Adultery and Divorce in the 1960s: Reading and Contextualizing "To Room Nineteen" Anonymous College

In Doris Lessing’s short story, “To Room Nineteen” Susan and Matthew Rawling seem to be the perfect couple, until Matthew begins to have affairs and Susan is left alone to her own thoughts and eventually goes mad and kills herself. An underlying theme that Lessing could be hinting at is how adultery affects a marriage. During the 1960s, divorce was becoming a more prevalent solution to marital issues. By collecting historical information and considering the characters in this story, it can be assumed that Lessing believed that divorce was a suitable solution for some marriages.

During the 1960s, divorce was considered to be a widespread tragedy in London. Laws about divorce were made and it was said that a couple may only get divorced if it were “irretrievably broken down.” According to the London Times article, “Breakdown or Offences” there were three different ways a marriage could be considered broken down: “desertion for a continuous period of at least two years; separation for at least two years when both parties agree to a divorce; separation for at least five years when there is no such agreement”. This suggests that if a couple were in any of these three situations, their marriage was undoubtedly broken down. However,...