Remarkable Creature Summary

The relationship dynamic between men and women in the nineteenth century was patriarchal, male dominated. Men were seen as physically stronger, but inferior to women morally. This led women to play the domestic roles within a relationship and household, someone who took care of house chores and children. The men would slowly begin commuting to their work places, where they would make money to support

What does the lifestyle of a 19th century wife consist of? It is thought by Christopher Sallus that men and women live their lives in different social spheres (Sallus). As a result, proper men’s lives consisted of factory work, attending public events, and large amounts

Before 1840 women were viewed as something that needed to be taken care of. They could not own property, fathers would not mention their daughters in their wills, women could not be treasurer of their own companies, it was the husband’s responsibility. Only seven vocations were available to them outside of the home in the late 1840’s; widows would receive no share of her husband’s property or his families, and if one did not marry or remarry she had to enter one of the few employments for her or be a charity case for her relatives. When factory jobs became available to women they were quickly taken because it gave women a way to be independent and not a burden to their loved ones, but earn and spend their own money however the wished. For once

Tempting as it is to forget the similarities, which were many, and stress the differences, the important characteristic of colonial women’s lives was alike, whatever the region: an adult woman’s status was everywhere determined by her marital state. In the Chesapeake no less than in New England, a woman was seen chiefly as an adjunct of her husband. Her social standing depended on her husband’s position in the colonial hierarchy: her primary role in family and community was as mistress of his household. Granted, the same was true of her English contemporaries. But two major differences separated the women of the Old World from those of the New. First, because of later marriage and longer widowhood, seventeenth-century English women most likely earned wages and lived independently of a paternal or marital household for a period of time at least as long as the terms of their marriages. In other words, they spent as much of their adult lives outside a marital household as inside one. Few American women had similar experiences: demographic constraints precluded long-term, independent lives in the colonies. Second. English women actively engaged in a market economy, exchanging goods and services with neighbors and working in shops alongside their husbands and fathers. The economic life of seventeenth-century English

During the middle of the nineteenth century, a so-called "cult of domesticity" arose in the United States and Great Britain predicated upon a number of assumptions regarding the proper role of women in society, and it served to protect male hegemony during a period of historical upheaval. According to Godey's Lady's Book, one of the most successful magazines of the period, "the perfection of womanhood... is the wife and mother, the center of the family, that magnet that draws man to the domestic altar, that makes him a civilized being... the wife is truly the light of the home." A woman's appropriate role was that of a wife and mother, and they were expected to follow certain cardinal virtues that contributed to the perpetuation of this role, which formed the basis of the cult's ideological work. The cult of domesticity was an ideological construct which served to support the dominant authorities of the time, and only by examining the cult of domesticity (and the "angel of the house" which served as its focus) as points of intersection between religious, political, and economic power can one begin to understand how the role of women in the nineteenth century was regulated in response to historical developments that threatened male hegemony, namely, nationalist anxiety following the American Revolution and the ascendance of capitalism as the overarching political and economic structure.

In the 18oo’s, everything that a woman could do was dictated by the man in her home. They were treated as property, first of their father, then to the man they would marry. A woman’s only life goal was only ever to get married. Marriage was the only way for a woman to keep wealth (until 1839, when the Married Women’s Property Acts allowed women to be legally separated from their husbands) was through the marriage of a wealthy gentleman, despite everything else. Once married, women were expected to stay home and care for their children. Women would also rarely escaped their lives in order to attend to their guests and the state of their home. Women were easily separated into three classes: the

Lawrence Stone's Family, Sex, and Marriage in England, 1500-1800 swept aside the scattered remains of prior methods of interpretation. It attempted to construct a new understanding of family history through its innovative discussion of the development of the English family from the Reformation until the Industrial Revolution. Stone presented a compelling argument, which centered primarily on the gradual emergence of the intimate, modern family and he claimed that it emerged largely due to the rise and spread of the idea of “Collective Individualism” (221). Furthermore, whereas prior historiographic accounts emphasized the prominent roles that economic and demographic formations played on the development of family history, Stone differed because he based his research around the idea that major functional and psychological reasons ultimately caused fundamental changes in family life (18). Despite the loss of economic and social institutions like schools, asylums, and hospitals, Stone argued that families became closer. In a work of colossal size and aspiration, Stone discarded the idea of a clear linear transition. According to Stone, three stages of development occurred between 1500 and 1800, which overlapped each other.

In the nineteenth century women lived in an age of inequality because of their gender. Women had very limited choices when it came to their occupational choices, which is why most women stayed home to care for their children take care of the house, keep things clean, and in line and make sure that everything was ready before their husbands came home from their longs days of working.

Late Victorian and Edwardian’s idea of masculinity was influenced by domesticity. Manliness was above all a moral attribute,

Social standing, and moral values were vital elements in Victorian society, and the fundamental doctrine of establishing this ideology, began at home. The home provided a refuge from the rigour, uncertainty, anxiety, and potential violence of the outside world. (P, 341) A woman’s role was to provide a safe, stable, and well-organised environment for their husbands and families. However, change was on the horizon with an underlying movement of business and domestic changes both home and abroad, with industrialization, and the suffragist movement. Women were beginning to gain autonomy and began to grasp their opportunities, thus significantly curtailing male supremacy and the definable acceptable ‘role’ of the woman.

Britain’s nobility strove to prevent progressive change and opted for tradition. The upper classes of society utilized several mediums to oppress the working class and preserve the closing gap with the emergence of the middle class. For example, industrialization generated a huge demand for factory workers, and women were often desirable for they were perceived less than men and would earn a fraction of their male counterparts. Thus, although this marked a positive change for women to be self-sufficient backlash emerged funded by the upper classes of society to prevent change. Women were idealized as ‘angels of the house’ while being exposed to an arguable dystopian society for the working class. Also, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

In the Victorian period “…the childless single woman was a figure to be pitied.” (Abrams. 2001). It was considered to be outside of social hierarchy not to be a part of the domestic scene for women, “domesticity and motherhood were portrayed as sufficient emotional fulfilment for women.” (Abrams. 2001). In reality this was not the case and the role of motherhood and domesticity clearly did not sufficiently fulfil a woman’s emotional desires and requirements, situated in a suppressed, dominant patriarchal society ruled by men. In fact patriarchal society subjugated the role of women; they were seen as lesser than, and required to stay on the domestic

Davidoff, Leanore and Hall, Catherine. Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class 1780-1850 (London, 1987).

The 18th century was a period of slow change for women’s rights in England. The Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution were coterminous at this point in history and brought the new thoughts about women’s rights to England in the late 1700s. In the 1700s women were not as concerned with voting as they were with divorce, adultery, and child custody rights. However, as the population of single women grew throughout the 18th and 19th century the concern for more rights for women became prevalent (Wolbrink, 4 Nov. 2011). By 1851, 43 percent of women in England were single and began to campaign frequency and sometimes forcibly for their rights (Wolbrink, 4 Nov. 2011). Reformer

Most of the women don’t work, and their main responsibility is getting married to a wealthy husband. Marriage was one of the most important things during this time because, who they married resulted in what kind of life they’d have. If they didn’t get married, the woman would have to depend on her family to support her. Another option for an unmarried women was to become a governess. One major quote from the book that shows the importance of marriage is, “It is a truth universally acknowledge, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” This quote shows that single men need to marry because, that was what they did back then. (Pride and Prejudice)