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Irish Divorce / Joyce's Ulysses pp 177–214Cite as

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Money and Divorce

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Abstract

While Bloom retains and at various times revives happy memories of his life with Molly, it is Molly’s thoughts about their finances and about her husband’s checkered history of employment that furnish insights into why their marriage is in trouble. While it is certain that Molly feels financially insecure and is chafing under Bloom’s checks on her spending, and while it is certain that Bloom has provided gilt-edged security for Milly rather than Molly, it is also certain that Molly’s “suppose I divorced him” and Bloom’s “divorce, not now” are bound up with sex and money. Talking to Stephen about Parnell, Bloom reveals his knowledge of the King’s Proctor and the progression from decree nisi to decree absolute specific to the English jurisdiction.

When poverty walks through the door, love flies out the window.

—Proverb

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Osteen, Economy, 71, 91–92.

  2. 2.

    See Keith Warnock, “Auditing Bloom, Editing Joyce: Accounting and Accountability in Ulysses,” Accounting, Business & Financial History 18, no. 1 (2008): 81–95; Michael D. Rubenstein, “‘The Waters of Finance’: Moneyed States in Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’,” Novel: A Forum on Fiction 36, no. 3 (2003): 289–306.

  3. 3.

    Georges Bataille, Eroticism, trans. Mary Dalwood (1957; London: John Calder, 1962), 170–71.

  4. 4.

    Osteen, Economy, 77–81.

  5. 5.

    Cohn, Transparent Minds, 218.

  6. 6.

    James Joyce to Frank Budgen, end of February 1921, in Letters of James Joyce, ed. Stuart Gilbert (London: Faber, 1957), 159–60.

  7. 7.

    James Joyce to Frank Budgen, 6 September 1921, in Letters of James Joyce, 172.

  8. 8.

    Karen R. Lawrence, The Odyssey of Style in “Ulysses” (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981), 207.

  9. 9.

    Anon, “Defects of Laws Relating to Married Women,” Irish Law Times and Solicitors’ Journal 28 (28 May 1904): 181–84, gives a detailed account of the difficulties that could be faced by shop owners and tradesmen to recover payment for goods and services because of loopholes in the Married Women’s Property Act, 1882 (45 & 48 Vict. c.75) and subsequent acts. Bloom’s monitoring of Molly’s domestic expenditure may well relate to the problem of irrecoverable household debt associated with the1882 Act.

  10. 10.

    Molly is sure Boylan has “plenty of money” (U18.411).

  11. 11.

    As Bloom enters Kildare Street from the Molesworth Street end, it is quicker for him to rush into the Museum than to enter the Library.

  12. 12.

    Elisabetta d’Erme, “Mr Canvasser Bloom,” paper presented at the 17th Trieste Joyce School, Trieste, 29 June–5 July 2014.

  13. 13.

    “Plumtree’s Potted Meat,” accessed 23 July 2013, https://thefloatinglibrary.com/2009/05/03/what-is-a-home-withoutplumtrees-potted-meat-incomplete/: Plumtree’s Potted Meat seven pence ha’penny. “Plumtree’s Potted Meat,” accessed 23 July 2013, https://thefloatinglibrary.com/2009/05/03/what-is-a-home-withoutplumtrees-potted-meat-incomplete/: Gilbey’s Invalid Port two shillings and sixpence per bottle, W. & A. Gilbey, 46–47 Upper Sackville Street and Branch Depots in Dublin, “It is a soft matured wine, not medicated, free from excess of acidity and sugar, and therefore of a kind which is of service to the medical man when he considers that Port can be prescribed with advantage as a stimulant and restorative.” See also John Smurthwaite, “A Joycean Price Guide,” James Joyce Online Notes, accessed 23 July 2016, http://www.jjon.org/joyce-s-environs/joycean-price-guide; and “Prices in 1904 Dublin,” “Ulysses” Page-by-Page, 2 March 2016, http://ulyssespages.blogspot.co.nz/2014/03/prices-in-1904-dublin.html.

