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What Was The Role Of Women In Nineteenth-Century England

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Introduction
A conflict stirred among the sexes during the nineteenth-century that reverberated through all aspects of life from science to literature. The advent of the Industrial Revolution in the late 1700s and the introduction of capitalism sparked the discussion on the nature and role of women as society shifted from a land-centered economy to an urban workforce. This argument gained such notoriety it commonly became known as The Woman Question, and it covered aspects of the legal and political rights of women, education, and economic opportunities. Such was the discussion that scientists, philosophers, and biologists like Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and Patrick Geddes entered the debate with each offering ideas on the role women …show more content…

Although Britain rose to a dominant world power during this time, the early Victorians lived in the midst of chaos. The onset of new developments affected every sphere of influence from industry and technology to science and medicine. England went from a country that based wealth on land ownership to a society who valued money above all. Instead of working side by side as was done in centuries past, husbands and wives of the Victorian bourgeoisie took a ‘divide and conquer’ approach to life. Men left their homes to work, and women stayed behind to take care of the home since money brought status and the most important place to showcase that status was in the home (Hughes).
Separate spheres formed dividing the roles of men and women based on what was deemed the natural gender characteristics (at this time gender and sex were synonymous). Scientific theories were presented that made this assertion accepted among a large majority of the people. Men were considered to be physically stronger and intellectually superior to women making them more likely to succeed outside of the home while women, with their smaller stature and inferior intellect were more suited to the home and its …show more content…

He called for perfect equality among the sexes (Mill 3). Then, in 1871, Charles Darwin published The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. In this book, he discusses topics ranging from human evolution, as in his On the Origin of Species, to the differences between the sexes. The latter topic being the most prominent in the discussion on The Woman Question and what roles women were to occupy. British philosopher Herbert Spencer suggested everyone had basic rights, including women, and that these rights were necessary for social progress and those basic rights fell in with cooperation among the sexes rather than competition (Sweet). Similarly, Patrick Geddes, a Scottish biologist and follower of Spencer, theorized that male and female characteristics were complementary and must be kept in balance. His views supported, to some degree, the separation of men and women into separate spheres not because the sexes were unequal but because they were and needed ways in which to express their strengths. Interestingly enough, these types of ideas and theories surfaced in the literature of the Victorian era, namely that of Coventry Patmore and Florence

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