1920 Problems of marriage and sexual morality: the Lambeth Conference

Abstract

This article by Dame Mary Scharlieb (1845–1930) addresses issues on marriage and sexuality raised at the 1920 Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops. It is likely that she had a strong influence on the Bishop of London on medical issues, and, through him, on the resolutions on marriage and sexuality at this Conference. Her article, published in Theology in November 1920, is clearly a piece of its time and reflects a fascinating mixture of pro-women and conservative ethical views, tempered by her understanding of medical science as it was then: for example, she and the bishops at the Conference strongly opposed the use of contraception even within marriage (ten years later the Lambeth Conference dropped this opposition). Mary Scharlieb was a pioneer female gynaecologist. Raised as an Evangelical, she became an Anglo-Catholic after her marriage to a British lawyer who was employed in Madras. Her medical training, prompted by the lack of medical help for Indian women, began at the Madras Christian College but was completed at Mrs Garrett Anderson’s London School of Medicine for Women, leading to her appointment at the Royal Free Hospital in 1902. Her husband stayed working in India until his death, while she worked as a gynaecologist in London. She was created a Dame two years before her death. Editor.