There is not a war in the world, no, nor an injustice, but you women are answerable for it; not in that you have provoked, but in that you have not hindered. (p.61)
Ruskin’s writing is sweeping and poetic: he uses the running metaphor of women as ‘queens’ (p.60), benignly wielding power over their husbands, sons, and subjects. Elsewhere, he conjures up almost otherworldly imagery such as flowers coming to life as the woman passes them. One could perhaps argue that Ruskin was purposefully embellishing the feminine role and qualities, not only to rally his female audience into action, but also to create a more balanced gender imagery. He might have felt that the woman’s passive attributes did not measure up well against the image of the man who actively engages with the outside world. However, once the flowery language is stripped away, we are left with a decidedly less inspiring portrait: a virtuous, obedient wife whose is required to mind her home and husband and undertake charitable activities in her free time.
If Ruskin’s is an idealized account of womanhood, then we must turn our attention to the writings of John Stuart Mill to get a dose of reality. In Chapter II of his controversial essay The Subjection of Women, 1869 (Mill, p.66), he highlights the extremely circumspect legal standing of married women and in hopes of restoring some justice to the situation, advocates granting women the right to choose whom they marry.
Mill’s factual, sober style is a far cry from Ruskin’s, yet it is just as effective.
Gone is the ‘queen’ to be replaced by the ‘bondservant’ (p.67) and in fact, Mill repeatedly invokes the ‘master/slave’ metaphor as he describes the married woman’s position. Once a woman became a wife – and here she had no choice, as it was the ‘…the destination appointed by society for women’ (p.66) – she relinquished almost all her rights to her husband and could not act without his permission. According to Mill, a married woman under English law was actually worse off than a slave because wives did not even have access to some of the privileges afforded to actual slaves. Unlike a slave who could count on a fixed schedule of servitude, the Victorian wife had to be at her husband’s beck and call at all times, including acquiescing to his sexual demands, which a female slave under Christian law could refuse to do. In contrast to Roman slaves, the Victorian wife had no right to a ‘peculium’ (p.67), that is, she could not own any property. Moreover, she had no custody over her children and this situation remained unchanged even after her husband’s death. Women of wealthy families could shield themselves, to some extent, from the stipulations of law. For instance, a rich family could prevent the husband’s access to a wife’s property or a well-to-do woman could initiate a divorce. However, in the case of the former, if a husband took his wife’s property from her by force, the law could not reverse the situation. Also, although divorce was possible, it could only be undertaken at great expense. In short, legislation saw to it that a woman was utterly subservient to her husband and she had to count on his compassion and goodwill to receive a decent and fair treatment.
Taken together, the accounts of Ruskin and Mill provide a vivid picture of what it must have been like to be a woman in the Victorian era. Despite Ruskin’s plea to women to do more within their capacity, the foregoing evidence makes clear that this capacity was entirely different than a man’s and confined by rigid boundaries brought about both by social norms and the rule of law. Although some women from privileged backgrounds might have had more legal freedom, society would have still seen to it that they conformed to the ‘ideal’ values of domesticity, obedience and dependence.
In conclusion, because Victorian society believed that men and women were inherently different in character, they subjected women to different moral standards than men and this attitude was also reflected in the laws governing women’s rights. At least with respect to gender realities in Victorian England, it would be a great oversimplification to claim that moral values applied equally to all.
References:
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Ruskin, J. (1865) ‘from “Sesame and Lilies”’, in The Open University A172 Course Resources Victorian Morals Anthology, Milton Keynes: The Open University.
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Mill, J.S. (1869) ‘from ‘”The Subjection of Women” Chapter II’, in The Open University A172 Course Resources Victorian Morals Anthology, Milton Keynes: The Open University.
