A Woman's Place in British Society

In 1847, Alfred, Lord Tennyson asked an enduring question; how can men live up to their potential if they do not aid the cause of woman? During the Romantic Period and the Victorian Age, Britain was a patriarchal society much like the rest of the world. Women had barely any rights whatsoever; they were not allowed to own property or vote, and had few opportunities in the workplace. The only accepted role for an upper- or middle-class woman was that of wife and mother. Lower-class women had even fewer options, often having to resort to prostitution or industrial jobs in order to survive.


During these eras, certain authors and artists challenged these British societal beliefs about the role of women at home, in the workplace, and as artists. These daring few, many of whom were not a part of mainstream popular culture, created the beginning of a positive change in the dominant beliefs about the woman's gender role. They documented, satirized, challenged, and openly protested against the subservient status of women. They offered their opinions as to why this role was inherently wrong. And most importantly they proposed solutions for how societal and personal change could be accomplished.


Until the late Victorian Age, female authors were given no recognition and had no accepted role in Britain. Yet, some women embraced their creativity and produced work that would make an impact on the literary world for centuries. During the Romantic Period, Anna Letitia Barbauld and Mary Wollstonecraft, and during the Victorian Era, Jane Austen and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, were among the few women who ventured to write in a society where they were unwelcome. We can learn much from the words of these brave and intelligent authors.

The Purpose of a Woman's Life

From Lord Byron's Don Juan,
from the perspective of Don Juan's first love, Julia.

"Man's love is of his life a thing apart,
'Tis woman's whole existence...
Man has all these resources, we but one,
To love again, and be again undone"
(Norton, Pg. 692).

The Romantic Period, 1785-1830. The "Injured Woman"

In 1791, Anna Letitia Barbauld protested against the role of women in society in her poem, "The Rights of Woman." Long before the time of feminism in England, Barbauld's poem was a call to action; "Yes, injured Woman! rise, assert thy right! / Woman! too long degraded, scorned, opprest; / O born to rule in partial Law's despite, / Resume thy native empire o'er the breast!" (Norton, Pg. 35). Barbauld hints at the unfair treatment of women by the British "law" of the era. She calls for women to claim their rightful equality with men. Classmate Katie Rasmussen comments that in her poetry Barbauld "is writing about the role that women have in society and how that is going to change" (Victorian Age Discussion).


Women were very oppressed by academic society during the Romantic Period in England. Women could not expect to be offered an education equal to that of men. If they were given any schooling at all, it was in the areas of study which would make them desirable to suitors. Mary Wollstonecraft thought that many of the intellectual shortcomings she saw in the women of her generation could be "attribute[d] to a false system of education" (Norton, Pg. 171). Wollstonecraft believed this lack of education available to women to be a deliberate choice by a patriarchal society in order to keep them subservient through ignorance. "Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience... ," she writes in her essay "A Vindication on the Rights of Woman" (Norton, Pg. 176). She does not have much hope of reforming the role of women through the educational system however; "It may be fairly inferred, that, till society be differently constituted, much cannot be expected from education" (Norton, Pg. 176).


The inequalities in life at home are evident in the writings of this era as well. Barbauld's poem "Washing Day" documents the depressing reality a housewife faced when the time came to do the washing for the household, "which week, smooth sliding after week, brings on / Too soon." Women "who beneath the yoke of wedlock bend" must bear many burdens for the sake of their husbands and children, facing "all the petty miseries of life" week after week for their entire lives (Norton, Pg. 37). Wollstonecraft explains that the only choice most women have is Barbauld's "yoke of wedlock," to which women sacrifice "strength of body and mind... to libertine notions of beauty, to the desire of establishing themselves, --the only way women can rise in the world, --by marriage." (Norton, Pg. 173).


Wollstonecraft, like Barbauld, calls out to the women of her generation to assert their rights; "I wish to persuade women to endeavor to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings who are only the objects of pity... will soon become objects of contempt." (Norton, Pg. 172). She likens the current stereotypical state of women to a state of pitiful weakness which only women themselves can free themselves from. Wollstonecraft can be considered to be one of the first British feminists, blaming women themselves for accepting a second-best position in society as well as blaming men for keeping them there. It was a common belief during this era that women are born physically and mentally inferior to men. In an example of occupatio, Wollstonecraft says she will avoid making base comparisons between the faculties of men and women; but then goes on to say she "only insist[s] that men have increased that inferiority till women are almost sunk below the standard of rational creatures" (Norton, Pg. 186-7).


