Kingdom of Matthias: Women in the 19th Century

Households were strictly patriarchal in which the man of the house made all the important decisions. Women's jobs at the time were mostly relegated to domestic service and occasional work at harvest time. The jobs were always of low pay, low status, and required little training. In addition to this females were not legally permitted to inherit land or property. This was the bleak life of a woman, with little hope or power, and always the subordinate of men.

In early New England textile mills, women and child labor contributed a huge effort to the production of textiles (Foner, The “Mill” Girls 264.). Accepting women in the work place was a huge breakthrough in the progression of women’s rights. In The kingdom Of Matthias, Matthias reacted to how women are getting the rights to work as to give them tasks in the household limiting them still. Matthias believed women should only do what they are permitted to do by their husbands.

According to the article “Rights for woman”, in the 1800 women were treated as subsequent class citizens, and they did not have many rights at all. They were not able to vote and were not encouraged to get an education, or even get a job that they enjoyed (Rights for Women, Par. 1). Women were expected to clean, cook, and find a husband. According to Juliet Levy, Marriage is an agreement that over all comes with substantial financial upbringing. (Levy, 427) As previously stated woman were worth less than men during that time, so the men were basically able to treat them however they wanted. Men were able to send their wives to insane asylums if they did not follow the rules or live up to the expectations of women of that time. According to an article on woman

During the early 1800's women were stuck in the Cult of Domesticity. Women had been issued roles as the moral keepers for societies as well as the nonworking house-wives for families. Also, women were considered unequal to their male companions legally and socially. However, women’s efforts during the 1800’s were effective in challenging traditional intellectual, social, economical, and political attitudes about a women’s place in society.

During this period, the attitude towards women gradually changed. For quite a long period of time, the important roles women played were ignored. In the society, they were viewed as the weaker gender. Women were easily related to the roles such as taking care of the family, childbearing and raising the children. It was considered as their natural job. As a result, morality was largely based along gender lines and responsibilities towards others instead of being focused on the culture of symbols, individual values and ideas. Materialism was largely used to construct gender aspects. Isecke (33) notes that

For many centuries women have had no legal rights and have been regarded as their husband’s property. Even though women’s right’s movement and the first feminist waves are dated to begin at the end of the nineteenth century, many women before have addressed the social injustice. Rosina’s letter “Rights of Women” was published August 13th, 1839 in “The Liberator”, an anti-slavery newspaper, and demands gender equality. At that time “married women essentially had no rights at all, as all legal authority rested with their husbands.” (Doepke and Tertilt 1541-1542).

In the many writings about gender and power, the authors wrote both to support and go against women's expectations during this time period. During this time period women did not get much if any of an education and their main “jobs” were to care for the children and maintain the house. Throughout the articles many kinds of power were described.

Imagine living in a time period where women were expected to less than men and everyone was separated by the amount of money they made. In the Tudor era also known as the Elizabethan era there was an unmarried woman on the throne in the Elizabethan England. The roles of women in this society were very limited. Men were the main ones allowed to work while it was a must the woman were housewives and mothers. Let’s not even get into how many kids women were expected to have.

Women could also be priests, doctors, concubines, and so much more. Of course there was still many women working as bakers, weavers, and waitresses; the opportunity for them to become something greater was still there.

The peasants had to be loyal to the lord and had to give the lord 40 days of military service and had to help him with payments and give him advice.

In the early 18th and 19th century’s social values regarding the place in which women were seen, was very different to what they are now. Rather than people women were seen as property, they were expected to follow the traditional roles, which was that of a homemaker. They were required follow the expectations of their husbands as the husbands were the breadwinners and were in control. Women were thought to purely be there for the man’s benefit. They were expected to fulfill the demands of their fathers, husbands or brothers. This was known as their destined role. During this time the husbands had legal rights of sexual consortium, women were not allowed to own property and were not recognized as individuals. It wasn’t until the two world wars that

Women played an important role in the work and worship of the first century churches. In Paul’s letters he portrays women as equals to men. Paul’s ideas were to renew a community of God’s people; including all races, sexes, and religious backgrounds. While some people will argue that Paul is all for the equality of women, others say that he is misogynistic. Some things that were written may sound harsh to our ears in today’s society; however, when considering the era that these letters were written in, most of the things that were written would not have been taken in a bad way.

The role of women during the Victorian Era has been a prevalent topic over the course of the semester. Women during that time had limited rights, and the rights they did have were equivalent to that of children. Domesticity, caring for their husband and children was the focus of their livelihood. As England continued to grow and industrialize, women became more marginalized, while men continued to grow into dominant members of society, this is known as the notion of separate spheres. The notion of separate spheres was not limited to the role women and men had in the home, but extended into the streets and the workplace. Men were seen as formidable, intellectual, and the governing sex; whereas, women on the other hand, were disregarded as emotionally unstable, dominated by their sexuality, and submissive to men’s wants and desires. Women were not only given limited rights to the roles they had in society, but also were not given the right to choose whom they wanted to marry. A majority of women had no other option but to marry as a way to maintain their livelihood, unless they were members of high social standings. Additionally, the rights of a woman were again lessened after she wed. The moment a woman married, she automatically became the property of her husband. The limited rights she had before were stripped away: her property, identity, and value ceased to exist the moment she became the helpmate to a man. The ideology of the role women played did not

This essay will discuss whether social status was the main obstacle preventing women from exercising their power and influence in the middle ages. This essay will further undertake a close analysis of women’s social status within society and how they were categorised as being either: rural, urban, noble, religious or royal. All women regardless of social status endured the harsh constraints imposed by a dominant patriarchal world, governed by the powers of both political and religious authorities. Women’s social status played a significant but underdog role at this time in society. This essay will investigate other relevant factors pertaining to women’s status; such as the legal rights of women and finally the ideology and theological teachings of the church which acted to restrict the majority of women from fulfilling their full potential, power and influence throughout the middle ages.

The traditional family structure was, although headed and led by males, supplied and sustained by females. Contributing members of society are expected to ear their keep, usually by working in some form. The way in which women were allowed to ear their keep was in the home. The Labor Law instituted in 1930 promised to “liberate married women from the workshop and factory.” Far from liberating, it sought to ensure that women could remain in the home and “fulfill the only purpose of Christian marriage: reproduction.” This regulation did not serve as protection, but merely assigns a positive spin on the concept of limiting women’s potential.