When I was at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory a few years ago, I came across this newspaper clipping - a piece by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle promoting “reform” of the divorce laws that existed at the time (ca. 1914). This was actually a shock to me, as I only knew Doyle through the Sherlock Holmes series - and although single, Sherlock stays within the social norms of a classic English gentleman.
Although I couldn't find the exact date, this newspaper piece wasn't a one-off case for Doyle; he was president of the Divorce Law Reform Union. He called the Separation Act of 1895 “the most ingenious Bill for producing immorality that could ever have been devised” and said that police magistrates that the lower classes were rotten through and through owing to this law. Doyle claimed that divorce was a deplorable cure for a deplorable state of things. Chaining a woman to a lunatic, drunkard or criminal for life was not conducive to human flourishing. His proposed solution was to make the divorce laws more permissible; although this would cause a great increase in divorce rates, he believed it would be beneficial to society overall. At the time, the UK had a divorce rate of 2.5 divorces per 1000 marriages, whereas Germany (which had looser divorce laws) had a divorce rate of 30 divorces per 1000 marriages.
Doyle seems to have a vested interest in the cause, as he began courting a younger woman while his sickly wife grew more and more ill over several years. Perhaps he would have taken advantage of looser divorce laws to rid himself of his marital ties and wed his love interest sooner. Regardless, his motivations were driven by a humanist, anti-Christian perspective. He wrote that the “wretched obsolete ecclesiastical influence… has impeded every reform in this world.” It is this worldview – of marriage as a tiresome religious practice, rather than as a blessing which should be preserved and guarded – which made his position so dangerous.
Ultimately, the campaigning of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and others won out and the divorce laws were gradually liberalised, until the Divorce Reform Act of 1969 which allowed for prior separation for a certain number of years as a cause for divorce. Finally, in 2022 no-fault divorce was introduced in the UK.
Today, the divorce rate is over 42% in the UK, or 420 divorces per 1000 marriages. Thousands of children grow up in single parent households, which can lead to wider societal issues. Scientific surveys have shown that the offspring of divorced/separated parents are between 1.5 to 2 times more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior, live in poverty, and experience their own family instability.
What do you think – was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle right to push for more liberal divorce laws in the way that he did? Or without a justifiable moral basis, was it the beginning of a slippery slope that has left society worse off?
The full text of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s newspaper piece is reproduced below:
** REFORM THE MARRIAGE LAWS **
By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
To prevent revolutionary contagion in this country it is most necessary to do away with those legitimate grievances which rankle in a man’s heart and make him bitter and dangerous. The want of housing accommodation is one such grievance, the marriage laws are another.
The latter case has been thoroughly examined by a very strong commission, who reported six years ago in favour of reform, yet on account of that wretched obsolete ecclesiastical influence which has impeded every reform in this world, the matter has been shelved, and the men or women concerned are wearing out their lives with a bitter sense of injustice.
The measures demanded are already in force in nearly every other Protestant country in the world, and in several Catholic ones. These measures simply require that the recommendations of the Royal Commission be put into law, and that the immorality arising from the separation laws be ended by allowing these people, after a term of years, to remarry.
Our descendants will look back at our present marriage laws with the same amazement with which we regard our old criminal laws before Romilly, against the opposition of the majority of the bishops, brought them to a more civilised standard.