Blackstone's Rights

In Breaking Tradition, paragraph two states, “People in “polite society” demanded that ladies live under the guidance and protection of their fathers, husbands, or other male relatives. Women could not vote or sign contracts. And under the law, husbands usually controlled their wives’ poverty, if they owned any, and wages, if they earned

After marriage, the husband was considered lord and master of the family. But not all the women were meek and submissive. By the 1700's, the woman’s status had rapidly improved in colonial America. A wife and child made as much as a man did. Although women did not have equality with men, their status greatly improved from their status in Europe. A woman’s station in life was determined by the position of their husbands or fathers. The women of the poorest families, compiled to work in the fields, stood at the bottom of the social ladder. One of the surest signs of the accomplishments a family had made, was the exemption of their women from the fields. Before 1740, girls were trained in household crafts and the practical arts of family management. But afterwards they began to study subjects that required reading and studying such subjects as grammer and arithmetic. The women of the upper classes occupied themselves mainly with planning the work of the home and with supervising the domestic servants. Along with these tasks the women also baked, nursed, and sewed. But there were many social restrictions placed on the women of that time. One such restriction was that a wife, in absence of her husband, was not allowed to lodge men even if they were close relatives. For

The source tells young women that they must ‘be content to be inferior to men’ , a statement that corroborates with the contemporary laws of England. Society was deeply patriarchal, with men legally authorised to use physical violence to chastise his wife as she ‘belonged to him. Women who wanted to separate

During the Victorian era were the years for women that had no constitutional rights of their own, and both writings indicate how both wives were

In The Wife’s Lament, the wife is forced to exile. The wife reveals the feelings of suffering, regret, and loneliness. The wife’s misery began when her Lord left her behind. The Wife set out to find him but her Lord’s Kinsmen didn’t want them together anymore, and this is when the forced exile takes actions. “My man’s kinsmen began to plot by darkened thought to divide us two so we most widely in the world’s kingdom lived wretchedly and I suffered longing.” (Lines 11-15). The wife believes she will one day be reunited with her Lord so she moves away to new land. The wife then finds out her Lord wants to commit a crime. “Hiding his mood thinking of murder” (Line 20). This scares the wife and forces her to move into the woods under an Oak Tree. This shows the wife as weak which is not an Anglo-Saxon belief. The wife also believes a man who is weak should never show it, should always pretend to be fine. She believes this because men have the upper hand, they hold more power. A man who shows he’s weak has no belief as Anglo-Saxons. Anglo-Saxons think nobody should ever be weak, they should always be brave. It shows how she’s scared of her lord, so scared she runs into the woods and stays under an oak tree. This exile shows women have no power.

The case involving Birch & Davis International, Inc., and Warren M. Christopher, the United States Secretary of State was decided on September 13th, 1993. The case involved procurement procedures conducted by the Agency of International Development (Open Jurist). The issue centered on exclusion of bids made by Birch & Davis International, Inc. Birch challenged the exclusion to the General Services Administration Board of Contract Appeals and they decided that the actions taken by the agency were fair. The case got to the Federal level when Birch appealed the decision by the board.

The Declaration of Sentiments includes a reference to married women as “civilly dead” according to the laws of the time. First, the document states that men take from their wives “all right in property, even to the wage she earns.” Next, a husband is referred to as a “master-the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty.” These depictions of men help illustrate the idea that women were denied almost all forms of independence, both

The life of a colonial woman in the 17th and 18th century was demanding at best. Women had little to no rights such as: the right to vote, the right to hold and form of public office, or the right to serve on juries. Yet, widowed or unmarried women were able to make a will, buy or sell property, act as a guardian, and had the right to sue or be sued. If a widow had no children, she received one-half interest in the personal property of her deceased husband or one-third if she had children. When a woman married, she was completely enslaved to her husband. Everything that she had once possessed herself now belong to him. This also means the children they conceived legally belonged to their father. The rights for married women dwindled down even less than unmarried women or widows. Married women could not make a will without the consent of her

