By Alice Boynton
Edited by Nadar Abdi and Mark Potter
The Victorian era redefined gender roles, gender stereotypes and consequently, the British
society. The new phenomenon as the first modernised woman established within Victorian
middle-class women.[1] At the beginning of Victorian Britain, the doctrine of separate spheres determined gender lifestyles, placing women strictly within the private sphere whilst men dealt with all public agenda. Coventry Patmore defined the domestic angel in his poem, Angel in the House, which developed into the defining term for middle-class Victorian women at the beginning of the era.[2] The popular ideal created the woman as the submissive housewife, who dedicated her life to maternity, marriage and religion. The strict lifestyles in the middle class created a divide between the superior man and inferior woman, the objective man and subjective woman, and the free man and the trapped woman. The earlier decades of Victorian Britain compromised women as being worthy than nothing more than their own homes. By the end of the nineteenth century, the lifestyles of Victorian middle-class women had transformed. The state of change middle-class women undertook in the Victorian era is nothing less than remarkable. Their status changed from dependent to independent. Instead of trapped, middle-class women became free. Too many images of Victorian women assume a complacent, domestic state, whereas there was a dominant new lifestyle being established through the era.[3] This change is too significant to comprehend from a national level. Both individual lifestyle and national evaluation prove that by the end of the nineteenth century, middle-class Victorian women had vastly escaped the angelic ideal. Middle-class women entered the Victorian era as trapped domestic angels but left as individual contributions to Britain and the society within it.
Susie Steinback defines 1860-1914 as the years of feminism and legal changes.[4] 1860-1914
were the years of opportunity, escape and redefining the gender roles unwillingly given to
middle-class women. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the ‘distinctive female response’ to their restricted history is captured.[5] By 1860, the woman question had become one of the most fundamental questions across history.[6] Their position within society was changing. Women wanted changes. Many middle-class women dedicated their time to social causes, from housing reform and higher education to employment, instead of focusing on their homes and those within their families.[7] As the latter decades continued, an increasing number of women directly challenged the very ideals of The Angel in the House, and female domesticity.[8] Education, female emigration, marriage laws and job opportunities were key issues that women began to fight for themselves.[9] Anna Brownell Jameson campaigned in The English Women’s Journal and the Society of Promoting Employment for Women for more employability roles for women.[10] Jameson’s ‘liberal principles of individual development’ demanded that women had access to paid employment and education, which she translated in her activist career.[11] Women like Anna Brownell Jameson removed themselves from the domesticity ideal in order to fight towards an equality for British women. At the beginning of the century, women would not speak, showcase their voice or dare to fight for their rights. Jameson and other women exploited the changes within Britain in the latter decades to actively challenge the sexist roles given to them. Activism created opportunity for women to leave their house-bound, restrictive lifestyles. These women made history and nationally removed the stigma around women within the public sphere.
Until the 1860s, female education focused on domesticity. Middle-class women were taught
domesticity as a skill and their necessary occupation, with no lenience for other paid, nor
professional roles.[12] Whilst women were being taught maternal attributes at home, middle-class boys had formal, paid education with higher education opportunities.[13] Women were told from their earliest education that in order to succeed, they must adhere to the societal ideals of becoming domestic angels. Education is a pivotal example that showcases how education and the consequential lack of further opportunity initially trapped women within the private sphere in the earlier Victorian decades. The latter decades witnessed a shift in female education. Pioneers of the women’s movement argued for the existence of women’s skills in regard to education and therefore, women’s education began to expand middle-class women’s ‘fields of action and their personal horizons.’[14] Dorothea Beale is an example of a woman who pioneered the expanding education opportunities given to women throughout the nineteenth century to allow them to remove themselves from the established, sexist ideologies. In 1858, she was elected as the principle of Cheltenham Ladies’ college, a college solely for middle-class women.[15] Not only was she in charge of one of the leading women’s-only schools, her reform work and her educational lectures focused on utilising women’s potential in the public sphere. By 1880, Beale enforced a full education for these young women, including the formerly male dominated mathematics and classics.[16] ‘Women who are in senior leadership endeavour to make the most of their opportunities to contribute and not just support.’[17] Dorothea Beale instigated the education that women have access to today. Her determination to educate all women influenced fundamental legislation, such as the Education Act 1970, as well as the growing careers women had access to as a result of their education. By 1901, middle-class women were given full academic education and the facilities to achieve more than domesticity. Their cerebral education created new opportunities for middle-class women, allowing them to flee the private sphere and accordingly, their role as a domestic angel.
