Adultery in post-war England

History Workshop Journal

Volumn 62, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 86-115

  Langhamer, Claire ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 33749840782     PISSN: 13633554     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/hwj/dbl004     Document Type: Article

References (172)

1. Carol Smart, 'Good Wives and Moral Lives: Marriage and Divorce 1937-51', in Nationalising Femininity: Culture, Sexuality and British Cinema in the Second World War, ed. Christine Gledhill and Gillian Swanson, Manchester, 1996, p. 91. In this essay (p. 101) Smart suggests that Brief Encounter spoke to an increasing desire for sexual satisfaction amongst middle-class women of this period.
2. Liz Stanley, Sex Surveyed 1949-1994. From Mass-Observation's 'Little Kinsey' to the National Survey and the Hite reports, London, 1995, p. 134.
3. Kevin Brownlow, David Lean, London, 1996, p. 199.
4. Sue Harper and Vincent Porter, 'Moved to Tears: Weeping in the Cinema in post-war Britain', Screen 37: 2, summer 1996, pp. 152-73, p. 167.
5. Brownlow, David Lean, p. 203.
6. Jeffrey Richards, Films and British National Identity: From Dickens to Dad's Army, Manchester, 1997, p. 123.
7. Hera Cook, 'The English Sexual Revolution: Technology and Social Change', History Workshop Journal 59, spring 2005, pp. 109-28.
8. Pat Thane, 'Family Life and "Normality" in post-war British Culture', in Life after Death: Approaches to a Cultural and Social History of Europe during the 1940s and 1950s, ed. Richard Bessel and Dirk Schumann, Cambridge, 2003, p. 198.
9. Lynne Segal, Straight Sex: The Politics of Pleasure, London, 1994, p. 4.
10. Lesley A. Hall, Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain since 1880, Basingstoke, 2000, p. 166.
11. This article is not concerned with the question of 'agreed' adultery and 'open marriages' although these clearly existed across the century.
12. This is certainly the case in Mass-Observation's 'Little Kinsey' where the section on 'sex outside marriage' slips unhelpfully between pre-marital and extra-marital sex. Stanley, Sex Surveyed, pp. 132-42.
13. Martin P. M. Richards and B. Jane Elliott, 'Sex and Marriage in the 1960s and 1970s', in Marriage, Domestic Life and Social Change. Writings for Jacqueline Burgoyne (1944-88), ed. David Clark London, 1991, p. 44.
14. Warren Colman argues along the same lines, 'It is a curious fact that while attitudes towards pre-marital sex and divorce have become far more liberal over the past fifty years or so, attitudes towards extra-marital sex have, if anything, hardened': Warren Colman, 'Fidelity as a Moral Achievement', in Rethinking Marriage. Public and Private Perspectives, ed. Christopher Clulow, London, 1993, p. 71.
15. D. M. Turner, Fashioning Adultery: Gender, Sex and Civility in England 1660-1740, Cambridge, 2002, p. 14.
16. Annette Lawson, Adultery: An Analysis of Love and Betrayal, Oxford, 1988.
17. Joanne Klein, 'Irregular Marriages: Unorthodox Working-class Domestic Life in Liverpool, Birmingham, and Manchester, 1900-1939', Journal of Family History 30: 2, 2005, pp. 210-29.
18. Klein, 'Irregular Marriages', p. 213.
19. Richards and Elliott, 'Sex and Marriage', p. 48.
20. See for example, Natalie Higgins, 'The Changing Expectations and Realities of Marriage in the English Working Class, 1920-1960', DPhil thesis, University of Cambridge, 2002
21. and Elizabeth Roberts, Women and Families: An Oral History, 1940-1970, Oxford, 1995.
22. On the history of Mass-Observation, see Nick Hubble, Mass Observation and Everyday Life: Culture, History, Theory, London, 2005
23. Tom Jeffrey, 'Mass-Observation, a short history', Mass-Observation Archive Occasional Paper 10, 1999
24. and Tony Kushner, We Europeans? Mass-Observation, 'Race', and British Identity in twentieth-century Britain, Aldershot, 2004.
25. An introduction to Mass-Observation with a particular focus on the new project is provided by Dorothy Sheridan, David Bloome and Brian Street in Writing Ourselves: Mass-Observation and Literacy Practices, Creskill, NJ, 2000.
26. A. James Hammerton and Alistair Thomson, Ten Pound Poms: Australia's Invisible Migrants, Manchester, 2005, p. 20.
27. Marie Stopes, Married Love, London, 1918.
28. For a detailed analysis of the sex manuals published between 1918 and 1972 see Hera Cook, The Long Sexual Revolution: English Women, Sex, and Contraception 1800-1975, Oxford, 2004, pp. 341-54.
