1. The Role of Women in Victorian Society

2. Women and the Home Women were thought to have their priority as the home, with a domestic role. This meant they’re biggest responsibility was to aim to marry a suitable husband, have many children and then have the sole responsibility of taking care of the family. For example, provide a clean home, ensure the husband returns home to a nice dinner and raise respectful children Although marriage is what every young Victorian girl was to aim for marriage was extremely oppressive for women. Once married the legal rights of the wife were given to the husband, meaning any money she previously owned was now his, any property is now his. As well as material goods, the wife was now property of her husband, meaning he had the right to what their body produced: children, sex and domestic labour. Consent for sex was also no longer needed as she was now his property. She gave him this right when married.

3. Women were expected to have sex with only one man, their husband. However, it was acceptable for men to have multiple partners in their life; husbands participated in lengthy affairs with other women while women stayed with their husbands on the grounds that divorce was not an option. This shows the sexist morals of the Victorian era. During the reign of Queen Victoria, a woman's place was in the home, as domesticity and motherhood were considered by society at large to be a sufficient emotional fulfilment for females. This may because Queen Victoria came to represent a kind of femininity which was centred on the family, motherhood and respectability. Accompanied by her beloved husband Albert, and surrounded by her many children in the sumptuous but homely surroundings of Balmoral Castle, Victoria became an icon of late-19th-century middle-class femininity and domesticity.

4. Women’s Roles in Art This is Found Drowned by George Frederic Watts, depicting a woman being washed up after throwing herself from Waterloo Bridge in shame of being a fallen women. This shows the art in the Victorian era depicting the struggle of women to cope with the oppressive society. This is The Outcast by Richard Redgrave, showing a father forcing his daughter out of the home, despite her having no money or anywhere else to go, due to her illegitimate child. This shows the difference in women’s expectations and roles in the family between now and the Victorian era.

5. Women and Work Wealthy women were supposed to spend their time reading, sewing, writing letters, as opposed to work. As well as this, women were not openly given public education as they were not considered smart enough by many, meaning women would usually not gain well paid, highly regarded occupations, as they simply were not educated enough. However although wealthy women were seen as not suitable for employment, lower class women couldn’t afford not to work, so therefore many poorer women had manual labour jobs, such as working in the coal mines. Although traditionally in the Victorian era, the male breadwinner wage was increasingly regarded as the ideal and even the norm, in practice many households were dependent upon female earnings, especially those households run by widows. In poorer households, women would have to contribute financially to the family, and family budget evidence suggests that around 30-40 per cent of women from working class families contributed significantly to household incomes in the mid-Victorian years. This figure means that this is the highest percentage of working women before world war 2.