The Beginning of a Movement

THE BEGINNING OF A MOVEMENT

The thought of Women voting, getting married, owning property, being employed or studying in a place of education would not even raise an eyebrow in today's society. The number of children that are born into society are at the complete control of today's modern woman. Sadly this was not the case in the early part of the nineteenth century.

Marriage and Property laws:

Most women had little choice but to marry and upon doing so everything they owned, inherited and earned automatically belonged to their husband. This meant that if an offence or felony was committed against her, only her husband could prosecute. Furthermore, rights to the woman personally - that is, access to her body - were his. Not only was this assured by law, but the woman herself agreed to it verbally: written into the marriage ceremony was a vow to obey her husband, which every woman had to swear before God as well as earthly witnesses. Not until the late 20th century did women obtain the right to omit that promise from their wedding vows (Wojtczak, 2009).

It was common place for a man of a poorer social class to marry a woman of a higher social class as the male inherited all of his wife's personal property and assets upon marriage. The Married Women's Property Act 1882  stated: 

'Under the terms of the act married women had the same rights over their property as unmarried women. This act therefore allowed a married woman to retain ownership of property which she might have received as a gift from a parent' (Simkin, 1997)

Before such time as the Property act being passed, the female, upon marriage had no right to keep her property or fortune. All of this went to her new husband,

'A woman became essentially a chattel of her husband; her wealth and possessions were now all his. No wonder plot lines of so many early nineteenth century novels involve a poor and unscrupulous gentleman stalking a rich heiress! A woman could be forced, by law, to return to her abusive husband and if the marriage broke down she had no legal rights over her children who automatically stayed with their father'. (Jones, 2012).

Education:

Even with the influential works written by Mary Wollstonecraft in 1792, it still took over 60 years to allow women in to education on the same level as men. In 1878 the University of London became the first to admit Women to its degrees. With this increase in knowledge and a more informed generation of females, it could quite possibly be a leading factor in the  formation of the NUWSS (National Union of Women's Suffrage) and WSPU (Women's Social and Political Union) (Purvis, 1995).

 

 

 

 

Class:

 

Social class in the 19th Century was a thing of great importance with females who came from a more prosperous background being chased by men of lower status in order to secure their personal fortune as the females had to give way any right they had to property and finance upon marrying their new husbands (Jones, 2012).

 

This changed however when middle class women started to become educated and meet with other like minded educate middle class women. The realisation that they were giving up all of their assets when they became married resulted in a stirring of emotions and the rumblings of a formation of a movement.

 

Motherhood:

 

Women of wealth had the luxury of handing responsibilities of motherhood over to 'wet nurses' who were paid to look after and take responsibility for the children. The working class mothers sadly did not have this luxury and were expected to go out to work, bring up the children, keep the home and tend to the needs of her husband. Due to the lack of contraception, women were in a never ending cycle of motherhood ' every man had the right to force his wife into sex and childbirth' (Wojtczak, 2009).

 

Early Petitions and Lobbying:

 

The first British female lobbyists were Barbara Leigh Smith (Later Barbara Bodichon) (1827-91), and Bessie Rayner Parkes (1829-1925). These two women organised a petition for a Married Woman's Property Bill (to do with a wife's right to keep her own property and income), and launched the Englishwoman’s Journal in 1858. In 1859 they founded The Society for Promoting the Employment of Women, and a Ladies Institute at 19 Langham Place. In 1865 the ladies of Langham Place organised a petition for a Woman’s Suffrage Bill to be presented to parliament, by John Stuart Mill. He took the issue of women’s right into parliament, a task that no woman was allowed to ever do (Richards, 1999).