29. On the reception of Stopes's ideas about female sexual pleasure see Ellen Holtzman, 'The Pursuit of Married Love: Women's Attitudes toward Sexuality and Marriage in Great Britain, 1918-1939', Journal of Social History 16: 2, 1982, pp. 39-51.
30. Elizabeth Roberts, A Woman's Place: An Oral History of Working-class Women, 1890-1940, Oxford, 1984
31. and Women and Families
32. Higgins, 'The Changing Expectations and Realities of Marriage'.
33. Janet Finch and Penny Summerfield, 'Social Reconstruction and the Emergence of Companionate Marriage, 1945-59', in Marriage, Domestic Life and Social Change, ed. Clark. These authors describe companionate marriage as 'the most distinctive feature of domestic life during this period', p. 7.
34. On the marriage-guidance movement and companionate marriage see Marcus Collins, Modern Love: An Intimate History of Men and Women in twentieth-century Britain, London, 2003, pp. 90-133.
35. The proportion of married women participating in the labour market increased from 10% in 1931 to 21.7% in 1951, 29.4% in 1961 and 42% in 1971: Duncan Gallie, 'The Labour Force' in Twentieth-century British Social Trends, ed. A. H. Halsey, London, 2000, p. 292.
36. Claire Langhamer, 'The Meanings of Home in post-war Britain', Journal of Contemporary History 40: 2, 2005, pp. 341-62.
37. Manchester Evening News, 3 April 1930, p. 3.
38. Manchester Evening News, 27 June 1955, p. 2.
39. Langhamer, 'Meanings of Home', p. 361.
40. Roberts, A Woman's Place
41. Carl Chinn, They Worked All their Lives: Women of the Urban Poor in England, 1880-1939, Manchester, 1984
42. Elizabeth Bott, Family and Social Network, London, 1957
43. Margaret Stacey, Tradition and Change: A study of Banbury, Oxford, 1960
44. Norman Dennis, Fernando Henriques and Clifford Slaughter, Coal is our Life, London, 1956.
45. Michael Young and Peter Willmott, Family and Kinship in East London, Harmondsworth, 1957
46. Peter Willmott and Michael Young, Family and Class in a London Suburb, London, 1960
47. Ferdynand Zweig, The Worker in Affluent Society: Family Life and Industry, London, 1961.
48. Collins, Modern Love.
49. See Anthony Giddens, The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies, London, 1992
50. and Ulrich Beck and Elizabeth Beck-Gernsheim, The Normal Chaos of Love, London, 1995.
51. Roberts, Women and Families, p. 114.
52. Jane Lewis, 'Public Institution and Private Relationship: Marriage and Marriage Guidance, 1920-1968', Twentieth Century British History 1: 3, 1990, pp. 233-63, p. 258.
53. See Denis De Rougemont, Passion and Society, London, 1940
54. and Niklas Luhmann, Love as Passion: The Codification of Intimacy, Stanford, 1986.
55. Higgins, 'The Changing Expectations and Realities of Marriage', p. 207.
56. Lewis, 'Public Institution and Private Relationship'.
57. Geoffrey Gorer, Exploring English Character, London, 1955, p. 125.
58. Gorer, Exploring English Character, p. 138.
59. Gorer, Exploring English Character, p. 161.
60. Geoffrey Gorer, Sex and Marriage in England Today: A Study of the Views and Experiences of the under-45s, London, 1971, p. 65.
61. Gorer, Sex and Marriage, p. 74.
62. In the period 1931-5 the first-marriage rate per 1,000 single women aged over fifteen was 57.3 and for men it was 62.6; by 1936-40 it was 73.3 and 78.7 respectively and by 1966-70 it was 94.2 for women and 82.1 for men. In 1981-5 it dropped to 59.9 for women and 48.1 for men: D. A. Coleman, 'Population and Family', in Halsey, Twentieth-century British Social Trends, pp. 56-7.
63. The mean age at first marriage dropped from 27.3 in 1931 to 24.6 in 1971 for men and for women from 25.4 in 1931 to 22.6 in 1971: Jane Lewis, The End of Marriage? Individualism and Intimate Relations, Cheltenham, 2001, p. 30.
64. Royal Commission on Marriage and Divorce (hereafter RCMD), Report 1951-1955, Cmnd 9768, London, 1956, p. 9.
65. National Archives (hereafter NA) LCO 2/6124, RCMD, Minutes of Evidence, days 1-19, 21 July 1952, memorandum submitted by Mrs Moya Woodside, p. 437, para 17.
66. Higgins, 'Changing Expectations and Realities of Marriage', p. 271.
67. On young women, work and aspiration in the period up to 1950, see Selina Todd, Young Women, Work and Family 1918-1950, Oxford, 2005.
68. Judy Giles, The Parlour and the Suburb: Domestic Identities, Class, Femininity and Modernity, Oxford, 2004, p. 63.
69. Young and Willmott, Family and Kinship in East London, p. 31.
70. Martin Richards, 'Learning from Divorce', in Rethinking Marriage: Public and Private Perspectives, ed. Christopher Clulow, London, 1993, p. 30.
