Critical scholars have pointed to the status of women in the Victorian era as an illustration of the striking discrepancy of the United Kingdom's national power and wealth when compared to its social conditions. The era is named after Queen Victoria. Women did not have the right to vote or sue, and married women had limited property ownership. At the same time, women laboured within the paid workforce in increasing numbers following the Industrial Revolution. Feminist ideas spread among the educated middle classes, discriminatory laws were repealed, and the women's suffrage movement gained momentum in the last years of the Victorian era.Kathryn Gleadle, British Women in the Nineteenth Century (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017).
In the Victorian era women were seen, by the middle classes at least, as belonging to the domestic sphere, and this stereotype formed firm expectations for women to provide their families with a clean home, prepare meals, and raise their children. Women's rights were extremely limited in this era, losing ownership of their wages, their physical property excluding land property, and all other cash they generated once married.
Women's rights
Prior to the passage of the Married Women's Property Act 1870 and Married Women's Property Act 1882 the property and legal rights of married women in Britain were severely limited. Under English common law a married woman lost her legal independence, she could not enter contracts or sue and her property, and obligations were mostly subsumed by those of her husband, the couple becoming a single legal entity. Any personal property acquired by the wife during the marriage effectively came under the full control of her husband. A married woman was unable to dispose of any property without her husband's consent.Bridget Hill, Women, Work and Sexual Politics in Eighteenth-century England (London: Blackwell, 1989), 1988. Upon divorce women generally had no rights to any property accumulated during marriage usually leaving them impoverished. Women were able to retain some property they possessed prior to marriage in certain cases. Besides the dowries, prenuptial agreements effectively allowed married women to maintain beneficial interest in her previously owned or inherited real property which was placed under trusteeship allowing her to have a separate income from her husband.
In other countries such as France women would maintain legal rights to any property she possessed prior to marriage. Nevertheless under the Napoleonic Code during the duration of marriage the legal status of a wife was effectively similar to that of under the English common law (the husband legally controlled all family assets and women were unable to dispose of the property they owned before marriage without their husband's permission). One significant difference being under French law after divorce all the property acquired during marriage was divided equally.
Marriage abrogated a woman's right to refuse consent to sexual intercourse with her husband, giving him effective "ownership" over her body. According to a modern feminist view, this mutual matrimonial consent therefore became a contract to give herself to her husband as desired, making this a voluntary kind of slavery. Scholarly discussions of Victorian women's sexual promiscuity was embodied in legislation (Contagious Diseases Acts) and medical discourse and institutions (London Lock Hospital and Asylum).
The rights and privileges of Victorian women were limited, and both single and married women had to live with heterogeneous hardships and disadvantages. Victorian women were disadvantaged both financially and sexually, enduring inequalities within their marriages and society. There were sharp distinctions between men's and women's rights during this era; men were allotted more stability, financial status, and power over their homes and women. Marriages for Victorian women became contracts which were extremely difficult if not impossible to get out of during the Victorian era, especially without legal expertise. Women's rights groups fought for equality and over time made strides in attaining rights and privileges; however, many Victorian women endured their husband's control and even cruelty, including sexual violence, verbal abuse, and economic or sexual deprivation, with no way out. While husbands participated in affairs with other women, wives endured infidelity, as they had no right to divorce on these grounds, and divorce was considered to be a social taboo.
"The Angel in the House"
By the Victorian era the concept of "pater familias", meaning the husband as head of the household and moral leader of his family, was firmly entrenched in British culture. A wife's proper role was to love, honour, and obey her husband as her marriage vows stated. A wife's place in the family hierarchy was secondary to her husband but far from being considered unimportant. A wife's duties to tend to her husband and properly raise her children were considered crucial cornerstones of social stability by the Victorians.K. Theodore Hoppen, The mid-Victorian generation, 1846–1886 (2000), pp 316ff.
Representations of ideal wives were abundant in Victorian culture, providing women with their role models. The Victorian ideal of the tirelessly patient, sacrificing wife is depicted in The Angel in the House, a popular poem by Coventry Patmore, published in 1854:
Virginia Woolf described the angel as:
There are many publications from the Victorian era that give vague direction for the man's role in the home and his marriage. Advice such as "The burden, or, rather the privilege, of making home happy is not the wife's alone. There is something demanded of the lord and master and if he fails in his part, domestic misery must follow" (published in 1883 in Our Manners and Social Customs by Daphne Dale) was common in many publications of the time.Erbsen, Wayne. Manners and Morals of Victorian America. Native Ground Books & Music, Ashville; 2009. . LCCN: 2008943591.
