Women's Rights

WOMEN’S LEGAL STATUS

A woman’s place before 1900 was for “Man to command and woman to obey – all else confusion.” (Tennyson) Until well into the twentieth century, a woman’s class and family circumstances largely determined her fate. Throughout the nineteenth century the ideal situation, one that even the poorest would aspire to, was for a man to support his wife and family. Daughters would stay at home supported by their father until they married. Considered frail and needing protection, they were expected to spend most of their time indoors, occupying themselves with "womanly" pursuits and accomplishments that would help them attract a husband. Intellectual women were thought to frighten off would-be suitors. Any woman trying to break away from this stultifying existence met fierce resistance.

Although the restrictions of domestic life annoyed many women, to be able to stay at home was only dreamt of by others. As soon as they were old enough girls from poor families were sent out to work to supplement the family income, perhaps into factories, more often into domestic service.

Marriage was an escape from life in service, but many found they had exchanged one type of drudgery for another. As well as having to do all the cooking and cleaning, a woman would face the ordeal of almost constant child bearing. Families of a dozen or more children were common among the poor before the twentieth century. If the husband did not bring in enough money she would have to find work, usually done at home and usually badly paid. This was certainly the case for the women chainmakers of Cradley Heath, who worked long hours, in the poor conditions of their domestic workshops, for as little as five shillings (25p) a week.

Until late in the nineteenth century a woman not only belonged in the home, she belonged to her men-folk. A father could dictate to his daughters, a husband to his wife. The only women with a measure of independence were wealthy widows or single women with money of their own. At the start of Queen Victoria’s reign a married woman had no separate existence in law. She was, in effect, her husband’s property. For those women who were not treated well by their husbands the law offered little protection. He had the right to force her to live with him and his conjugal rights entitled him to have sexual intercourse with her whether she was willing or not. Everything she owned, right down to the clothes she wore, became his on marriage. A feckless husband would be well within his rights if he took his wife’s money and spent it on drinking, gambling or other women. A woman had no option but to accept the behaviour, divorce was not possible. Her property remained his even if she left him.

Until the middle of the nineteenth century the only way to get a divorce was by an act of Parliament. It was slow, expensive and only available to men. Caroline Norton, motivated by her own unhappy experiences as a married woman, played a leading role in the campaign for an Act allowing divorce through the law courts. Even though the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857, gave women the right to divorce, the law still favoured men. A man could divorce his wife for adultery; a woman could not divorce her husband for the same reason. The belief was that men had natural impulses, which women did not have. Adultery was regrettable, but perfectly acceptable in law. An unfaithful woman was treated with the utmost revulsion. She could not blame her natural instincts; her infidelity was taken as a sign of depravity.

A woman would have to prove cruelty in addition to adultery before she could divorce her husband, but as a man was allowed to beat his wife, any beating she received would have to be severe before she could cite it in a divorce case. In the nineteenth century wife beating was legal and acceptable, provided the stick used was no thicker than a man's thumb. It was not until1923 that the Matrimonial Causes Act made the grounds for divorce the same for men and women.

Women had no rights to their children. In law they belonged to their father. If he so chose he could take them away from his wife and put them in the care of his mistress. The Custody and Infants Act gave rights to women, innocent of adultery, custody of children under the age of 7, and access to children under 16. Only in 1873 was the right to see their children extended to all separated and divorced women.

Throughout history, however, there have been strong women, who have resisted the stereotypes of their time and broken free of society’s expectations, but the efforts of women in the 19th century had a more lasting effect. Many strove, not for personal gain or achievement, but to right the many injustices suffered by women. Numerous campaigns were fought and won during Queen Victoria’s reign. As well as changes in the laws on the custody of children, women’s determined and persistent campaigning led to a series of laws that gradually improved married women’s financial position. In 1870 a married woman was allowed to retain £200 of her own earnings. The biggest improvement came in 1882 when she was granted the same rights to her property as a single woman.

EMPLOYMENT

Florence Nightingale faced strong opposition from her upper class family when she announced she intended to become a nurse. They were regarded as slovenly drunks, little better than whores. Victorians portrayed her as self-sacrificing and nurturing to fit in with their sentimental view of women. The image played down her real skills of organisation and fund-raising, as these were not considered to be feminine attributes. Jamaican Mary Seacole better fitted the description of "nurturing angel". When her offer to join the nurses being sent to the Crimea was turned down, she set off on her own. She opened a store and boarding house. On the ground floor she ran a canteen where soldiers could eat and drink, and on the first floor she set up a place for the sick and wounded.

