prose

The Main Topic:

Women- Status and laws. Fiction and Reality.

 What are the choices for these women?

 Explore their rights and their positions.

 Employment choices and

Inheritance laws are a good area to start

 with. As you explore these aspects

You will learn more about the different roles

 that women performed during this period.

                     Women status and reality:

1. Women status:

The idea that home is the Kingdom of the idea of modern women

 in first class. It was the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth

 century, some profound effects on the lives of women in

 England, for example. The industrial revolution produced new

 forms of work and showed the patterns of living were not

 common before. Before the industrial revolution, the men and

 women working side by side in the fields, for example, that

 there was no strict separation between what is inside the house

 and what is outside. With the beginnings of the nineteenth

 century, the shape features of the emerging middle class,

 which linked the life-sustaining modern industrial production and

 new forms of work based primarily on the concept of «the

 division of labor».

 Thus the family that the husband goes to work outside the

 home in the factory or office, and leave the house under the

 care of his wife. At this moment crystallized the concept of

 public sphere and private sphere, and the public sphere has

 been associated with the work of men outside the boundaries of

 the defenses pay the house, and define the work of the private

 sphere of women's unremunerated work within the home. And

 gradually formed a new ideology of what femininity, women have

 become so expensive the auspices of her home and her children

 during her husband go to work outside the home. And identified

 the characteristics of these inherent femininity of a woman is

 the ideal middle class to maintain in the absence of her husband

 and forced to do hard work outside the home.

 In the era of Queen Victoria (1837-1901) spread the ideology

 of new and established as the ideal affected have been made

 to the people of the Queen Victoria, the sponsor of the family

 and the perfect symbol of motherhood.

2. Women reality:

Women in the medieval centuries, by considerations of church

 weren’t participated in social life and even sometimes seen as a

 source of evil.

 Christianity, looked to women as « sorce Of Evil», as a result of

 their mother’s«Eve» sin  which leading  Adam eat the forbidden

 apple and disobey to the orders of God ,so the women have to

  pay the price.

 Women had to respect certain social rules e.g.  Not to raise her

 head, eyes, even not their voice in front of men. They couldn’t

 also participate in political life and have no seat in Parliament

 and should not be, except the women at the highest power in

 the kingdom as queens or Princesses.

 
To those beliefs that hinder women and prevent them from their

 right to learn and work had to constantly struggle to obtain

 equality between the two sexes in education and work and even

 in politics.

European women have been at the forefront of the struggle

 which has spread to other parts of the world, but the struggle

 will take a long time in the face of backward mentalities.

 Where he was granted the right to vote and be involved in the

 political life of the vulnerability of the family at risk. This

 vision has spread more and more in the Latin countries such as

 France and European countries such as the Anglo-Saxon Britain

 and the United States, Finland and Norway were more

 understanding of the rights of women from other countries.

.
Women's movement first emerged in the Western world in the

 eighteenth century receded demands the right to work mainly in

 education and the right to vote.

 
Ruled that the movement for many years in their struggle to

 achieve those demands to the intransigence of the customs and

 traditions of a society that is controlled by men.

(Here are some pictures of the movie that’s based on women

 laws and reality during the18th century)

  And there are some movies which Based on the true story of

 women's rights activists Alice Paul and Lucy Burns whose efforts

 gave American women the right to vote.

 The film begins as Alice Paul and Lucy Burns return to the

 United States from England where they have been actively

 involved in the suffrage movement. As the duo becomes more

 active within the National American Woman Suffrage

 association (NAWSA), they begin to realize that their ideas

 were much too radical for the established activists, particularly

 Carrie Cham ban Catt (Anjelica Huston). Both women eventually

 leave NAWSA and create the national woman’s party(NWP), a

 much more radical organization dedicated to the fight for

 women's rights.

 arrests were, in fact, unconstitutional.

Resources:

Women law:

 Were in 18th century there are no other times when women were so disrespected. Despite this, women have never given up their struggle for equality. The inhibition on women is unprecedented in 18th century. They are confined to their houses most of time, doing needlework, gossiping, reading, and drawing, having party or ball on occasion. To marry a disapproved husband or entering into illicit relationship is always very serious. These social principles that actually bind women’s hands and feet are very serious. They might be described as the grammar of conduct. Now grammar is something everyone should learn and must learn. The social principles, like a mould, sharpen women’s action and make them of “ideal” and “perfect” famine according to their standards.

