Sexual Slander in the Nineteenth-Century England: Defamation in the Ecclesiastical Courts, 1815-1855

Christopher English is a professor of history at Memorial University of
Newfoundland and the author of A Cautious Beginning: The Emergence of
Newfoundland’s Supreme Court of Judicature in 1791–92.

The rights of married women in English common law jurisdictions before
the 20th century were defined by dependence: legally, women were almost
invisible. However, this widely researched and engaging study shows how,
before 1857, women could initiate a case in a church court for redress
against anyone who had publicly slandered them with words, or a third
party who had repeated that slander. Thus, women of modest means and
social status were able to defend their good name and reputation.
Waddams presents lively cases of verbal confrontation, often between
neighbors, which is the stuff of legal history viewed from the ground
up. Legal historians will love it, lawyers will chuckle, and
undergraduate students will be informed and entertained.

The action of sexual slander, brought overwhelmingly by women, was
tailored to the plaintiff’s needs. The accusation need not be
malicious. The truth of the allegation was no defence. It was enough
that she prove, via two witnesses, that the offending words had been
uttered: that she was a whore (a generalized term implying more than
sexual impropriety), kept a bawdy house, or had given birth to an
illegitimate child. Although damages could not be awarded a successful
plaintiff, in egregious cases judges compensated with a high award of
costs. And crucially, the woman as plaintiff, regardless of her marital
status, controlled the action, deciding whether to prosecute and when to
settle. Since ecclesiastical courts relied on written evidence, the
plaintiff was not required to testify in person and was thus immune from
possibly damaging cross-examination. The resulting record has been
skilfully deployed here.

This process was attacked by defenders of free speech and the right to
cross-examination, but critics failed to agree on reform—hence the
easy option to abolish in 1857. Waddams argues that the Slander of Women
Act passed 34 years later suffered in comparison with the discredited
ecclesiastical jurisdiction, reminding us that reforms to the common law
are not always progressive.