Victorian medievalism the role of women

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Basingstoke and New York: Saunders perhaps overstates the case when she suggests that almost any contribution to public debate by a woman was regarded as an act of trespass.

Though Victorian period was influenced by the reform act and subsequent acts, yet this period also marked by extreme diversities with the industrial reforms, cultural progress, scientific advancement on one hand and poverty and wars on the other.

Victorian Medievalism: The Role of Women and Marriage - Research Paper Example : caninariojana.com

People in the respective categories were expected to remain within their class and any slight change from one class to another was considered to be a serious offence. In all these categories, the role of the women remained unchanged. They were supposed to live a highly restrictive life with their life centered around their husband and subsequently their children.

Victorian era women Role of Victorian women of the higher class Women who belonged to the nobility class lived and enjoyed a life of luxuries. These women spent most of their time attending tea parties and balls and the remaining time they would spend in knitting and horseback riding.

Women had several attendants to look after them. They were expected to be highly educated. Their main job was to effectively instruct the servants on what is to be done and to groom younger girls of the same class nobility to become women.

These people were not as rich as the nobles though many of the people of this class tried mingling with the noble class people. The women belonging to this class were expected to take education, help in the family business and try to get married into the nobility.

At the close of the Victorian era, few women of this class were self-employed by being a nurse, writer etc. Lower Working Class, on the other hand, included professions like tradeswoman whereby the women sold their own goods and service to the people of their village or cleaned or worked as housekeepers to the upper middle class.

These women mostly remained single all their lives as they were more in number as compared to their male counterparts. Women were considered to be a sign of purity and cleanliness except during their menstrual cycles.

Their bodies were treated as temples as a result of which they could not be engaged in any vigorous activity or even pleasurable sex. The only duty cast upon a Victorian woman was to keep her husband happy and raise her children for which they groomed right from their childhood days.

The rights which the women enjoyed were similar to those which were enjoyed by young children whereby they were not allowed to vote, sue or even own property. Thus, the woman belonging to this period had no choice but to accept all that which was already decided for her by the society at large by way of customs.

You can also read more about the feminism during the Victorian era.The status of women in the Victorian era was often seen as an illustration of the striking discrepancy between the United Kingdom's national power and wealth and what many, then and now, consider its appalling social conditions.

Victorian Medievalism: The Role of Women and Marriage The reign of Queen Victoria lasted from her ascension to the throne in until her death in Many changes occurred during her reign; changes such as progression within the scientific community with Charles Darwin’s huge impact upon evolution and the like.

Women in the Victorian era - Wikipedia

There were of course perceptive women of independent original thought, but for the huge majority life was easier if they accepted that a woman's place was in the home. To lump all women of the Victorian era as one body would be wrong.

Victorian Medievalism: The Role of Women and Marriage The reign of Queen Victoria lasted from her ascension to the throne in until her death in Many changes occurred during her reign; changes such as progression within the scientific community with Charles Darwin’s huge impact upon evolution and the like.

Clare Broome Saunders, in the first book-length study of Victorian women writers and medievalism, argues that the medieval trappings allowed “the forbidden to be said without censure” (8).

In Women Writers and Victorian Medievalism, Clare Broome Saunders argues that female authors frequently used medievalism as a vehicle for subversive political sentiments as well.

The diversity of medievalism’s uses in Victorian culture led to its expression through a wide variety of media.