For middle-class Victorian women, employment resulted in self-reliance, entrance into the
political domain and independence.[18] The last decades of Victorian Britain had the highest
figures of female employment recorded until after the Second World War.[19] This is incredibly powerful, as many female occupations, such as unregulated sweatshop work, were not recorded by censuses, so these numbers are less than in reality.[20] Consequentially, women’s employment became a significant contribution to the British economy in 1851, when it was necessary to be added to census reports for its ‘analytical value.’[21] As an increasing number of middle-class women began to work, their focus on motherhood and their private sphere was replaced by the fast pace environment of career life. Women were becoming increasingly more present within the public sphere, away from the home and actively contributing to the British economy and their family income. The development of women’s occupations in Victorian Britain ‘reflected ideological shifts in the understanding of women’s role in society.’[22] Employment was not directly by companies within the business industry. Isabella Beeton was heavily and consistently involved with her husband’s business, as she managed his publishing house.[23] Many middle-class women were employed by their husbands and worked alongside them to manage, run and often work above other men. This form of employment is not always included in censuses and therefore, it is important to consider this form of profession. Not only this, Beeton published her own works, creating a public reputation for herself, contradicting the stereotypical reputation women held based on their husbands as well as ignoring the separate spheres ideology.[24] Beeton’s work, however, focused on the importance of domesticity and the significance of women’s support of their successful husbands. According to Beeton in her writing, ‘there is no more fruitful source of family discontent than a housewife’s badly-cooked dinner and untidy ways.’[25] Isabella Beeton is a pivotal example of a middle-class Victorian woman who understood the pressure of abiding the separate spheres ideology but struggled to maintain the role as the perfect domestic angel contained within the private sphere. Although Beeton understood the ‘Angel in the House’ narrative, she utilised the opportunities to push the boundaries and become free from the maternal role given to her. The female ‘social situation was new, she was part of the rising middle class of the 19th century- the urban, professional and business class.’[26]
Victorian Britain has been labelled as the ‘age of doubt.’[27] The scientific discoveries developed in the nineteenth century, such as Darwin’s theory of evolution, directly challenged the writings within the bible and created a rise in secularisation across the
nation.[28] One of the fundamental characteristics of the Victorian domestic angel was their devotion to God and Christianity. The changing nature of secularisation and science created an increased number of middle-class women becoming atheist and therefore escaping the Angel in the House ideology. Annie Besant, known for her influence in British-India and her role in the suffragist movement, removed herself from the protestant church in the
1870’s.[29] By 1875, she had separated from her clergyman husband and became vice president of the National Secular Society.[30] Her National Reformer publishing’s, co-written with well-known atheist politician Charles Bradlaugh, encouraged other women who followed her to reconsider their alliance to the Christian Church and the limitations that Christianity imposed on middle-class women.[31] Her transition to atheism was not uncommon amongst other women. Besant’s political and social presence both introduced and encouraged many middle-class women to turn away from religion. The idyllic housewife was centred around the church and the increasing numbers of secularisation both nationwide and for middle-class women removed many middle-class women from the stigma of being a domestic angel.
Within all aspects of Victorian life, ‘all classes of women were being changed and were
changing society.’[32] Victorian women were initially expected to put motherhood and being a wife above all else.[33] Their lives outside of the home were minimal and the public opinion of them reflected their husbands’ reputation. Middle-class women underwent the change of ultimately living within the home to outside the home. Many middle-class women had refrained from maintaining and returning to the ideal domestic angel. Opportunity, education, legislation and freedom allowed women to become their own ideal, instead of society’s ideal of them. For the first time in British history, many middle-class lesbian couples were openly committed to one-another. Anne Lister, commonly known as the ‘first modern lesbian,’ removed herself from the stereotypical domestic wife by openly being homosexual.[34] Middle-class women utilised all new platforms and lifestyles to debunk the separate spheres ideology. By the end of the nineteenth century, middle-class women ‘had options not readily available to their grandmothers.’[35] Some women were undoubtedly still angelic housewives, whilst some worked, some protested, and some lived entirely different lives. There was no common role, common lifestyle or common woman. Although some women were still domestic angels, there were other options and opportunities for women. This became their choice, instead of their forced role in the 1830’s. The middle-class woman was redefined in Victorian Britain.
