Pre-Dating Vicky Pryce: The Peel Case (1922) and the Origins of the Marital Coercion Statutory Defence

Until 1925, there was a common law presumption that a wife committing an offence in her husband's presence did so as a result of marital coercion. However, when an upper-class wife facing prosecution with her husband for a betting fraud in 1922 successfully relied upon the defence, there was a public outcry against a doctrine that was perceived as reinforcing the ancient concept of a wife as her husband's chattel. It is argued that the abolition of the presumption, but not the doctrine itself, in the (still in force) Criminal Justice Act 1925, s 47, while reflecting changes towards a more companionate style of marriage, was primarily driven by the objectives of predominantly middle-class women's organisations. Whether the change benefited working-class wives at the time is, however, more problematic.