Finally the deed of separation executed in 1873 was held to be good as protecting Mr.Besant from any suit brought by me, whether for divorce or for restitution of conjugal rights, while the clauses giving me the custody of the child were set aside.

The Court of Appeal in April, 1879, upheld the decision, the absolute right of the father as against a married mother being upheld.

This ignoring of all right to her children on the part of the married mother is a scandal and a wrong that has since been redressed by Parliament, and the husband has no longer in his grasp this instrument of torture, whose power to agonise depends on the tenderness and strength of the motherliness of the wife.

In the days when the law took my child from me, it virtually said to all women: "Choose which of these two positions, as wife and mother, you will occupy.

If you are legally your husband's wife, you can have no legal claim to your children; if legally you are your husband's mistress, your rights as mother are secure." That stigma on marriage is now removed.
One thing I gained in the Court of Appeal.