Due to this lack of schooling, women could not get any sort of decent work. Many were domestic servants, or did textiles as in school. Other than this, women did unskilled jobs, all with little pay, and whichever job they worked, they would only get half of what a man would earn for the same job. There was a lot of inequality in this way. Due to this lack of pay, women found it hard to cope, and so it seems that marriage was the way to live, with a husband who could provide for his wife’s needs.
Once married, women effectively became the property of their husbands, with a husband owning all his wife’s money, (but also having to pay debts) if they were living together or not. Women could be locked up, beaten, and treated extremely harshly. Marital rape was legal, though 1884 brought an act, which meant that husbands could not lock up their wives if sex was refused. And it was acceptable for men to have sex with others whilst married; yet it was extremely wrong for a woman to do the same. So, for many women, married life could be extremely unpleasant. But even divorce law was biased against women.
Before 1857 only four women ever managed to get divorced form their husbands. It was extremely difficult and very expensive to get divorced, and only the very rich could manage it. The 1857 Divorce Act meant that it made divorce easier, but it was definitely in favour of males. A husband only had to prove that his wife had committed adultery, whilst she would have to prove adultery as well as bigamy or extreme cruelty etc. As well as this, if women did manage to get divorced then they found it extremely hard to get custody of their children or get maintenance. Many wanted the laws to be changed, but even in the world of politics there was no equality for men and women.
Women could only really play a part in politics if they joined extreme feminist groups, because the major parties would not accept women, with the exception of the Conservatives. Yet even the conservatives only let women play a part that was subordinate to the men. One of the reasons for this was the fact that politics was part of the public life, which only men were meant to be allowed into, due to their biological characteristics, i.e. because women could give birth they were meant to stay home and look after the children and the home, whilst men were adapted to be out working, or in this case in politics.
So, in all, the problem that women faced was a severe inequality, treated as lower than males. This affected all aspects of life, making even general living conditions hard for them, as they were unable to live without the aid of a “better” male.