Literary critics of the time suggested that superior feminine qualities of delicacy, sensitivity, sympathy, and sharp observation gave women novelists a superior insight into stories about home, family, and love. This made their work highly attractive to the middle-class women who bought the novels and the serialized versions that appeared in many magazines. However, a few early feminists called for aspirations beyond the home. By the end of the century, the "New Woman" was riding a bicycle, wearing bloomers, signing petitions, supporting worldwide mission activities, and talking about the vote.F. Elizabeth Gray, "Angel of the House" in Adams, ed., Encyclopedia of the Victorian Era (2004) 1: 40–41 Feminists of the 20th century reacted in hostile fashion to the "Angel of the House" theme since they felt the norm was still holding back their aspirations. The feminist intellectual Virginia Woolf was adamant. In a lecture to the Women's Service League in 1941, she said "killing the Angel in the House was part of the occupation of a woman writer."
"The Household General"
'The Household General' is a term coined in 1861 by Isabella Beeton in her influential manual Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management. Here she explained that the mistress of a household is comparable to the commander of an army or the leader of an enterprise. To run a respectable household and secure the happiness, comfort and well-being of her family she must perform her duties intelligently and thoroughly. For example, she had to organize, delegate and instruct her servants, which was not an easy task as many of them were not reliable. Isabella Beeton's upper-middle-class readers may also have had a large complement of "domestics", a staff requiring supervision by the mistress of the house. Beeton advises her readers to maintain a "housekeeping account book" to track spending. She recommends daily entries and checking the balance monthly. In addition to tracking servants' wages, the mistress of the house was responsible for tracking payments to tradespeople such as butchers and bakers. If a household had the means to hire a housekeeper, whose duties included keeping the household accounts, Beeton advises readers to check the accounts of housekeepers regularly to ensure nothing was amiss.
Beeton provided a table of domestic servant roles and their appropriate annual pay scale ("found in livery" meant that the employer provided meals and a work uniform). The sheer number of Victorian servants and their duties makes it clear why expertise in logistical matters would benefit the mistress of the house. Beeton indicates that the full list of servants in this table would be expected in the household of a "wealthy nobleman"; her readers are instructed to adjust staff size and pay according to the household's available budget, and other factors such as a servant's level of experience:
Servant's position(Male domestics) When not found in livery When found in livery House Steward £10–£80 – Valet £25–£50 £20–£30 Butler £25–£50 – Cook £20–£50 – Gardener £10–£30 – Footman £20–£60 £15–£25 Under Butler £15–£30 £15–£25 Coachman – £20–£35 Groom £15–£30 £12–£25 Under Footman – £2–£20 Page or Footboy £8–£18 £6–£14 Stableboy £6–£12 – Servant's position(Female domestics) When no extraallowance is made fortea, sugar and beer When an extraallowance is made fortea, sugar and beer Housekeeper £20–£45 £18–£40 Lady's-maid £12–£25 £10–£20 Head Nurse £15–£30 £13–£26 Cook £11–£30 £12–£26 Upper Housemaid £12–£20 £10–£17 Upper Laundry-maid £12–£18 £10–£15 Maid-of-all-work £9–£14 £7 10s.–£11 Under Housemaid £8–£12 £6 10s.–£10 Still-room maid £9–£14 £8–£13 Nursemaid £8–£12 £5–£10 Under Laundry-maid £9–£11 £8–£12 Kitchen-maid £9–£14 £8–£12 Scullery-maid £5–£9 £4–£8
"The Household General" was expected to organise parties that utilized various themes such as nostalgia and alchemy, and dinners to bring prestige to her husband, also making it possible for them to network. Beeton gives extensively detailed instructions on how to supervise servants in preparation for hosting dinners and balls. The etiquette to be observed in sending and receiving formal invitations is given, as well as the etiquette to be observed at the events themselves. The mistress of the house also had an important role in supervising the education of the youngest children. Beeton makes it clear that a woman's place is in the home, and her domestic duties come first. Social activities as an individual were less important than household management and socialising as her husband's companion. They were to be strictly limited:
Advice books on housekeeping and the duties of an ideal wife were plentiful during the Victorian era, and sold well among the middle class, though the burden of arranging parties were quite difficult. In addition to Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management, there were Infant Nursing and the Management of Young Children (1866) and Practical Housekeeping; or, the duties of a home-wife (1867) by Mrs. Frederick Pedley, and From Kitchen to Garret by Jane Ellen Panton, which went through 11 editions in a decade. Shirley Forster Murphy, a doctor and medical writer, wrote the influential Our Homes, and How to Make them Healthy (1883), before he served as London's chief medical officer in the 1890s.
Working-class domestic life