Women In The Victorian Period

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The Victorian Period was the era of British Monarch; Queen Victoria, in this era women had extremely limited right’s. Women were not given the choice to vote, sue or own any property. In addition to that, they lost ownership of their wages, all of their physical belongings, and every other cash they were able to generate once they got married. In fact, once women got married they legally became property to their husbands, giving them ‘ownership’ over their body. Meaning that they had the right to use their wife’s body for: children, any sexual activity and/or domestic labor. Therefore, their mutual matrimonial consent became a contract of women giving themselves to their husband’s as they desired. Under the law, a husband and wife became one …show more content…

The majority of women in that period did not have the option to decide whether they wanted to get married or not, it was a necessity in order to survive. Once these women were married it was extremely difficult, if not impossible, to get divorced. Husbands could be having affairs with other women, or abusing their wives, and still divorce was considered a social taboo. As a matter of fact, many authors from this era used to address social issues, like the degradation of wives, in their writing. Most of the authors that wrote pro-feminist books, novels and/or articles were females, yet there were a few male authors like: George Gissing, George Meredith and Grant Allen, who also started writing about women’s issues and their struggles.
Pursuing this far, “The Odd Woman” a novel by; George Gissing, talks about the roles of women in society such as marriage, morals and the early feminist movement in the Victorian Period. Most middle class women during the Victorian era, married by the time they were 25, but the ideal age for a woman to commit was 20. The novel’s title is derived from women in that era whom were left out after all other eligible men and women were paired up in marriage. In the novel, it can be inferred that their lifestyle was what

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