Since it came up in class, I wanted to share a little background on the (very sketchy) history of the gradual liberalization of divorce law before and after the 1890s setting of James’s novel. Here’s an excerpt from Stephen Kern’s excellent book on the modernist novel that’s applicable:

“Marital relations in England, for example, were transformed by a series of Parliamentary acts that gradually accorded legal selfhood to women and equalized the grounds for divorce. In 1850 the English wife’s legal existence had been absorbed into that of her husband in a condition known as coverture: “the husband and wife are one person; that is, the very being, or legal existence, of a woman is suspended during marriage, or at least incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband, under whose wing, protection and cover she performs everything.” 16 An act of 1884 abrogated the husband’s legal right to imprison his wife. An act of 1923 gave a wife the power to obtain a divorce on the basis of adultery alone without additional aggravating grounds. In 1937 wives were given the right to sue for divorce on the ground of desertion, cruelty, or insanity alone, without also proving adultery.”

Stephen Kern, The Modernist Novel: A Critical Introduction

So we can see, on the one hand, the weakness of Ida’s and Miss Overmore’s hands in the novel as they navigate the “marriage market,” and, on the other, the rising fortunes of women as they gain elements of legal “personhood” in the period.