  14. 14.

    Donald Nicoll, Publicity: An Essay on Advertising, by an Adept of 35 Years’ Experience (London: Office of the Parliamentary, Patent and Advertising Agency, 1878), 26–27.

  15. 15.

    Note that the budget does not reconcile in the way that the creative balance of “£2-19-3” makes it seem. Osteen, Economy, 412, 449–50, provides a “Revised Budget” that gives a balance of “£2-19-2” with cash in hand plus earnings of “£1–12–3.”

  16. 16.

    Tony Thwaites, e-mail message to author, 12 August 2016.

  17. 17.

    Osteen, Economy, 91, 411, 450.

  18. 18.

    Leo Burdock’s did not open until 1913, whereas the Bailey Fish Restaurant, the Red Bank Oyster Restaurant, and The Dive Oyster Restaurant at 8 Duke Street were all operating in 1904.

  19. 19.

    He has also rather generously donated five shillings to the fund for Paddy Dignam’s widow and will spend the rest of the afternoon ensuring that Mrs. Dignam can collect her late husband’s life assurance.

  20. 20.

    Osteen, Economy, 425: “One of Joyce’s notes to ‘Penelope’ reads, ‘MB avarice,’ Notesheets, 515.”

  21. 21.

    Osteen, Economy, 428.

  22. 22.

    In Wisdon v. Wisdon and St Vincent Parker-Jervis reported in Daily Mail, 23 January 1920, 4, the defendant stated, “I have had a much better time with Parker-Jervis, who is a rich man with plenty of money.”

  23. 23.

    Danis Rose, “The Source of Mr. Bloom’s Wealth,” James Joyce Quarterly 25, no. 1 (1987): 129, notes that “‘The most valuable of Bloom’s assets, the Certificate of possession of £900, Canadian 4% inscribed government stock (free of stamp duty)’ was added to the text (and placed in the 2nd drawer) on a gathering of page proofs dated 27 January 1922. This last minute insertion, I submit, was a hasty compromise reached after several months of indecision occasioned by Joyce’s knowledge of Bloom’s past.” See also Joyce, Manuscript and First Printings Compared, 675.

  24. 24.

    See The Empire and the Century: A Series of Essays on Imperial Problems and Possibilities by Various Writers (London: John Murray, 1905), 351–420, for analysis of the importance of Canada to the Empire. For the Canada swindle lawsuit (U12.1984), see Gifford with Seidman, “Ulysses” Annotated, 135–36.

  25. 25.

    Osteen, Economy, 72–74.

  26. 26.

    Dorian Mormont, “Performance and Analysis of the Oldest Mutual Fund, the Scottish Widows’ Fund from 1815 to 2000,” Memoire Presente en vue de l’obtention du Master en Sciences Economiques, Finalement Management Sciences (MS thesis, Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, 2011–2012). Every Man’s Own Lawyer carried advertisements for the Scottish Widows. The amount for Milly was raised from £100 in the Little Review to £500 for the first edition; also “coming into force at 21” raised to “coming into force at 25.” Joyce, Manuscript and First Printings Compared, 675.

  27. 27.

    David Tolmie Merrett, “The 1893 Bank Crashes and Monetary Aggregates,” Research Discussion Paper 9303 (Sydney: Reserve Bank of Australia, 1993), 16: “a monetary contraction of unparalleled proportions in Australian history.” See also David Tolmie Merrett, “Australian Banking Practice and the Crisis of 1893,” Australian Economic History Review 29, no. 1 (1989): 60–65 and David Tolmie Merrett, “The Australian Bank Crashes of the 1890s Revisited,” Business History Review 87 (Autumn 2013): 407–29.

  28. 28.

    “The seven years from July 1900, down to the present day have been to the City generally, and to investors in particular, a long series of disillusionments and disappointments.” The Bankers’ Insurance Managers’ and Agents’ Magazine, vol. 84 (London: Waterlow, 1907), 328.

