Cross Dressing, "Hunnish Scenes", and a "Virgin Birth": A 1920s Cause Celebre

 A lecture to mark Women's History Month

Co-sponsored by CModS and the Centre for Women's Studies

When, in June 1921, a clairvoyant informed Christabel Russell, to her great surprise, that she was pregnant, her husband denied paternity and petitioned for divorce on grounds of adultery. The Hon John Russell claimed that in their two and a half years of marriage they had rarely even slept in the same bed; moreover, he insisted that his method of birth control (which she referred to disfavourably as ‘Hunnish scenes’) rendered pregnancy impossible. What added to the case’s sensational nature was the revelation that whilst pregnant, Christabel’s hymen was unbroken – hence the claims of a ‘virgin birth’. Two divorce trials and two appeals followed. The first trial ended inconclusively, the second trial was won for John Russell by the eminent barrister Sir Edward Marshall-Hall, but on the second appeal, in the House of Lords, it was ruled that evidence questioning the legitimacy of a child born in wedlock was inadmissible. The decree nisi was rescinded and the baby legitimized.

On first appearance one might have expected Christabel’s condemnation during the trial as the worse kind of modern woman. As she herself wrote in a letter to a woman friend: ‘I have been so frightfully indiscreet all my life that he [John] has enough evidence to divorce me about once a week’. Yet despite the number of co-respondents cited in the divorce case (three named men and one unnamed), she appears to have had sizeable public support. There were several factors that worked in her favour, the prime one being her self-presentation as a doting mother. This paper will explore the contradictory representations of, and responses to, the modern woman as exemplified by Christabel Russell, analysing court proceedings and narratives disseminated in the press.

Dr Lucy Bland teaches History at London Metropolitan University, where she previously taught in Women’s Studies.  Her publications include Banishing the Beast: Feminism, Sex and Morality, the 2^nd edition of which appeared in 2002. She has written widely on the history of feminism, sexuality and gender, and is currently working on a book entitled Sexual Transgression in the Age of the Flapper: the Modern Woman on Trial.