Living Death. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on Marriage Cruelties

From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia

Living Death is a letter written by Arthur Conan Doyle first published in the Empire News on 16 september 1917.


Living Death

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on Marriage Cruelties

Sir, — I am as anxious as any theologian that those whom God has placed together in marriage should remain together, but I cannot admit that God has ever placed together the drunken, the cruel, the insane, and the other dreadful couples who inflict misery not only upon each other but notably upon their children, and to some extent upon everyone around them.

To quote what someone said at the Council of Trent in the year 1545 is a very poor consolation to some man whose wife is hopelessly insane and who is condemned to life-long loneliness, or to some woman who is being slowly done to death by a brutal husband.

A Bill now under consideration by a committee of members of both Houses of Parliament provides that after three years of judicial separation the order shall have the same effect and force as a decree absolute of divorce.

I hope it will have the favourable support of the Government.

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE