Rape Rape

Throughout much of America’s history, women have been considered less than men and have not been granted equal rights. In this time period, “women could not vote or hold office in any state, they had no access to higher education, and they were excluded from professional occupations” (“Women’s Rights”). For a long period of time, the reason that women could not vote was because of the “assumption that married

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

In ancient Israel, the husband could issue a divorce, but the wife could not, and it was very much the same throughout much of England’s history (Magnus Hirshfeld Archive for Sexology).

The laws that allowed married women to recapture property rights through widowhood were revised in the early nineteenth century. Once widowed, women were entitled to a dower, which was usually equivalent to one third of the husband's estate. The dower is the portion of the deceased

Many people believe that marriage is important in this day and age, but it holds little significance compared to the importance of marriage in the Victorian era. In the Victorian era women were to get married to a man of the same or a better social status, be good wives, and be a mother to her husband's children. Very few marriages started with love, but a woman's life is not complete without being married. Over time, the role of married women has evolved a great deal and they now have rights and privileges. John Stuart Mill was one of the great thinkers of the Victorian era, and his essay The Subjection of Women tells how few privileges women had and that they were slaves to their husbands. He also says that women are their own people and

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

Then in 1870, the Married Women’s Property Act was in action. This act meant that wages and property earned through a wife 's own work, and investments made with that earned money would henceforth be regarded as her own. This also meant that women could hold rented property in their own name. This act also made women legally liable to maintain their children. In 1871, the first state laws specifically making wife beating illegal were passed, though proliferation of laws to all states and adequate enforcement of those laws lagged very far behind. “In 1878 a woman suffrage amendment was first introduced in the United States Congress, but it did not pass. Then in 1879, a women named Belva Lockwood became the first woman allowed to argue before the Supreme Court. Her first case was the 1880 case "Kaiser v. Stickney".” (Wikipedia, 2016)

Married women in colonial America were not entitled to their own property, were looked upon as completely dependent on their husbands, and felt the heat when it came to divorce (Document 4). According to Gettysburg College, men were seen as the “king and priest” of the household, which still holds true today in a sense. However, with time, women have gained more rights and have equal opportunities with males in the present-day United States.

The claim of women as property to men displays how in both time periods, gender inequality influences how women are not treated as a human, but rather an object to men whether it is a husband or even a father.

“I’m leaving you!” or “I want a divorce!” Is what we hear now a days by women or men, but it wasn’t as easy back in the 1800s for women they had no rights, their “job was to be a meek, obedient, loving wife who was totally subservient to the men.”(Laura Donnaway). Women couldn’t leave their husbands just because they didn’t love them no more or they caught in affairs because they wouldn’t get anything because “all of her inheritance (if any existed) would belong to her husband.” (Kelley Smith). Which is why many women had to live with being treated like objects instead of human beings.

The acknowledgment of the rights of women have transformed the conversation about rape within America over the last fifty years. However well before feminism was able to have considerable affect on America’s judicial and political landscape, women had to risk their wellbeing for both the right to have premarital sex as well as obtain justice when their consent wasn’t given. In the seventeenth century, this risk was even greater when it included individuals of color. The Puritans, the founders of New Haven, determined that all sexual relations exceeding what God permitted were to be met with confession and a matched punishment for both involved parties. Then as the influence of England’s secular, legal system began to insert itself within the community, the equality that characterized prosecutions in the seventeenth century was replaced with elements of racial and gender disservice. Yet although the judicial system of colonial America would become increasingly prejudiced against white women in regards to their sexual activities, the complete removal of consent from interracial sex made sexual expression for people of color a dangerous act.

In “Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England Book the First: Chapter the Fifteenth: Of Husband and Wife”, the author is trying to show the rules and limitations on the people in the English society, specifically the women. He is not against it, however. He is trying to show the people in this English society as well as any opposition that the ideology that they had in place was a desirable option. Blackstone feels that it is for the good of the society that women are treated this way. He lived in England during this time and was a firsthand witness to everything, making this a primary source. He writes,” the disabilities, which the wife lies under, are for the most part intended for her protection and benefit.” He makes his argument

In the world today, many men and women believe divorce is always a dreadful thing that occurs, but there is actually a beneficial side to it. Divorce has been around for many years and mainly just men were the only ones capable to make the decisions. Until, The Guardian states,” The 1857 Matrimonial Causes Act allowed ordinary people to divorce.” Under this new law, it was capable for women to make the decision, they just had to prove the facts to withhold a divorce. Following 1857, in 1923 there was a private member’s bill that allowed women to petition for a divorce for adultery. However, it only made it a little bit easier, they still needed to prove the reason. A few years later, they were able to pass another law, this law allowed divorce