To what extent did the idea of a separate sphere(TM) of life for women become eroded in the period 1870-1914?

University Degree Historical and Philosophical studies

To what extent did the idea of a ‘separate sphere’ of life for women become eroded in the period 1870-1914?

In her review of six different historical texts on 'separate spheres', Judith Lewis astutely remarked: 'one gets a healthy sense...that historians have been far more bamboozled by Victorian propaganda than the Victorians were.' Indeed, 'proponents of...[the]...feminine ideal...for instance, Tennyson's “The Princess”...[and]...Coventry Patmore's 'Angel in the House' were certainly part of – and also inspired – the contemporary prescriptive literature. As a result, the stereotype of the domestically imprisoned woman prevails, and 'separate sphere' has become an orthodox term in the study of female history. It is important to examine how far these ideals were followed. As K.D. Reynolds pointed out, 'this...version of femininity...ascrib[ed] to the least desirable qualities of the gender – frivolity, lack of application, corruptibility, frailty...and sexual weakness' thus making it seemingly impractical, not only for the poorer middle and lower classes whom most likely could not afford such an inefficient member of the family, but in (theoretically) the introduction of women into the public sphere (another concept to be later examined). What must be remembered, however, is that 'separate spheres' is a historical rather than a contemporary term. In other words, it is an instrument invented by historians for historians for the specific purpose of attempting to understand this complex and controversial strand of history, thus we must focus not so much on the actual term but what the term covers. It is only then that definitive factors, such as marriage legislation and employment, can be properly contextualised and understood, and the underlying concept appropriately analysed.

The most obvious factor behind 'separate spheres' is difference. Having cross referenced a number of historical texts, there are two texts in particular that stand out, and unsurprisingly they contradict each other. In Ruth Adam's 'A Woman's Place 1910-1975', she interprets this difference in terms of men and women's roles. We can infer from her text that there was no such thing as two different worlds as there was only one world and that was 'a man's world'. She observed that 'all the colour and romance of having an Empire – the beautiful uniforms which made the women look drab as peahens in comparison...belonged to the men.' Jose Harris, on the other hand, takes a more literal approach to 'separate spheres' and theorised in 'Private Lives, Public Spirit: Britain 1870-1914' that men and women had their own respective worlds. She stated that 'even...when the legal predominance of fathers of fathers was indisputable...Taine [a visiting French critic] in 1871 was struck not by the moral supremacy of English fathers but by the high proportion of Englishmen whose “sole contribution to family life [was] money”, leaving all real decisions...to their wives.' In other words,Harris implies that the family was one of the worlds which belonged to women and not the men, who were too busy participating in the 'late Victorian cult of...'clubland' [which] was an almost exclusively, and often aggressively, masculine sphere.' Arguably, Adam's text focuses on the period 1910-1914, and Harris' the late Victorian era which could already suggest an evolving (if not eroding) idea of 'separate spheres'. Indeed, Harris summarises 'the last quarter of the nineteenth century [as] a period of continuous and quite seminal, if partially invisible, change in the perception of women's roles and in the realignment of male-female relationships.' Perception is a key word here. It could well be that the underlying root of 'separate spheres' is the stereotype of the passive female. Although it is very difficult – albeit impossible – to appropriately and accurately measure the true passivity of women, evidence shows that even as early as 1870 and before, women were not necessarily shrinking violets. 'Martin Pugh has indicated a number of cases...where the wife was the guiding partner (notably Theresa, marchioness of Londonderry, and Margaret, countess of Jersey)'. However, the point is 'such dominance was not necessarily strident or openly displayed' and ladies 'paid...lip-service to formal subservience in order to spare their husband's flimsy egos.'. Having examined a few of many concepts of 'separate spheres' we are now left with at least three conflicting possibilities. Would the erosion of the idea of 'separate spheres' mean the woman would no longer need to feign passivity and would be regarded as her husband's equal? Would this erosion leave the expectation of female subservience in place, yet allow the women access to the 'aggressive masculine sphere' of 'clubland'? Or, would erosion of the idea of a 'separate sphere' require Adam's realistic but somewhat pessimistic notion that the world remained adversely masculine, but by 1914 the women had empowered themselves enough to potentially enjoy the same privileges as men (but with greater difficulty)? All three possibilities are to a greater or lesser extent radically ambitious for a short period of 44 years, and even having concocted three hypotheses, the 'separate spheres' notion seems rather vague and inadequately explored. However, as mentioned before, 'separate spheres' is merely an invented historical term, thus it is the underlying concepts that matter. What we can do is examine the effects of landmark change and determine the extent to which change has occurred in regards to the perception of women and the amount of power a woman could exercise.