Notes
[1] Patricia Branca, Silent Sisterhood: Middle-Class Women in the Victorian Home (Oxon: Routledge, 1975), p. 1
[2] “The Angel in the House”, William Makepeace Thackeray,
<http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/thackeray/angel.html,> [Accessed 11 November 2020].
[3] Branca, Silent Sisterhood, p. 2.
[4] Susie Steinback, Understanding the Victorians: Politics, Culture and Society in Nineteenth-Century Britain (London: Routledge, 2011), p. 176.
[5] Branca, Silent Sisterhood, p. 2.
[6] Martha Vicinus (ed.), A Widening Sphere: Changing Roles of Victorian Women (London: Routledge, 2016), p. ix.
[7] Vicinus, A Widening Sphere, p. xxvi.
[8] Vicinus, A Widening Sphere, p. xxvi.
[9] Vicinus, A Widening Sphere, p. ix.
[10] Lydia. Murdoch, Daily Life of Victorian Women (California: Greenwood, 2014), p. 192. [11] Murdoch, Daily Life of Victorian Women, p. 193.
[12] Steinback, Understanding the Victorians, p. 170.
[13] Steinback, Understanding the Victorians, p. 171
[14] Vicinus, A Widening Sphere, p. ix.
[15] “Beale, Dorothea”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,
d1042707e186> [Accessed 2 January 2021].
[16] Beale, Dorothea, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
[17] Ian. Jones and Kirsty. Thorpe, Women and Ordination in the Christian Churches: International Perspectives (London and New York: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2012) p. 210.
[18] “The Victorian Women and Employment”, Victorian History,
<https://logicmgmt.com/1876/overview/victorian_woman/victorian_woman_employment.htm> [Accessed 2 January 2021].
[19] “Ideals of Womanhood in Victorian Britain”, BBC <http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/victorian_britain/women_home/ideals_womanhood_01.shtml> [Accessed 5 January 2021].
[20] “Ideals of Womanhood in Victorian Britain”.
[21] X. You, The Missing Half: Female employment in Victorian England and Wales, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017) p. 5.
[22] Edward Higgs and Amanda Wilkinson, “Women, Occupations and Work in the Victorian Censuses Revisited”, History Workshop Journal, 81/1 (2016), pp. 17-38.
[23] Mrs Beeton, “Writer on Household Management”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,
9780198614128-e-9000114?rskey=sfvw40&result=3> [Accessed 26 September 2020].
[24] “Beeton’s Book of Household Management”, The British Library
<http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/texts/cook/1800s2/armyh/army.html> [Accessed 26 September 2020].
[25] “Beeton’s Book of Household Management”.
[26] Branca, Silent Sisterhood, p. 1
[27] Jeffrey Franklin, Spirit Matters: Occult Beliefs, Alternative Religions, and the Crisis of Faith in Victorian Britain, (London: Cornell University Press, 2018), p. 2
[28] Science and Religion in the 19th century, History Today,
<https://www.historytoday.com/archive/science-and-religion-19th-century> [Accessed 2 January 2021].
[29] “The Bible and Belief in Victorian Britain, in Believing in Victorian Times”, Open Edition Journals, <https://journals.openedition.org/cve/498> [Accessed 4 January 2021]. [30] The Bible and Belief in Victorian Britain, in Believing in Victorian Times.
[31] The Bible and Belief in Victorian Britain, in Believing in Victorian Times.
[32] Vicinus, A Widening Sphere, p. xi.
[33] Steinback, Understanding The Victorians, p. 179.
[34] “Anne’s story”, Anne Lister, <https://www.annelister.co.uk> [Accessed 7 January 2021].
[35] Arlene Young, From Spinster to Career Woman: Middle-Class Women and Work in Victorian England, (London: McGills-Queen’s University Press, 2019), p. 2.
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