  29. 29.

    “Commercial News,” Freeman’s Journal, 30 May 1904, 3.

  30. 30.

    Lance E. Davis and Robert E. Gallman, eds., Evolving Financial Markets and International Capital Flows: Britain, the Americas, and Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 379–83.

  31. 31.

    “Australians in Canada,” Brisbane Courier, 9 November 1904, 4.

  32. 32.

    Gifford with Seidman, “Ulysses” Annotated, 597; Osteen, Economy, 92. For problems in 1904 with Canadian Railway management and investment, see “All Aboard: The Board of Railway Commissioners, 1904 to 1938,” Canadian Transportation Agency, accessed 23 July 2016, https://www.otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/publication/100-years-heart-transportation-historical-perspective#chapter1. See also Leslie T. Fournier, “Present Railroad Problems in Canada,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 187, no. 1 (1936): 151–52; Railway Inquiry Commission 1916; and The Drayton-Acworth Report (1917).

  33. 33.

    Davis and Gallman, Evolving Financial Markets, 556.

  34. 34.

    Freeman’s Journal, 9 March 1904, 5. See also “Lord Dunraven on the Land Act,” Freeman’s Journal, 30 May 1904, 5: “The Canadian Guaranteed 4 per Cent are not a trustee security at all, as they are redeemable in 1908, 1910, 1913, and are always above par; also the three classes yield respectively £2-10s-9d, £3-1s-6d, £3-6s-9d according to Coates’s list.”

  35. 35.

    “Lord Dunraven on the Land Act,” 5.

  36. 36.

    The Economist, 4 June 1904, 947.

  37. 37.

    Carl Snyder, American Railways as Investments: A Detailed and Comparative Analysis of All the Leading Railways, from the Investor’s Point of View, with an Introductory Chapter on the Methods of Estimating Railway Values (New York: Moody, 1907), 329.

  38. 38.

    To save £900, Bloom would have had to put aside £36 per year for every year since he began working, assuming that he bought the Canadian stock in 1903.

  39. 39.

    “Chat on Change,” Daily Mail, 31 May 1904, 2.

  40. 40.

    Most likely the pseudonym of Sir Philip Francis (1740–1818).

  41. 41.

    The Canadian Encyclopedia (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2000), 1001–2.

  42. 42.

    “Grand Trunk Railway System,” accessed 21 July 2016, http://www.railwaybob.com/Constituents/GTRConstituents.htm. See also, “Grand Trunk Railway,” canada-rail, accessed 2 July 2016, http://www.canada-rail.com/ontario/railways/GTR.html#.WBPPWKNh3Hc.

  43. 43.

    “Grand Trunks,” Daily Mail, 28 May 1904, 2.

  44. 44.

    “Chat on Change: Canadian Pacifics,” Daily Mail, 31 May 1904, 2.

  45. 45.

    “Judicial Committee of the Privy Council,” Times (London), 12 July 1922, 5; 14 July 1922, 4; 29 July 1922, 4. The Accountant, 6 May 1922, 616, and 5 August 1922, 194. I am indebted to Katy Davies, Librarian at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales for these references from The Accountant. The process of nationalization followed the establishment of a commission under Prime Minister Robert Borden headed by Sir Henry Drayton and W. M. Ackworth in May 1917. See “Drayton and Ackworth Favor Nationalization,” Toronto World, 28 March 1917, 6, accessed 15 July 2016, https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=hqOjcs7Dif8C&dat=19170328&printsec=frontpage&hl=en.

  46. 46.

    “Grand Trunk Railway,” Canada-Rail, accessed 23 July 2016, http://www.canada-rail.com/ontario/railways/GTR.html#.V29qHN5UN0A. See also Leslie T. Fournier, Railway Nationalization in Canada: The Problem of the Canadian National Railways (1935; New York: Arno Press, 1981), 49–73.

  47. 47.