71. Gail Savage, 'Erotic Stories and Public Decency: Newspaper Reporting of Divorce proceedings in England', Historical Journal 41: 2, 1998, pp. 511-28.
72. Colin S. Gibson, Dissolving Wedlock, London, 1994, p. 90.
73. Klein, 'Irregular Marriages'.
74. Lawrence Stone, Road to Divorce: England 1530-1987, Oxford, 1990, p. 401.
75. RCMD, Report, p. 120.
76. The Times, 11 April, 1964, p. 6.
77. Daily Telegraph, 14 Dec. 1968
78. National Archives, BC 3/541, 'File concerning possible changes to the law on damages for adultery'.
79. Stanley, Sex Surveyed, p. 127.
80. George H. Gallup, The Gallup International Public Opinion Polls. Great Britain 1937-1975, vol. 1, 1937-1964, New York, 1976, p. 245.
81. Gallup, The Gallup International Public Opinion Polls. Great Britain 1937-1975, vol. 1, p. 267
82. Gallup, The Gallup International Public Opinion Polls. Great Britain 1937-1975, vol. 2, 1965-1975, New York, 1976, p. 965.
83. O. R. McGregor, 'The Morton Commission: A Social and Historical Commentary', British Journal of Sociology 7: 3, 1956, pp. 171-93, p. 189.
84. RCMD, Report, p. 7.
85. RCMD, Report, pp.7-8.
86. Griselda Rowntree, 'Some Aspects of Marriage Breakdown in Britain during the last thirty years', Population Studies 18: 2, 1964, pp. 147-63, p. 151.
87. Love and War in London: A Woman's Diary 1939-1942, ed. Robert W. Malcolmson, Waterloo, Ontario, 2005, p. 194.
88. Mass-Observation (hereafter M-O), Topic Collection 12, 'Sexual Behaviour 1939-50', box 12, survey A9/2. Questionnaire (Panel D94/3), 1949, 12/12/ A-E, file A, panel index no. 767.
89. NA, LCO 2/5639, 'Deed poll', June 1947. Letter from the Lord Chancellor to A. S. Robertson, 24 June 1947.
90. NA, LCO 2/5639, 'Deed poll', June 1947. Letter from Lambeth Palace to Viscount Jowitt, Lord Chancellor, 12 Dec. 1947, enclosing the Report of the Church of England Moral Welfare Council for the upper House of Convocation entitled 'Illegal "wives"'.
91. NA, LCO 2/5639, 'Deed poll', Lambeth Palace to Jowitt, June 1947, p. 2.
92. NA, LCO 2/5639, 'Deed poll', Lambeth Palace to Jowitt, June 1947, pp. 2-3.
93. NA, LCO 2/5639, 'Deed poll', Letter from the Home Secretary to the Lord Chancellor, 22 Jan. 1948.
94. NA, LCO 2/5639, 'Deed poll', Letter from the Housewives' Association for the Protection of Family Life to the Attorney-General, 20 Jan. 1955.
95. NA, LCO 2/5639, 'Deed poll', Letter from S. H. E. Burley to Mrs Carrington Wood, 22 March 1955.
96. Klein, 'Irregular Marriages', p. 213.
97. Stone, Road to Divorce, p. 403.
98. Richards and Elliott, 'Sex and Marriage', p. 44
99. Colman, 'Fidelity as a Moral Achievement', p. 71.
100. Higgins, 'The Changing Expectations and Realities of Marriage', p. 90.
101. In 1969, when the Labour MP Alec Jones presented the Divorce Law Reform Bill to parliament he asserted that, 'to so many people adultery strikes at the very heart of married life', The Times, 30 Jan. 1969, p. 3.
102. Lawson, Adultery, p. 40.
103. NA, LCO 2/6124, RCMD, Minutes of Evidence, days 1-19, first day, 20 May 1952, memorandum submitted by Professor L. C. B. Gower, MBE, LLM, p. 16, para 22.
104. Lawson, Adultery, p. 40.
105. The Times, 15 Oct. 1952, p. 11.
106. The Times, 16 Oct. 1963, p. 5.
107. The Times, 9 June 1953, p. 2.
108. The Times, 9 June 1953, p. 2.
109. Gorer, Sex and Marriage, chapters seven and eight.
110. Gorer, Exploring English Character, chapter ten.
111. Roberts, Women and Families, p. 110.
112. Stone, Road to Divorce, p. 403. Stone demonstrates that between 1950 and 1970, 'the proportion of all divorces granted to men which were on the declared grounds of their wives' adultery rose from 48 per cent to 70 per cent.'
