The Degradation of Wives in the Victorian Period Essay -- Exploratory

The Degradation of Wives in the squared-toe stream The degradation of the unify muliebrity in the straitlaced era existed not only in that she was stripped of all her legal offices but in all case that no obligations were placed in her realm. Upon marriage, Victorian brides relinquished all rights to airplane propeller and personal wealth to their husbands. Women were, under the law, legally incompetent and irresponsible. A married cleaning lady was entitled to no legal recourse in any matter, unless it was sponsored and endorsed by her husband. Helpless in the eyes of civil authority, the married woman was in the same category with criminals, lunatics, and minors (Vicinus 7). Eighteenth-century, English jurist, William Blackstone curtly draw her legal status, in law a husband and wife be one person, and the husband is that person (Jones 402).The Victorian woman was her husbands chattel. She was completely dependent upon him and subject to him. She had no right to sue for split or to the custody of her children should the couple separate. She could not make a ordain or keep her earnings. Her area of expertise, her sphere, was in the home as mother, homemaker and devoted domestic. Clear and distinct gender boundaries were drawn Men were . . . competitive, assertive, . . . and materialistic. Women were pious, pure, leisurely . . . and sacrificing (Woloch 125).No greater degradation took place in the Victorian womans life than in the bedroom. The Victorian woman had no right to her own body, as she was not permitted to refuse conjugal duties. She was believed to be apomictic The majority of women, happily for them, are not much troubled with inner feeling of any kind (Woloch 128). The inference is, if the husband did not quest the f... ... Fiction, and Contract Theory Trollopes He Knew He Was Right. Criticism xxxvi (Summer 1994) 401-14 Hellerstein, Erna Olafson, Hume, Leslie Parker, and Offen, Karen M., eds. Victorian Women A Documentary Accoun t of Womens Lives in Nineteenth- ascorbic acid England, France, and the United States. Stanford Stanford University Press, 1981 Marshall, Gordon, ed. Dictionary of Sociology. New York Oxford University Press, 1998. National Center for Victims of Crime. Public polity Issues Spousal Rape Laws 20 Years Later. 27 March 2002 . Perkin, Joan. Victorian Women. New York New York University Press, 1993 Vicinus, Martha, ed. A Widening Sphere Changing Roles of Victorian Women. Bloomington Indiana University Press, 1977 Woloch, Nancy. Women and the American Experience. Boston McGraw-Hill, 2000