    Irish Times, 26 September 1903, 10. Agent: James H. North & Co., 110 Grafton Street. Presently, the Offices of the Dublin Trading Company.

  48. 48.

    Irish Times, 16 September 1903, 10. Every Man’s Own Lawyer, 17, contains a comprehensive list of “Solicitors’ Costs for Sales, Purchases, and Mortgages.”

  49. 49.

    Rose, “The Source of Mr. Bloom’s Wealth.” Andrew Gibson, “‘Nobody Owns’: Ulysses, Tenancy, and Property Law,” James Joyce Quarterly 50, no. 4 (2013): 959, has convincingly argued that “Flowerville” raises “the question of ‘how far modern legal agreements over property outdistance the feudalism that has so crippled Ireland.’” See also Mary Daly, Dublin, the Deposed Capital: A Social and Economic History 1860–1914 (Cork: Cork University Press, 1984).

  50. 50.

    Kingham v. Kingham [1897] 1 IR 170. Final judgment against wife at 29 ILTR 5: “Testator declared that any money to which any daughter should become entitled under his will should be settled free of any liabilities of any other person, and with full power of willing same on her decease. Held, that each daughter’s share should be settled upon her for her separate use, with restraint on anticipation, and with power to dispose of same by will; and in default of such disposition to such daughter’s next-of-kin as if she had died unmarried.” See also Hartford v. Power (1868) 16 WR 822 (IR); affirmed on appeal 3 IR Eq 602.

  51. 51.

    Times (London), 20 January 1904, 4.

  52. 52.

    Jenkins v. Jenkins, NA J77/791/4064, Filed: 14 July 1903; Set Down: 19 January 1904; Final Decree: 2 August 1904.

  53. 53.

    Molly uses the same expression: “he was on the pop of asking me” (U18.198).

  54. 54.

    See Criminal Law Amendment Act, “Table of Offences,” 102: “Unlawful carnal knowledge against girls above 13 or under 16: two years imprisonment. Reasonable belief that girl was above 16 a defence. Defendant and wife or husband competent witnesses.” Note, however, Keith Smith, “Offences against the Person,” in The Oxford History of the Laws of England: Volume XIII: 1820–1914 Fields of Development, ed. William Cornish, J. Stuart Anderson, Ray Cocks, Michael Loban, Patrick Polden, and Keith Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 406: “In relation to non-penetrative sexual assault, legal consent was set at 13 for both girls and boys in 1880 by the Assault of Young Persons Act, and at 16 by the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1922.”

  55. 55.

    Gladney v. Murphy 26 ILTR 651.

  56. 56.

    Leckie, “Simple Case of Adultery,” 734, citing Judith Butler, Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative (New York: Routledge, 1997), 134.

  57. 57.

    For example, “Letters to a Wife: Colonel’s Discovery of a Friend’s Intrigue,” Daily Mail, 24 March 1920, 4, where extracts from a bundle of letters were read out in court and one letter was published.

  58. 58.

    Milne v. Milne, NA J77/754/2958, Filed: 24 June 1902; Set Down: 27 November 1902; Decree Nisi: 16 February 1903; Final Decree: 30 October 1905.

  59. 59.

    Goodfellow v. Goodfellow and Keys, NA J77/754/2959, Filed: 25 June 1902; Set Down: 11 July 1902; Decree Nisi: 7 August 1902; Final Decree: 16 February 1902.

  60. 60.

    Roberts v. Roberts and Drew, NA J77/754/2937, Filed: 13 June 1902; Set Down: 20 August 1902; Decree Nisi: 10 November 1902; Final Decree: 25 May 1903.

  61. 61.

    Roberts v. Roberts and Foulkes, NA J77/733/2303, Filed: 8 November 1901; Set Down: 2 January 1902; Decree Nisi: 30 May 1905; Final Decree: 11 December 1905.

  62. 62.

