Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/236



publication of the Report of the Royal Commission on Divorce, at the time of writing these lines, is a reminder of the invidious position women at present hold under the law, a position which the majority recommend shall be abolished. The present law is based upon the conception, old as the hills, of the right of the husband to a position of privilege, and the proposals of a majority of the Commissioners, two of whom were women—the Lady Frances Balfour and Mrs H. J. Tennant—are all the more remarkable when it is remembered how strong is tradition and how powerful is custom. Should these recommendations be embodied in an Act of Parliament, England will at last take her place with all the other great nations of the world, and more particularly with her Colonies and the United States of America, as sufficiently awake to the needs of the age to put behind her an ancient and worn-out tradition and law.

Scotland is ahead of England, in that her law provides divorce facilities for husband