113. The Times, 3 May 1954, p. 2.
114. The Times, 23 Dec. 1959, p. 8.
115. Stanley, Sex Surveyed, p. 135.
116. Stone, Road to Divorce, p. 398.
117. A. P. Herbert, Holy Deadlock, London, 1934, p. 27.
118. Herbert, Holy Deadlock, p. 31.
119. Stone, Road to Divorce, p. 440.
120. NA, LCO 2/6124, RCMD, Minutes of Evidence, days 1-19, 20 May 1952, Memorandum from Gower, p. 17, para 23.
121. NA, LCO 2/6124, RCMD, Minutes of Evidence, days 1-19, 20 May 1952, Memorandum from Gower, p. 15.
122. NA, LCO 2/6124, RCMD, Minutes of Evidence, days 1-19, 10 June, 1952, Memorandum submitted by the Marriage Law Reform Society, p. 224, para 10.
123. NA, LCO 2/6124, RCMD, Minutes of Evidence, Memorandum from Gower, p. 17, para 23.
124. NA, LCO 2/6125, RCMD, Minutes of Evidence, days 20-41, 18 Nov. 1952, p. 778, qq. 7,422-7,452.
125. The Times, 9 May 1952, p. 2.
126. M-O directive, 'Having an affair', spring 1998, women, B1533.
127. NA, LCO 2/7065, Exception taken to notifying the General Medical Council of the fact that a doctor had been found guilty of adultery, Letter from Mr Ligertwood to W. D. S. Caird, 15 July 1960.
128. NA, LCO 2/7065, (as n. 106) Letter from Coldstream to Caird, 28 July 1960.
129. Klein, 'Irregular Marriages'.
130. Klein, 'Irregular Marriages', p. 215.
131. John R. Gillis, For Better, for Worse. British Marriages 1600 to the Present, Oxford, 1985, p. 303.
132. Richards and Elliott, 'Sex and Marriage', p. 44.
133. M-O, Topic Collection 12, 'Sexual Behaviour', box 11, file A, No. 564.
134. M-O, Topic Collection 12, 'Sexual Behaviour', box 11, file A, No. 352.
135. Stanley, Sex Surveyed, p. 122
136. Gorer, Exploring English Character, p. 154.
137. Gorer, Exploring English Character, p. 145.
138. NA, LCO 2/6111, RCMD, Minutes of Evidence, Written evidence from professional people (not used), 1951-2, Memorandum submitted by Dr Eustace Chesser, p. xxii.
139. Gorer, Exploring English Character, p. 148.
140. Gorer, Exploring English Character, p. 149.
141. The 1957 film, Woman in a Dressing Gown (Dir. J. Lee Thompson), described by Jeffrey Richards as 'a Brief Encounter of the council flats', reflects this emphasis upon female self-examination within marital break-up. Upon learning of her husband's affair with a work colleague the wronged wife visits a hairdressers for the first time in years.
142. Gorer, Exploring English Character, p. 149.
143. Woman's Own, 30 March 1940, p. 2.
144. Woman's Own, 9 July 1943, p. 22.
145. Woman's Own, 20 Aug. 1943, p. 18.
146. Woman's Own, 25 Feb. 1944, p. 18.
147. Woman's Own, 27 Oct. 1944, p. 22.
148. Woman's Own, 21 July 1944, p. 18.
149. Woman's Own, 4 Aug. 1955, p. 53.
150. Woman's Own, 9 March 1950, p. 45.
151. Woman's Own, 18 Aug. 1955, p. 53.
152. Woman's Own, 16 Jan. 1960, p. 65.
153. Woman's Own, 5 March 1960, p. 77.
154. Woman's Own, 31 July 1965, p. 57.
155. Gorer, Sex and Marriage, p. 85.
156. Gorer, Sex and Marriage, p. 86.
157. Claire Langhamer, Women's Leisure in England, 1920-1960, Manchester, 2000, pp. 152-6.
158. Gorer, Sex and Marriage, p. 159.
159. Gorer, Sex and Marriage, p. 161.
160. M-O directive, 'Having an affair', women, B2645.
161. M-O directive, 'Having an affair', men, C110.
162. M-O directive, 'Having an affair', women, G1041.
163. M-O directive, 'Having an affair', women, N1592.
164. Smart, 'Good Wives and Moral Lives', pp. 98-101.
165. Vanessa May, 'Divorce in Finnish Women's Life Stories: Defining 'Moral' Behaviour', Women's Studies International Forum 28, 2005, pp. 473-83.
166. M-O directive, 'Having an affair', women, M2290.
167. M-O directive, 'Having an affair', women, W853.
168. M-O directive, 'Having an affair', men, C110.
169. M-O directive, 'Having an affair', men, C110.
170. M-O directive, 'Having an affair', women, W853.
171. M-O directive, 'Having an affair', women, B2645.
172. M-O directive, 'Having an affair', men, R2065.