Women’s rights and interests are not ensured by legislation. Married women had no legal existence. After marriage, women have to be bound to their husband financially and legally. A woman gives up all her own property.  And her former family named upon marriage according to law. She remains at the financial mercy of her mate, and if her spouse died, she found herself subject to the terms of her husband’s will and to legal codes that privileged a male line of inheritance, with few employment options. Women’s voice is too weak, and their rights and even their comfort are not ensured. Women could be no means play any part in social life or realize their value in any way. Too ambitious is not feminine and is an unpardonable conduct. So in 18th century, there is little case of women striking up their own career, since few occupations are opened to them and those few governesses are usually not highly respected and well paid. Though some women try to set working at home as a writer. They were “attacked for having temerity to write without necessary learning and taste. Only desperate financial need, preferably to support the aged parents, a sick husband, or destitute children, could excuse a women’s exposing herself in print to obtain money.

 Accordingly, women’s preface often apologize for writing by alluding to distresses of this sort, causing reviewers frequently to condescend kindly to their work, though increasingly they bemoaned the number and grammar of ‘female scribbles’”. To study why women are in low position, it is very necessary to make clear those ladies’ financial state first. Women marry because marriage is the only allowed route to financial security. The legislation makes it difficult and embarrassing to divorce. The only reason for divorce accepted by the court is sexual infidelity of the wife. Besides, it will cost quite a bit of money, so that only rich family could afford to divorce. However, those few rich family wouldn’t brave all embarrassment and humiliation. It seems that marriage is the best ending to the women at that time. So it comes that many women marry for money. The choice is not made by women but by situation and society.

Women fictions

 Women and fiction at the later 18^th century

During the half-century or so that is known as the age of Sensibility, women established themselves as novel- writers with amazing alacrity. And that was reasonable to assume the access to the novel-writing which placed women in a relation to the culture of the period that was different from these years would tell a unique tale about women's concerns. The women’s novels at the 18^th are interesting primarily because of the ways in which they have been able to tell different story from that which culture at large has seemed to tell. These novels were written by some different women in the second half of the eighteenth century.

Each tells a carefully constructed story and each offers a distinctive account of family experience and the terms of female success. In doing so, each of them articulates a distinctive set of obstacles to a uniquely realized understanding of female desire. Their novels defy attempts to generalize about “a woman’s writing in the later 18^th century”.

 WOMEN AND FICTION:

   We can make the point that novels about women and

 those by the participated alike in process of feminization

 that began in the later eighteenth century, and women

 are as well as men and that could be seen in general to

 be inculcating the values of the bourgeois ideology of the

 women’s role in the family and in the home. 

 Here is a quote of novel that was written by women which talks about their fictions in the 18^th century and has a main particular

 subject.

 Again and again women novelists in general force their

 characters into the kind of suspended animation that de

 Lauretis describes. Indeed, the great success of women

 novelists in the eighteenth century suggests that

 perhaps they bought too quickly into the system of

 fictional narrative that would betray them.

 Women choices

During the eighteenth century, While the essential role of most

 women continued to be managing all aspects of their households,

 doing so took on political overtones: the commitment of the

 women was critical to maintaining the decision to boycott British

 goods caused home manufacturing to become both a statement

 of defiance and a necessity. Even those women whose social

 standing afforded increased leisure took up spinning and other

 activities to replace imported goods. In the early days leading

 up to Lexington and Concord, they prepared food for militia

 musters and made cartridges.

 War, when it came, touched everyone: resources were scarce

 leading to high inflation; invading troops destroyed farms and

 homes; and the absence of husbands and fathers left some in

 danger of starvation. Some women were able to continue to

 manage homes, farms and shops but others were unable to

 survive on their own and forced to abandon their homes and

 follow their husbands with the army.

Women who traveled with the army were known as campfollowers

 and did so for many reasons: inability to provide for themselves

at home; fear of attack; eviction by troops; desire to be with

 husbands; the attraction of a paying job and rations (even if

 their pay and rations were minimal), or in some cases as

 settlers selling to the army.

 Well over 20,000 women followed one army or another and

 transformed camps into small towns. In some ways, women were

 an important element because they carried out tasks such as

 laundering and nursing (both of which were paid) which men were

 unwilling to do and without which the army would have been even

 more seriously depleted by disease. In addition, women

 performed duties as cooks, food foragers, spies and water

 carriers (all unpaid). However, the number of women generally

 exceeded that which would have been required and often

 represented a nuisance to commanding officers: women and

 accompanying children used scarce rations and slowed the

 movement of the army. Nevertheless, they were tolerated

 because they performed important jobs for the welfare of the

 armies and for fear that the men would desert if their families

 were sent home.

Women Rights:

 Before and in the 18^th century, woman faced a lot of unfair laws in England. The

major law is that woman can not inherit her father and all her father's money will go to the closest cousin. So the young lady has to look for a man with fortune to marry her. And to be accepted she has to be accomplished lady. She has to learn the modern languages, playing piano, singing and dancing.