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson found the medical establishment fiercely resistant to women becoming doctors. She exploited a loophole in the system and qualified as a doctor in 1865. She discovered that the Society of Apothecaries did not specify that females were banned from taking their examinations. Garrett sat and passed them. As soon as she was granted her certificate that allowed her to become a doctor, the Society changed its rules in order to stop any other women entering the profession in the same way.The battle was carried on by Sophia Jex-Blake. By the beginning of the twentieth century 200 women had become doctors, but other professions were still closed to them. Only in 1919 did the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act make it unlawful to refuse a woman entry to the professions on the grounds of her sex. In theory at least, banking, accountancy, law and engineering were among the new professions open to them, although the priesthood and the floor of the Stock Exchange remained exclusively male provinces.

By 1890 it was becoming common for single, middle class women to go out to work. They were teachers in the new schools created by compulsory education; they found jobs in the large department stores that were springing up in the cities and large towns; they were moving into offices to use the new typewriting machines. They were nurses, and a few were doctors. Educated, single and financially independent, they had opinions of their own and were prepared to voice them. Some rejected the elaborate clothing of the time and wore simpler and in some cases more ‘mannish’ clothes. Scathingly referred to as the "new woman" they terrified the male establishment. They were pilloried in the press and portrayed as abnormal creatures, whose very existence threatened not only the fabric of society, but also the future of the British race.

By the 1920s the Victorian idea that a woman’s place was in the home was dead, at least for single women. Although the Sex Discrimination (Removal) Act was supposed to remove barriers against women working, pressure was put on married women to return to the home. Many employers, including the civil service and local government, introduced a marriage bar. They refused to employ married women and forced their female employees to resign as soon as they were married. Women teachers, nurses and doctors were among those who lost their jobs in this way.

Even when women were doing the same job as men, they were paid less. Not until 1970 did the Equal Pay Act made it illegal to pay women less than men for the same work, and it was 1975 before the Employment Protection Act provided for statutory maternity pay, and made it illegal for an employer to dismiss a woman because she was pregnant.

EDUCATION

Until the second half of the nineteenth century a girl’s education was not taken seriously. It was believed that women’s bodies were too frail and their brains too weak to take the strain of learning. Some held the view that learning would impair a woman’s ability to have children, thereby endangering the future of the race. Upper and middle class girls were educated at home by a governess. As they were not expected to achieve anything other than a good marriage, their education was designed to make them into ‘accomplished women,’ who would grace a future husband’s home. One of their most important lessons was to learn to listen attentively whenever a man spoke to them.

Working class girls received little or no education. A few went to charity schools set up in the eighteenth century. In education, as in other areas, Victorian women campaigned for change. In the second half of the nineteenth century a number of academic schools for girls were opened. At Cheltenham Ladies' College girls were taught science and mathematics. To placate parents they were also taught deportment, decorum and modesty. In 1870 the Government made elementary education up to the age of 10 compulsory for all children. The curriculum tended to include laundry, housewifery and cooking. Working class girls rarely went on to secondary education.

Emily Davies, an experienced campaigner on women’s issues spent much of her time fighting for a woman’s right to higher education. She was one of the founders of Girton College, the first woman’s college in Cambridge, and was one of those responsible for persuading London University to open their degrees to women.

THE RIGHT TO VOTE

By the time of Queen Victoria’s death in 1901, although women were still second class citizens, and still seen as being inferior to men, they had made some progress towards improving their status in society and in the home. In spite of the Queen’s appeal in 1870 to "everyone who can speak or write to join in checking this mad wicked folly of women’s rights, with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor sex is bent", they had fought and won several campaigns. Women had been campaigning for the vote since the 1860s. By 1901 many "new women" had lost patience with the old methods. They were ready to take the twentieth century by storm.

The beginning of the new century saw a concerted campaign for women’s suffrage. In 1905, Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kearney served a prison sentence rather than pay a fine after being found guilty of disrupting an election rally. The prison sentence brought the campaign a great deal of publicity. It was soon afterwards that the press coined the term “suffragettes” to describe these more militant campaigners.

In 1907, under the Qualification of Women Act, women could be elected onto borough and county councils, and could also be elected mayor. In 1918 women over 30 were granted the right to vote, and the Parliamentary Qualification of Women Act was passed, for the very first time enabling women to stand as candidates for Parliament.

In 1928, after 60 years of hard campaigning, women finally achieved full recognition as citizens when granted the right to vote on the same terms as men. The 1929 election was the first in which all women were allowed to vote. It is sometimes referred to as the “Flapper Election”, because of the thousands of young women who turned out to vote. In the same year women became “persons” in their own right, by order of the Privy Council. Although there were still too few women in Parliament to directly affect legislation, their presence, and the fact that women could now vote, ensured that more attention would be paid to their welfare.

Rollover the captions in the box to see the available images in thumbnail format, click the caption to see the full-size image

Reference:	751
Keywords:
Archive Ref:
Updated:	Wed 23 Apr 2008 - 1
Interpretation written by	Barbara Harris
Author's organisation
Organisation's website