If the needed positive societal changes were to occur, would women be capable of transforming themselves? Unfortunately, Mary Wollstonecraft and Anna Letitia Barbauld did not live to see many improvements in the lives of women in England, or what they would make of them. Ryan Trainor spoke of Wollstonecraft during our discussion about the Victorian age; "Wollstonecraft unfortunately lived a relatively short life from 1759 until 1797 and never was able to see the Victorian Era, 1837 through 1901, or witness the marginal, if any, reforms that it constituted."

The Victorian Age, 1830-1901. The "New Woman"

During the Victorian Age in Britain, society was "preoccupied not only with legal and economic limitations of women's lives but with the very nature of woman."(Norton, Pg. 992). Before society could decide what women should be allowed to do, they had to first decide who women were. Were woman intellectually and physically inferior to men, as had been commonly presumed for centuries? If not, how could this role be changed? In 1881, Henry James spoke of the revolutionary change in women during the late Victorian Age; "Millions of presumptuous girls, intelligent or not intelligent, daily affront their destiny, and what is it open to their destiny to be..."(Norton, Pg. 993). The image of the "New Woman" began to emerge in Britain; an independent, strong, intelligent figure, demanding equality and respect. But this change would not happen easily, as the reasons for women's subservient status in society were multiple and complex. The Norton Anthology tells us that the literature during this period reflected that "the basic problem was not only political, economic, and educational. It was how women were regarded, and regarded themselves, as members of a society"(Norton, Pg. 993).

Did women really gain more rights after these small rises in feminism and equal rights activism during the Romantic Period? Sadly, the improvements for women were marginal at best and the revolution was still yet to come. Classmate Ryan Trainor explains this when comparing the Victorian Age to the Romantic Period; "It is an interesting idea to think that a “J-curve” existed in British culture with respects to the equality of women, but I feel that the evidence is apparent. Women such as Mary Wollstonecraft would have, and did have, a harder time simply being heard during the Victorian Era than before or after that period." (Victorian Age Discussion).

Austen and Browning: Comparing the Romantic and Victorian Eras

Jane Austen and Elizabeth Barrett Browning stood out in their eras as serious authors, who were, amazingly, taken seriously by society. The Norton Anthology explains that during the late Victorian Age "women writers were, for the first time, not figures on the margins but major authors. Jane Austen... helped define the genre" (Norton, Pg. 995). Austen won her fame by writing satire, which allowed her to document and, quietly but adeptly, protest the role of women in middle- and upper-class English society. In her novel "Love and Friendship, written when she was only 14, Austen "satirizes the beliefs about women at the time... she was able to show how the society of the time treated women as 'slaves to their emotions' (Norton, Pg. 515)" (Matthew Streit, Fantasy and Fiction discussion). By poking fun at the ludicrousness of the female gender role, Jane Austen was successful in making it a topic discussed throughout British society. Classmate Brianna Zachmann notes that Austen "brought out the messages about gender roles that so many people during that time had mixed feelings about. For example, when young ladies referred to their own 'accomplishments,' this meant their skills in music, dance, and drawing, that were supposed to make young ladies better companions for their future husbands" (Fantasy and Fiction Discussion).


Elizabeth Barrett Browning was a poet who, according to the Norton Website, "tried to find ways in poetry of giving voice to the poor and oppressed." In 1857, she created the original and enduring character of poet Aurora Leigh in her poem by the same name. Aurora is strong, sarcastic, and unshakable in her belief in her rights as a woman and artist. When we first meet Aurora Leigh, she is similar to most young women of the era; innocent, content and unaware of her own ignorance; "She lived, we'll say, / A harmless life, she called a virtuous life, / A quiet life, which was not life at all / (But that, she had not lived enough to know)" (Norton, Pg. 1093). Browning shows the reader how, as Aurora matures as a woman and artist, she sees the inherent unfairness of being female and becomes determined to succeed as an artist despite the consequences. The Norton Anthology explains that when Aurora's cousin Romney, who wishes to marry her, "discourages her poetic ambitions by telling her that women are 'weak for art' but 'strong for life and duty,' he articulates the prejudice of an age. Women poets view their vocation in the context of the constraints and expectations upon their sex" (Pg. 997). When dismissing her suitor, Aurora points out his chauvinism and her belief in the equality of the sexes; "You misconceive the question like a man, / Who sees a woman as the complement / Of his sex merely. You forget too much / That every creature, female as the male, / Stands single in responsible act and thought / As also in birth and death" (Norton, Pg. 1102). She chooses to be an artist instead of his wife, justifying herself to him with appropriate sarcasm, "You'll grant that even a woman may love art, / Seeing that to waste true love on anything / Is womanly, past question" (Norton, Pg. 1104).