 The eighteenth century brought the beginning of the British Cultural Revolution. With the increasing power of the middle class and an expansion in consumerism, women's roles began to evolve. The economic changes brought by the new middle class provided women with the opportunity to be more directly involved in commerce. Lower-to middle-class women often assisted their husbands in work outside the home. It was still thought unseemly for a lady to be knowledgeable of business so, though some class distinctions were blurring, the upper class was able to distinguish themselves from the rest of society.

 The Cultural Revolution, mounting literacy rates among the lower classes caused an increase in publishing, including the rise of the periodical. Though women's writing during this period continued largely to be an extension of domestic life, and focused mainly on pragmatic, practical issues, women found a wider market for publication. The act of professional writing, however, was still considered "vulgar" among the aristocracy. The political and social changes that took place in the eighteenth century helped the way for these women to advance the cause of women's rights.

 Women positions

 During the eighteenth century, married women’s lives revolved to a large extent around managing the household, a role which in many cases included partnership in running farms or home businesses. The defiance of English rule and the onset of the war disrupted the usual patterns of life in many ways including impacting how women responded to events surrounding them. While the essential role of most women continued to be managing all aspects of their households, doing so took on political overtones.

Even those women whose social standing afforded increased leisure took up spinning and other activities to replace imported goods.

War, when it came, touched everyone: resources were scarce leading to high inflation; invading troops destroyed farms and homes; and the absence of husbands and fathers left some in danger of starvation. Some women were able to continue to manage homes, farms and shops but others were unable to survive on their own and forced to abandon their homes and follow their husbands with the army.

Women who traveled with the army were known as (Campfollowers) and did so for many reasons: inability to provide for themselves at home; fear of attack; eviction by troops; desire to be with husbands; the attraction of a paying job and rations (even if their pay and rations were minimal), or in some cases as settlers selling to the army.

 In addition, women performed duties as cooks, food foragers, spies and water carriers. Nevertheless, they were tolerated because they performed important jobs for the welfare of the armies and for fear that the men would desert if their families were sent home.

The role of campfollowers with the French army varies somewhat in that the men were rarely accompanied by their wives (in fact, marriage was essentially forbidden) and there were very few women who traveled with the army, in sharp contrast to the British and Continental units.

19^th century:

Women’s Roles in the Late 19th Century

"The average farmer’s wife is one of the most patient and verworked women of the time." The American Farmer, 1884

Introduction
Despite the growth of industry, urban centers and immigration, America in the late 19th century was still predominantly rural. Seven out of ten people in the United States lived in small towns with populations under 2500 or on farms in 1870. In Indiana, the 1880 census reported a population of almost 2 million residents, about 55 per square mile, 1,010,000 men and 968,000 women. About three out of four people lived in rural areas. Although much of the study done on woman’s roles during this period looks at the roles of the emerging urban middle class or those of immigrant women, the changes that occurred affected rural women, too.

The "Cult of Domesticity” first named and identified in the early part of the century, was solidly entrenched by late nineteenth century, especially in rural environments. The beliefs embodied in this ‘Cult’ gave women a central, if outwardly passive, role in the family. Women’s God-given role, it stated, was as wife and mother, keeper of the household, guardian of the moral purity of all who lived therein. The Victorian home was to be a haven of comfort and quiet, sheltered from the harsh realities of the working world. Housework took on a scientific quality, efficiency being the watchword. Children were to be cherished and nurtured. Morality was protected through the promulgation of Protestant beliefs and social protest against alcohol, poverty and the decay of urban living.

Pulling against these traditions was the sense of urgency, movement and progress so evident in the geographical, industrial, technological and political changes affecting the country. Women’s roles were meant to steady all this uncertainty, but women could not help but see opportunities for themselves in this growth. Jobs opened up in factories, retail establishments and offices, giving single women new options. Education became mandatory for both genders in many states. Women sought higher education, too, first in all female institutions and then in co-ed environments. The push for women’s rights, with suffrage in the forefront, also gathered momentum. Regardless of these changes, throughout the nineteenth century, 95% of married women remained "at home."

The proliferation of popular literature and the expansion of communications through the press and other means could not have helped but enlighten rural women to the opportunities opening up for their gender. Their lives, however, were tied to house and children, endlessly unacknowledged work, little opportunity for outside contact or variety of experience, and little relief from everyday triviality. The extent to which farm women felt any fulfillment or larger meaning may indeed have been tied to how well they could balance the tensions between the expectations of the culture and the day-to-day, unrelenting tasks of housekeeping, child rearing and farm life.