The Case of the Married Woman:A 19th-Century Heroine Who Wanted Justice for Women
Antonia Fraser
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 304 PP, £25
Tablet bookshop price £22.50 • Tel 020 7799 4064
Amid the golden high Victorian splendour of the chamber of the House of Lords is a large painting by Daniel Maclise entitled The Spirit of Justice. The central figure, holding scales aloft, is a statuesque woman in Grecian robes with strong, regular features, and a powerful dark gaze. Below her are supplicants, among them a kneeling, black slave and a widow with a bare-legged orphan child.
It was no secret in 1850 that the painter chose to model Justice on Caroline Norton, then 42, a notorious beauty, a separated wife and professional campaigner for women’s legal rights. She is now half-forgotten, despite her significant contribution to the still unfinished battle to free her sex from male domination and exploitation. In her new book, Antonia Fraser sets out to do justice to Norton herself, and does so with practised skill and engaging sympathy.