    Jones v. Jones and Saunders and Cook, NA J77/755/2984, Filed: 4 July 1902; Set Down: 9 December 1902; Decree Nisi: 31 March 1903; Final Decree: 14 October 1903. Saunders was not guilty of adultery; Cook was. More sensational is Sutton v. Sutton and Adams and Lloyd and Loveless, NA J77/806/4520, Filed: 9 January 1904; Set Down: 16 June 1904; Decree Nisi: 23 January 1905; Final Decree 31 July 1905—where the petitioner was not only granted custody of the children but was permitted to take them with him to Canada.

  63. 63.

    Kirk v. Kirk, NA J77/768/3378, Filed: 12 November 1902.

  64. 64.

    Nicolas-Thomas Baudin (1754–1803). French explorer, cartographer, naturalist, and hydrographer. Between 1800 and 1803 he led an expedition to map the coast of New Holland (now Australia).

  65. 65.

    Bloom, while born in Dublin, was apparently conceived in London. See John Henry Raleigh, The Chronicle of Leopold and Molly Bloom: “Ulysses” as Narrative (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), 15–16.

  66. 66.

    Even though Bloom might act as Molly’s manager, any money she earned would remain hers. See In re Simon [1909] 1 KB 201; 78 LJKB 392; 100 LT 133; 53 Sol Jo 117; 16 Mans 96, CA: “A trade belonging exclusively to a married woman but managed by her husband on her behalf was a trade carried on by a married woman separately within Married Women’s Property Act 1882 (c. 75).”

  67. 67.

    See Martin J. Weiner, Men of Blood: Violence, Manliness and Criminal Justice in Victorian England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 151–69, particularly 164; N. Radojevic et al., “Multiple Stabbing in Sex Related Homicides,” Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine 20 (July 2013): 502–7.

  68. 68.

    An exception is Light v. Light and Evans and Perry, where the husband unsuccessfully alleged that the wife had communicated a sexual disease. Light v. Light and Evans and Perry, NA J77/798/4297, Filed: 20 October 1903; Set Down: 1 July 1904. Struck Out.

  69. 69.

    See “Rules and Regulations for the Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes,” in The Law Journal Reports for the Year 1866: Michaelmas Term 1865 to Michaelmas Term 1866, Forming Part V of Vol. LXIV, New Series, Vol. XXXV (London: Edward Bret Ince, 1866), 1–13, 14–21.

  70. 70.

    Crawford v. Crawford and Dilke (1886) 11 P&D 150; 55 LT 305; 34 WR 677; 2 TLR 768, CA. For Dilke’s disastrous pressure on the Queen’s Proctor to secure the re-opening of the Crawford divorce, in which he had already been found not to be a co-respondent, see Roy Jenkins, Victorian Scandal: A Biography of the Right Honourable Gentleman Sir Charles Dilke (New York: Chilmark Press, 1965), chaps. 11–17. Dilke reckoned without the belligerent antagonism of the Queen’s Proctor, Sir Augustus Stevenson.

  71. 71.

    O’Shea v. O’Shea and Parnell (1890) 15 P&D 59; 59 LJP 47; 62 LT 713; 38 WR 374; 6 LTR 221; 17 Cox CC 107, CA. See also, Bew, Enigma, 164–88.

  72. 72.

    Callanan, The Parnell Split, 9.

  73. 73.

    Katie Wales, The Language of James Joyce (London: Macmillan, 1992), 125. Robert Byrnes, in “A Statistical Analysis of the ‘Eumaeus’ Phrasemes in James Joyce’s “Ulysses”,” contends that “Bloom operates from a broad base of 1478 tonally neutral clichés, then works up into ceremonious and formal zones 529 times, and down into informality, slang and vulgarity a further 554 times. The upper and lower zones of his range are almost exactly symmetrical.” http://www.ledonline.it/ledonline/JADT-2010/allegati/JADT-2010-0289-0296_184-Byrnes.pdf.

  74. 74.