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In the 1870s the typewriter became commercialised and available to anybody with twelve pounds to spare. Although this may not seem like an obvious advancement in the empowering of women, in actual fact it had great significance. Women were paid a fraction of the wages that men were paid due to the fact they were expected to either be married or living with their family, thus not needing to pay for accommodation. In Bermondsey for example, 'women factory hands [were paid] on average 7s to 9s a week and 3s for girls, compared with the average male workers' £75 a year'. 'The majority of women [however] had no occupation'. For those who were neither married or living with family ('spinsters' – also known as 'the superfluous women') life was very difficult with many having to resort to prostitution. The typewriter was the woman's passport into the man's world of the office, and of course, fair pay. J. M. Barrie's play 'The Twelve Pound Look' was about a wealthy woman, Lady Sims, who married a tyrannical husband. When a female typist comes in to work for her husband, she tells Lady Sims that she can earn 36s a week by typing letters at ten shillings the hundred. In theory, this was most definitely an erosion of the 'separate spheres' not only in the woman entering the man's world of office work (the contemporary feminist Ethen Snowden sneered that “only well paid jobs [were] ever designated as 'unfeminine'.”) but in the fact that an uneducated women could potentially support herself without a husband. What does not erode the 'separate spheres' idea was the fact while women became accepted to be better typists than men, they also became pigeon-holed into the concept they were only worthy of working as a man's servant, hence it was still as though they were inferior. Another source that denounces the idea that it erodes the 'separate spheres' is John Galsworthy's play 'The Fugitive'. In the play a wife runs away to live with a penniless lover in the belief that she could succeed as a typist. Due to the lack of free-lance work available she cannot support herself and is forced to prostitute herself. In other words, although the potential for a woman to support herself without a husband was made available with the invention of the typewriter, it did not necessarily mean that success in independence was guaranteed. Indeed, in 1901, an employment census was taken and found that compared to 1871 where 36 percent of women worked, only 31.6 percent were in employment. Although the decreased figures could be to do with the way the census was conducted (prostitutes and part time workers were not counted as employed), if there was enough typing work available for women (or enough women could afford the twelve pounds for the typewriter), it would be reasonable to conclude that at least a slight increase in employment would have been in order. Nevertheless, this is without taking attitudes into account, which despite the opportunities available, does not necessarily mean they were taken advantage of. In terms of employment, it seems that although there were new ideas arose in terms of female employment, the woman's place was still below a man.

Before 1870, the law did not recognise women as individuals, and her legal standing was overtaken by either her husband or her father. In 1868, Lydia Becker (who worked alongside Josephine Butler in campaigning for the emancipation of women) stated “why are so many women starving?...Because women are trained to be dependent on men, and then men leave them without means of subsistence...Why are men able to treat women in this way? Because women have no political power.”. The 1870 Married Woman's Property Act allowed a women to keep her own wages and inherit property after marriage, and the 1882 Married Woman's Property Act went further in preventing the husband from automatically inheriting her property once they married. In theory, this was excellent for the empowering of women, and eroded the 'separate spheres' theory in that women were recognised as individuals with the right to support themselves. In reality, it did not mean that women were safe or treated as equals within marriage. 'In 1888 the Court of Crown Cases Reserved held in Regina v. Claence that a husband who had infected his wife with venereal disease from which he, but not she, knew he was suffering, could not be convicted of assault.' Although the courts had previously decided that infecting an unsuspecting spouse with venereal disease constituted legal cruelty, when the wife tried to obtain a separation because of this, she was refused on the grounds that 'it [was] in accordance with the ordinary condition of married life'. Legally, the 'separate spheres' notion was very much in place as the woman was expected to submit unconditionally to her husband, despite recent acts which had been put into place to empower her. This can be seen as evidence that 'separate spheres' is very much a psycological concept, and that no theoretically empowered the woman was, the establishment could no way erode the notion of 'separate spheres' if the mentality was still in place.