Women in Wollstonecraft’s time were only valued for their attractiveness, were only useful for their role as a mother, and were not given the right to an education nor the right to jobs. Wollstonecraft observes that “when a women is admired for her beauty, she suffers herself to be...intoxicated by the admiration she receives as to neglect...the indispensable duty of a mother, she sins against herself by neglecting to cultivate an affection that would equally tend to make her useful and happy” (Wollstonecraft 6). In other words, women getting so wrapped up in presenting themselves as beautiful in order to meet society’s standards then completely neglect their natural role as a mother that would make them “useful” by society’s standards by fulfilling the only role they really could at the time: a mother. Instead of being praised for being a virtuous mother, women were valued solely for their sexual attractiveness. Once their beauty fades and they have already birthed and raised their children, as Wollstonecraft states, “let them not expect to be valued” (32). During Wollstonecraft’s time, a typical woman was “dependent on her husband’s bounty for her subsistence during his life or support after his death” (19). A woman did not have any other job than to be impregnated and raise her husband’s offspring, meaning she had to be financially dependent on her husband. Women could not “study the art of healing” nor “be physicians [or] nurses”—jobs Wollstonecraft argued “women might certainly study” given the opportunity

The narrator is portraying a woman who is looked down upon because of her mental illness, but women at the time were often seen as childish or too emotional. “Then he took me in his arms called me a blessed little goose,” (Gilman 5). The narrator’s husband, John, treats her almost like a father would treat a daughter. The narrator is belittled because of her inability to act like women at the time were expected to. “Victorian values stressed that women were to behave demurely and remain with in the domestic sphere,” (Wilson 6). During the 19th century, women were expected to simply care for the children and clean the house. Most of the time, women who aspired to do more than that were not considered respectable wives. “Because the narrator is completely dependent on her husband and is allowed no other role than to be a wife and a mother, she represents the secondary status of women during the 19th century,” (Wilson 5).

Everyone should be treated as equals. However, in Mary Wollstonecraft’s era, women did not have the same equal rights as men. It was a time period of sexism and double standards. In her work Vindication of the Rights of Women, she argues and defends for the equality of women. Wollstonecraft believed that everyone has the ability to reason and learn; therefore women should be able to receive the same amount of necessities involving proper education, support, attitude, respect, etc., that are needed in order to accomplish goals as any other person, in this case, men. As of today in the 21st century, Wollstonecraft would be disappointed due to the amount of disrespect society contributes on women, as well as some women who have no respect for their own self-worth. In order to improve, changes must start from within.

Austen explains that being born a woman in such a society suggests that even less alternatives on whom to get married to or not to get married to, or how to establish the nature of a person’s life. Furthermore, the way in which the society weakens and controls women is useful in explaining Mrs. Elizabeth Bennet 's panic concerning the marriage of her beloved daughters, as well as why such marriages should always entail both financial and practical considerations. Coming from noble

Mary Wollstonecraft, who was born during the age of enlightenment in the 18th century, is one of the most prominent feminists in women’s history. Her book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman led her to become one of the first feminists, advocating for the rights of women. Born in a time where women’s education was neither prominent nor important, Wollstonecraft was raised with very little education. However, events in her life influenced her to begin writing, such as the way her father, Edward John Wollstonecraft treated her mother, “into a state of wearied servitude” (Kries,Steven)1. In 1792, she published Vindication on the Rights of Woman, which is one of the most prominent feminist pieces to date. This book is considered a reply to

In the Victorian era, the status of women in society was extremely oppressive and, by modern standards, atrocious. Women had few rights, in or outside of the home. Married women in this period relied on men almost completely as they had few rights or independence. With this mindset in focus,

The year was 1912 in London, England. Women lived at the mercy of their fathers, brothers, husbands and bosses; clearly a patriarchal society. Women’s lives consisted of keeping house and raising children and caring for their families. Those who worked outside of the home were limited to menial labor, earned significantly less than men, and surrendered their earnings to their husbands. Any inheritance of real estate or money a woman may have received was given to her husband and, most often, she had nothing to say about how it was managed or spent. A woman could not vote or run for office, and received little support, should she desire an education other than a ‘finishing school.’ (Clearly,