    David Robbins, “Revealed: Secret Evidence in the Parnell, Kitty O’Shea Scandal,” Irish Independent, 3 March 2013, http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/revealed-secret-evidence-in-the-parnell-kitty-oshea-scandal-29104292.html, points out that O’Shea had, along with other liaisons, committed adultery with Maria Dominguez in Las Minas in Spain in 1877 and 1878.

  75. 75.

    Quoted in Stone, Road to Divorce, 295–96.

  76. 76.

    Duplany v. Duplany; Cohen Intervening, NA J77/462/4065, Filed: 5 December 1890; Judicial Separation: 15 December 1891. See ruling of Sir Francis Henry Jeune, 9 June 1891: “the said Adolphus Rosenberg has given an undertaking not to repeat the said offence.” Note, however, 28 February 1893: “Affidavit filed by Jeannie Rosenberg, Wife of Adolphus Rosenberg, to Release Adolphus Rosenberg from Prison (Contempt of Court).” Duplany v. Duplany [1892] P 53; 61 LJP 49; 66 LT 267; 8 TLR 169.

  77. 77.

    Stone, Road to Divorce, 295, citing Royal Commission on Divorce (1912), 1:146.

  78. 78.

    Oscar Wilde, “The Soul of Man under Socialism,” Fortnightly Review 49 (1891), 305; The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, ed. Josephine M. Guy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 256.

  79. 79.

    Stone, Road to Divorce, 295.

  80. 80.

    “MP’s Divorce Suit: Wife and Professional Golfer: Intercepted Letter,” Daily Mail, 26 February 1919, 3.

  81. 81.

    The case, Bamberger v. Bamberger and Symonds and Leeson and Stephenson and Stein, was reported in detail in the Daily Mail on 11 March 1920, 5; 12 March 1920, 5; 13 March 1920, 5; 18 March 1920, 5; 19 March 1920, 7; 20 March 1920, 5; 23 April 1920, 7; 24 April 1920, 3; 3 May 1920, 5; et passim.

  82. 82.

    Katharine O’Shea’s defense was that her husband was an adulterer who neglected her and encouraged her intimacy with Parnell. William Henry O’Shea v. Katharine O’Shea and Stewart Charles Parnell, NA J77/440/3419; 15 PD 59; 59 LJP 47; 62 LT 713; 38 WR 374; 6 LTR 221; 17 Cox CC 107, CA.

  83. 83.

    Brown, Joyce and Sexuality, 37–38, 203; Nouveau scandale de Londres: l’Affaire Crawford (Paris: Libraire Illustreé, 1886); Ellmann, Consciousness, 121.

  84. 84.

    Jackson v. Jackson [1910] P 230; 79 LJP 82; 103 LT 79; 26 TLR 476.

  85. 85.

    “The King’s Proctor: Who is He and How He Works,” Daily Mail, 22 March 1920, 5.

  86. 86.

    Every Man’s Own Lawyer, Dictionary, 19.

  87. 87.

    Cornish, “Marital Breakdown,” 795–96.

  88. 88.

    “The King’s Proctor: Who is He and How He Works,” 5.

  89. 89.

    “Divorce Delays,” Daily Mail, 27 July 1920, 4. Cornish, “Marital Breakdown,” 794–95, points out that the change from three months to six months dates from 1866 as a consequence of the Divorce Court Act 1860, §7.

  90. 90.

    Savage, “Divorce and the Law,” 506; Latey, Law and Practice, “Interventions by the Queen’s Proctor,” 857–63, §4, 880–95; “King’s Proctor Busy: 24 Divorce Decrees Rescinded,” Daily Mail, 19 October 1920, 4.

  91. 91.

    “Anonymous Letter Fiends,” Daily Mail, 18 November 1920, 6.

  92. 92.

    “Divorce Year: Danger Age in Married Life,” Daily Mail, 28 August 1920, 3.

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    Peter Kuch

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Kuch, P. (2017). Money and Divorce. In: Irish Divorce / Joyce's Ulysses. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57186-1_6

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