On a non establishment level, a possible piecemeal catalyst to eroding the 'separate spheres' was the availability of the bicycle. The ever realistic Adam stated 'the bicycle did more to liberate the pre-1914 woman than any other machine, not excepting the typewriter. Not only did it make her completely mobile at minimum cost but enabled her to roam about on her own, without the watchful eyes of either her own household or the neighbours on her.' A seemingly insignificant connective factor was that the increased popularity of cycling led to a change in woman's fashion. 'The substitution of knickers for thick petticoats...came about in 1890...it began cautiously, the earliest knickers being long and frilled at the bottom; so that if anything was seen of them they might be mistaken for petticoats...it's eventual importance was immense, not merely because it encouraged the shortening of skirts, but because it vastly lessened the weight and volume of material which had hitherto cramped women's movements from the waist downward. It made a very real contribution to woman's emancipation.” The fact that women were recognised to need lighter clothing for greater energy of movement was significant in the erosion of 'separate spheres'. No longer were women confined to the house, permanently exhausted in restrictive clothing. By the turn of the century, the appearance of women in the public sphere was socially acceptable and many took full advantage of this. Although there were those in the public sphere, such as Mrs Humphry Ward and Beatrice Webb, who idealised domesticity and opposed the suffragettes, the fact was that they were out of the private sphere and into the public sphere and it did not matter what they were campaigning about, the fact was they helped erode the notion of separate spheres.

The greatest hurdle was to define the true meaning of 'separate spheres'. The conventional wife at home and private, husband out in public notion seemed oversimplified and did not take into account the defining factors behind the 'separate spheres' idea. 'Separate spheres' is in actual fact a very complex idea and stems down to feminine empowerment and the respect of women as well as woman's roles. Evidence shows that it was the less obvious developments, such as the invention of the typewriter and the bicycle, that made the greatest contribution to empowering women, but whether it eroded the notion of 'separate spheres' is another matter. Just because there arose an opportunity for uneducated women to receive fair wages, does not mean that it was universally taken advantage of, just as not many women took advantage of the new social acceptability of women in the public sphere. However, there were most certainly developments between 1870-1914 in terms of women's power and improvement of status. In the end, the mentality of women being inferior (although improved) beings was still rife, hence one must not exaggerate the impact of what were theoretically great advancements.

J.S. Lewis, Separate Spheres: Threat or Promise? (The Journal of British Studies, Vol. 30, No.1) pp. 108

K.D. Reynolds, Aristocratic Women and Political Society in Victorian Britain (1998) p.20

See A.Vickery, Golden age to Separate Spheres (The Historic Journal, Vol. 36, No.2) pp.389

Reynolds, Aristocratic Women, p.20

R. Adam, A Woman's Place 1910-1975 (1975) p.9

Ibid., p.9

J.Harris, Private Lives, Public Spirit: Britain 1870-1914 (1994) p.76

Ibid., p.27

Ibid., p.24

K.D. Reynolds, Aristocratic Women and Political Society in Victorian Britain (1998) p.7

Ibid., p.7

A.Vickery, Golden age to Separate Spheres (The Historic Journal, Vol. 36, No.2) pp.391

See R. Adam, A Woman's Place 1910-1975 (1975) p.20

Ibid., p.21

W.D.Rubinstein, Britain's Century (1998) p.320

See R. Adam, A Woman's Place 1910-1975 (1975) p.20

Ibid., p.21

Ibid., p.20

See W.D.Rubinstein, Britain's Century (1998) p.320

M.L.Shanley, Feminism, Marriage and the Law in Victorian England 1850-1895 (1989) p.54

Ibid., p.184

Ibid., p.185

R. Adam, A Woman's Place 1910-1975 (1975) p.16

R.C.K. Ensor, England 1870-1914 (1952) p.338

Teacher Reviews

Here's what a teacher thought of this essay

Rachel Smith

24th of Dec 2012

This essay is well written and well structured, and explores several interesting themes well. The student is clearly familiar with the historiography on the topic and uses it well, although a wider range of references would be helpful in places. It would also be useful to consider whether the experience of separate spheres varied by class, region or occupation. 4 stars.

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