March is Women’s History Month, so I thought I’d write a little about the fascinating women from history who have inspired my novels.

Caroline Norton is famous for her tireless struggle to change the child custody laws in early 19th century England. Her campaigning led to the Custody of Infants Act 1839, the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857 and the Married Women’s Property Act 1870.

The granddaughter of playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Caroline married a barrister, George Norton. At the beginning of her marriage, Caroline was an unconventional and popular society hostess, but her husband was unsuccessful in his legal practice and physically abused her. To make ends meet, Caroline wrote and published novels. In 1836, she left the marital home and tried to subsist on her own earnings, but her husband claimed all of her book royalties because he was entitled to them under the law of coverture. As her husband, he owned even the copyright in the books she had written.

Caroline retaliated, relying on the same law to run up debts and then send the creditors to her husband for payment. She was denied contact with her three sons but her husband paid no attention to them, sending them to live at a country estate. Due to neglect, one of the boys died from blood poisoning as a result of minor wounds, and Caroline never saw him again. The cruelty of the laws whereby fathers had sole custody of their legitimate children affected Caroline deeply. She made it her life’s work to change them.

A more curious incident occurred, again, due to George Norton’s malice. Norton sued Lord Melbourne, the Prime Minister at the time, for criminal conversation with Caroline. This was a cause of action that came about because of a wife’s legal status as her husband’s chattel or possession. If another man had an affair with her, he was seen to be “damaging the goods” and could be sued for a very substantial sum of money. How much compensation could be won depended on the virtue of the wife in question, among other things. A degrading and embarrassing process, in which the wife at the centre of the allegations had no representation in court and no voice. The lawsuit was clearly politically motivated and was unsuccessful but it damaged Caroline’s reputation and threatened the stability of the government.

When I read about Caroline’s story, it made me so furious, I had to write a novel where the wronged wife won. This became THE WIFE’S TALE, in which Delany is a composite of Caroline Norton and an earlier victim of a criminal conversation lawsuit, Seymour, Lady Worsley.