The Victorian Family

Separate Spheres

• Tennyson, "The Princess"

  Man for the field and woman for the hearth

  Man for the sword and for the needle she

  Man with the head and woman with the heart

  Man to command and woman to obey

  All else confusion.

Masculinity

• The Home
• The Provider
• Life Insurance

Femininity

• The Home
• Children (many)
• Sexual Purity

Willam Acton

• Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs 1857
• "masturbatory diseases"

Divorce

• Sales of Wives

Caroline Norton

• Custody of Children Act (1839)
  • Rejected in Lords

Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857

• double standard

Property

• Coverture

Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon

• A Brief Summary in Plain Language of the Most Important Laws Concerning Women 1854
• Married Women's Property Act 1870

Women in Public Sphere

Philanthropy/Churches

• District Visiting Society
• Bible Women
• Domestic Missionaries
• Poor Law
• School Boards 1870..

Family Size/Childbirth

• Contraception
• Anesthesia
• Chloroform
• Queen Victoria

W. R. Greg

• "Why Are Women Redundant"? (1862)
• Immigration
• The Governess

Florence Nightingale

• Crimean War
• Anglican Sisterhoods
• Training Schools for Nurses

Medicine

• Sophie Jex Blake
• Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
  • Dispensary for Women 1866
  • London School of Medicine for Women
• Foreign Missions
• Countess of Dufferin's Fund

Dorothea Beale

• Cheltenham Ladies' College 1841

Queen's College for Women

John Stuart Mill

MP 1865

Harriet Taylor

Helen Taylor

Essay on the Subjection of Women 1869

What were some of the advantages to both men and women from the set of assumptions about gender known as "separate spheres"?

What contradictions, and perceived in justices, in "separate spheres" led to modifications of the law?