Thursday, May 30, 2019

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

The Degradation of Wives in the nice Period The degradation of the married woman in the Victorian era existed not only in that she was stripped of completely her licit rights but also that no obligations were ranged in her realm. Upon marriage, Victorian brides relinquished all rights to property and personal wealth to their husbands. Women were, under the law, legally incompetent and irresponsible. A married woman was entitled to no legal recourse in either 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 described her legal status, in law a husband and wife are one person, and the husband is that person (Jones 402).The Victorian woman was her husbands chattel. She was completely bloodsucking upon him and subject to him. She had no right to sue for divorce or to the custod y of her children should the couple separate. She could not make a will or keep her earnings. Her field of view 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, gentle . . . 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 connubial duties. She was believed to be asexual The majority of women, happily for them, are not much troubled with sexual feeling of any kind (Woloch 128). The inference is, if the husband did not demand 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 Account of Womens Lives in N ineteenth- light speed England, France, and the United States. Stanford Stanford University Press, 1981 Marshall, Gordon, ed. Dictionary of Sociology. tonic York Oxford University Press, 1998. National Center for Victims of Crime. Public Policy 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

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