminating the word ‘obey’ in the wife’s vows.66
A minority of Radical Unitarians did not marry legal y, and their
stories are instructive. The main actors were W. J. Linton and Emily Wade,
W. J. Fox and Eliza Flower, Thomas Southwood Smith and Margaret Gillies,
Richard Hengist Horne and Mary Gillies (Margaret’s sister), and, to a lesser
extent, Thomas Wade and Lucy Bridgman. (A discussion of J. S. Mill and
Harriet Taylor appears in Chapter 9.) In four out of five of these examples,
the couples were unable to marry legal y. Emily Wade was Linton’s deceased
wife’s sister; in the three other cases, one of the partners was married. In
short, these couples grappled with the difficulties of marriage laws because
of their circumstances and not just from theoretical beliefs. However,
their radicalism usual y predated their unions; thus, their cohabitation
deepened their dissent rather than causing it. Because so many of them
were middle class and publicly active, their unconventional home lives
had to be explained away or carried out discreetly. Ironical y, reforming
‘hypocritical’ marriage laws required some hypocrisy.
The leader of the Radical Unitarians, W. J. Fox, had married in 1820,
but the marriage was largely over by the late 1820s; he and his wife separated
in 1832. Despite his own unhappiness, Fox argued for women’s suffrage,
for women’s equality within marriage, and against the sexual double
standard.67 His ideas were confirmed when he met Eliza Flower through
her father Benjamin, a Unitarian publisher. Fox was Eliza’s guardian after
Benjamin’s death in 1829, and they fell in love. The two were intellectual y
and emotional y compatible, since Flower was well-educated and an
Copyright © 2008. Manchester University Press. All rights reserved.
excellent musician. Though Fox and Flower did not have a sexual affair,
his wife was jealous, and her complaints led to Fox’s resignation from his
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living in sin
congregation in 1834. They eventual y asked him to return, but he decided
to leave again in 1835, because he wanted to live openly with Flower.68
Fox respected Flower’s abilities a great deal; her contributions to
his work deepened his belief in women’s equality. For her part, Eliza was
devoted to him and his family, gaining the confidence of his mother and
sister. All the same, Flower sacrificed more than Fox in their irregular
household. She lost many of her friends and had less time for her own
work. His needs were always paramount; for example, in 1839, the family
moved to Westminster, which was not a good place for the consumptive
Flower but was better for Fox’s career. In addition, Fox and Flower
apparently did not unite physical y, though Fox insisted such a union was
not immoral. According to
Crabb Robinson, Fox asserted that ‘though
no illicit intercourse had in fact taken place … it was merely accidental,
there being nothing in their principles against their so acting’. Somewhat
contradictorily, Fox drew a distinction between divorce and remarriage,
so he did not feel free to start a new union, despite denying its immorality.
As he put it, ‘“I hold myself to be moral y divorced – remarriage is quite
another question.”’69
Fox’s scruples did not lessen the scandal. The Association of Unitarian
Ministers expelled him in 1835 when he set up his home with Flower.70
The assumption of immorality infuriated Fox, but he should have expected
it. Opponents had branded all marriage reformers as free lovers since the
1790s; they were hardly likely to draw a different conclusion about a man
who worked for divorce reform while living with a woman not his wife.
Nonetheless, the help that Flower gave to Fox during their eleven years
together allowed him to work more steadily. Flower, too, gained from
their association, since Fox printed her songs in The Monthly Repository.
Little indication of trouble or unhappiness between them survives; indeed,
their affectionate letters indicate otherwise. Eliza’s horizons were more
circumscribed than William’s, but she remained loyal until her death from
consumption in 1846. One can also easily overstate their social isolation,
too, since the couple had the support of the other Radical Unitarians.71
Stil , one cannot help comparing the situation of Fox and Flower
to the more private unions of the Gillies sisters. Margaret Gillies’s union
with Thomas Southwood Smith has already been discussed in Chapter 5.
Southwood Smith’s unhappy marriage prevented them from marrying,
but they lived together for many years and worked for various causes.72
Southwood Smith and Gillies had a mutual y supportive relationship
and both had fulfilling careers. They did not publicly acknowledge their
Copyright © 2008. Manchester University Press. All rights reserved.
relationship, however, and Southwood Smith’s wife did not object to it (she
even lived with them when she was unwell). They observed the proprieties,
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