WOMEN’S STATUS AND SOCIAL CLASSES

WOMEN’S STATUS AND SOCIAL CLASSES

THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC CHANGES

 The Nineteenth Century was an era of incredible changes in Great Britain. Cultural, social, industrial and technological changes occurred. Those changes brought prosperity and saw the rise of urbanization. Britain became a country where most people lived in the countryside and worked in farming to one where people lived in towns and worked in industry. Work became then separated from “home”. At least 80 % of the population was working class. The modernization created job opportunities for poor women but the conditions in which they were carrying out their work could be assimilated to the conditions of slaves. For working class women life was an endless round of hard work and drudgery. They did take part in the active field of life but the Revolution offered them jobs they were obliged to take. Their living conditions were in a word precarious. Even when they were married and had children housework was very hard without electricity or modern cleaning agents. Until 1882 all a woman‟s properties even the money she earned belonged to her husband. Divorce was made legal in 1857 but it was very rare in the Nineteenth Century. The population doomed during this century. Britain became then the first industrial society. Industrialization is the process of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian into an industrial one. It is a part of wider modernization process where social change and economic development are closely related with technological innovation, particularly with the development of large-scale energy and metallurgy production. It is the extensive organization of an economy for the purpose of manufacturing. Industrialization also introduces a form of philosophical change where people obtain a different attitude towards their perception of nature, and a sociological process of ubiquitous rationalization. 8 However, at the beginning, the Industrial Revolution appeared to bring no benefits at all to the country; which makes Helen of Troy write: “Living conditions in cities became unsanitary, as well as cramped and impoverished. Factories subjected men, women, and even children workers to low wages, harsh punishments, and unprotected work around dangerous machinery. The tremendous use of coal in industrial production polluted the atmosphere, as well as people‟s lungs, and workers „conditions in the coalmines were not much better than in factories”. 2 The Industrial Revolution came with rural depopulation. London like most cities was not prepared to accommodate all these people who were there looking for better paid jobs. Thus people settled in crowded houses, rooms were rented to all the family and sometimes to several families. And most of the time it was working women who were living there in very difficult conditions with low wages. Housing conditions like these ones were a perfect cause for creating microbes and epidemics. More than thirty one thousand people died during an outbreak of cholera, other died of smallpox and dysentery, hence the drawbacks of the industrial changes. The factories were causing serious injuries among miners because there were not enough safety measures. The fact that those places were dangerous confirmed the ordeal of women. Cutting and moving coals which machines used to do was done by women, as for children they made trap doors. That kind of job was one of the easiest down the mines, but people felt lonely and the places where they worked were damp and naughty. Older children were employed like coal bearers; they carried 2 Helen of Troy, The Industrial Revolution in Great Britain on www.google.com/industrialrevolutioninbritain/helenoftroyessay.html 9 loads of coal on their backs in big baskets. Meanwhile the Miners Act banned women and children under ten from working underground in mines. But the Industrial Revolution had also a positive impact on the living standards of people though the situation of poor people and particularly women left a lot to be desired. People found jobs and could have more money so they improved their living standards. In fact, the Nineteenth Century had changed the society but the conditions of women were not favourable at all, especially in their work places. They worked long hours in factories and in houses as servants in spite of it, the salaries were meagre. They were also treated as if they were not human beings. 

THE SOCIAL POSITION OF WOMEN

 From its medieval background, England, like all European nations has inherited a patriarchal organization of the society. Social conventions, in differentiating the roles of men and women according to sex, inaugurate the building of the notion of separate spheres between them. And as Robert Colls 14 and Philip Dodd say, “The essential distinction was between a female role which was biological and spiritual… and a male role which was virile and intellectual…”8 Woman whose position we are to study is the product of a particular social system. They are considered weak and fragile and are to remain submissive. The belief of man‟s superiority over woman found a very relevant ground of analysis on the status of women. We can hear by status their position in society, the place they occupied or the role they played in society. Such a position in Victorian Society was not satisfactory and was not what they deserved. And what was paradoxical was that England was ruled by Queen Victoria (1837-1901). Their status in society might seem obvious in so far as Queen Victoria of England loved her husband too much and was very devoted. So the way the Queen behaved toward her husband might reflect the prejudices on women. Victorian society may seem to be like another world to the people who did not live in that period and the place women occupied was amazing. Of course there were perceptive women of independent thought but life was easier only if they accepted that a woman‟s place was home. Victorian women had a static place that is their home; moreover they were tools for courtship and marriage. They could only sing, play an instrument, speak a little French or Italian, the languages they were allowed to learn. Ignorance and innocence were the main “qualities” sought in the women of the Nineteenth Century. In addition to that, women had to be virtuous, biddable and dutiful and be distant from intellectual affairs. For instance when Charlotte sent her early poems to Robert Southey in 8 Colls Robert and Dodd Philip, Englishness, Politics and Culture 1880-1920, The Englishwoman, Jane Mac Kay and Pat Thane, Sydney, Croom Helm. 1987, p.192. 15 1837, the latter wrote back to tell her that “Literature cannot be the business of a woman‟s life and it ought not to be”9 . The status of women in the nineteenth Century can also be seen as an illustration of the striking discrepancy between England‟s national power and wealth and what many consider as its appalling social conditions. Difficulties escalated for women because of the vision of the “ideal” woman shared by most people in the society. A woman who did not comply with the Victorian conception of morality as applied to women was considered as “evil” and “impure” and could be rejected. Their role was to have children and tend to the house. This was the main status of women as set by society. And it is obvious that men in particular attributed such a status to women for they had been nurturing in with the society itself some prejudices on women. The kind of education women received did not give them means to live on their own will or to be freed from their dependence as regards men. And it was difficult for them to claim certain rights in such a male dominated society. Though women of the upper class enjoyed some liberties and privileges, they were not involved in economic and political matters. Of course some women were allowed to continue the activity of their dead husbands, but it was almost impossible to see a woman sitting in Parliament or handling high responsibilities such as being a Lord Mayor for example. They rarely worked and had much spare time which they devoted to reading and cultivating their intellect or doing needle-work. This could not provide for them a living and thus they were entirely dependent at least on the economic level. 9 Ibbett Mary, Introduction to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, London, Wordsworth Classics, 1992, p.6. 16 Some lazy women would spend their time adorning themselves with enchantment of dresses and would sit chattering about some subject which was not very helpful for their advancement. And as they were not present where decisions were taken they had no liberty or rather opportunity to give their view point, and of course they had no power of decision. Women have been ill-treated, oppressed and were among the most under – privileged people of the Nineteenth Century English Society and as such they were those who suffered the most. Victims of man‟s prejudices, their conditions of work were very bad and they were often under-paid. Thus, it was a matter of necessity for mothers to work for long hours so they were considered during this period as cheap labour. Married women existed in the name of their husbands who controlled their properties. Financially, they were dependent even if they had brought money through their dowry when they married. The fact that men exerted a complete control over their wives‟ properties is obvious, for example in the case of Mrs. Gaskell. It is said that, “She had hand over her own literary earnings to her husband as she was not legally entitled to them or to have a bank account of her own”10 . So, in this specific case, the woman is deprived of the use of the money she had herself earned and this was done legally. This is well-illustrated by Trevor May: “Millicent Garret Fawcett once had her purse snatched by a young thief in a London Street. When the youth was brought to trial, she heard him charged with stealing from the person of Millicent Fawcett a purse containing £1 18s 6d, the property of Henry Fawcett (her husband).”