Women's Place in Victorian Society

Women's Place in Victorian Society

In tomorrow's tutorial we will be talking about women's place in Victorian society. Much of the discussion will reference the reading material we have been assigned for this week's lecture including "Jane Eyre" and "The Broadview Anthology B."

Women in the Victorian period (roughly 1837-1900) had extremely limited rights and while drastic changes didn't take place until the 20th century, steps were being taken to ameliorate the position of women. An important and significant struggle for women was in regards to marriage law. During this time when a woman married, she was required to give up her identity and have it replaced by that of her husband's identity. Legally this meant that husband and wife were one person, i.e. the husband, and this left the wife terribly vulnerable. There was no legal help for women at this time either, if any woman should want to defend herself against her husband. A quote from Harriet Taylor Mill's essay entitled, "The Enfranchisement of Women" concisely asks, "whether it is right and expedient that one half of the human race should pass through life in a state of forced subordination to the other half."

In class we will be referring to parts of Sarah Stickney Ellis' book, "The Daughters of England: Their Position in Society, Character and Responsibilities." You can refer to certain passages in the class copy of "Jane Eyre" on page 600 or the "Broadview Anthology B" page 604. The link below can help in further understanding women's place in Victorian society, as it is Ellis' entire novel written in 1842. Chapter III is particularly interesting due to the fact that Ellis ran a young girls school named Rawdon House in Hertfordshire. This chapter is entitled "Cleverness-Leanring-Knowledge" and it is in this particular chapter that Ellis writes about what young ladies are expected to know as well as what they are not required to know (knowledge beyond "ordinary duty"). In the opening pages of the third chapter Ellis explains that, "to know how to do everything which can properly come within a women's sphere of duty, ought to be the ambition of every female mind." This quote suggests the amount of responsibility, even strength women had to assume and yet Ellis explains earlier on in her text that, "as women [...] the first thing of importance is to be content to be inferior to men-inferior in mental power, in the same proportion that [women] are inferior in bodily strength." The two quotes seem to offer opposing ideas of the ideal woman, both submissive and helpless while at the same time resourceful and determined. We can discuss this further as we talk about the texts tomorrow. Brittany will be discussing the role of women in reference to "Jane Eyre" in class tomorrow as well.

Until then we have a couple of links to suggest:
This site offers much information concerning the Victorian era, it offers background knowledge and it may help to contextualize some of the readings:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/victorian_britain/women_home/ideals_womanhood_01.shtml

Sarah Stickney Ellis, "The Daughters of England: Their Position in Society, Character and Responsibilities" (1842):
http://books.google.ca/books?id=Q-0TAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=sarah+stickney+ellis+daughters+of+england&source=bl&ots=CIGqfoO7iO&sig=OwuHOdABRwdbXHdJW2SYZau-WvY&hI=en&ei=XeIXTbuHCoG3twe26qWZDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false



Sources:

Black, Joesph, Leonard Conolly, Kate Flint, Isobel Grundy, Don Lepan, Roy Luizza, Jerme J. McGann, Anne Lake Prescott, Barry V. Qualls, Claire Waters, eds. "The Politics of Gender." The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: Concise Edition. Volume B. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2008. 506-508. Print.

Ellis, Sarah Stickney. "The Daughters of England: Their Position in Society, Character and Responsibilities. " The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: Concise Edition. Volume B.
Peterborough, ON: Boradview Press, 2008. 604-606. Print

Ellis, Sarah Stickney. "The Dauhters of England: Their Position in Society, Character an Responsibilties." Google Books. Google. February 12, 2011.
http://books.google.ca (...)
(same site as above)

(Brief background information on Sarah Stickney Ellis was found on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Stickney_Ellis)