The legislative introduction of greater electoral equality for women, within the respective 1918 and 1928 Representation of the People Acts, characterises a developing respect for women alongside a burgeoning appreciation for their social role. Arguably, however, the ploys of several female suffrage movements, the introduction of a female workforce as consequence of the First World War, and even a female Queen, did little to deter the maintenance of a persistent domestic expectation on the female population between the years of 1830-1930. Despite differentiation, dependent on both social class and educational level, it seems candid to reflect that the key role of women throughout the period was as a function of domiciliary.
The definitive position of the female character within the early Victorian period, was as the “Angel in the House” (Patmore, 1854). This cultural myth, imperative to discussion on the role of women, found fame in the 1854 poem of the same name. The idea accentuated within Patmore’s poem that “Man must be pleased; but him to please Is woman’s pleasure” (Patmore, 1854) is explicit to the Victorian expectation of women. Both social perception and reality of the female role was that women were to be a constant source of altruism for the superior male sex, implying a standard of both sexual morality, piety and total dedication to the overall wellbeing of the family and the home. The very limited role of women in the workplace was largely restricted to roles with some form of domestic grounding such as governesses, maids and in cases teachers. Access to these roles, was further limited, predominantly to unmarried, but educated women, expressing the further restriction of class on the workforce. The only exception to this being the working class lifestyle, which forced women, through homely responsibility, to work in the cause of familial survival, in line with the domestic expectation placed upon their wider gender. Until the 1870s there was essentially no legal provision for women leaving them entirely subjected to both the rule and control of men. Perhaps this is characterised in the expressions of Reverend E. J Hardy in his book Manners Makyth Man “It is a woman’s first business to be a sunbeam in the house… her very purpose in living is to give out pleasure to her husband.” (Hardy,1887) The general consensus of society was that the female gender was in sense inferior, existing only to ease and add enjoyment to the lives of their husbands.
The name of Queen Victoria, has come not only to exemplify a woman succeeding in a role outside of the domestic realm, but also the time period over which she reigned. In reality, when Queen Victoria took the crown on the 20th June 1837, the female emancipation movement encountered a determined obstacle. As the first female head of state since 1714, inheriting the throne at a time of increasing female education, the conditions of her reign were optimum for the rise of both a female suffrage movement and the wider equality of women within the social climate. In sense, when a woman was governing, maintaining and expanding the empire, it would suggest a capability to achieve to the standards of her male counterparts. However, the Queen’s personal attitude to both female suffrage and the role of women was detrimental to inducing change, being highly negative toward the burgeoning suffrage movements and entirely typical of the patriarchal view of the time. In a letter to Sir Theodore Martin, on hearing that the Viscountess Amberley had become president of the Bristol and West of England Women’s Suffrage Society, Queen Victoria stated “Feminists ought to get a good whipping. Were woman to ‘unsex’ themselves by claiming equality with men, they would become the most hateful, heathen and disgusting of beings and would surely perish without male protection.” (Queen Victoria, 1870). Suffice to say, the outright opposition of the executive to female liberation was incredibly limiting to the cause.
The monarchs homelife was as susceptible to public scrutiny as all other aspects of their life, and in the case of Victoria acted to maintain patriarchal attitudes toward the role of women. Victoria’s relationship with her husband, Prince Albert, and her public willingness to allow his interference and work in advisory positions within her executive (exemplified in his holding the Prince consort title) demonstrated the idealised power dynamic within marriage. Perhaps, the Queen’s wide reliance on the support of her husband, was in fact key to her maintenance of power. Victoria was notoriously strong-willed, her submission to Albert, completely in line with contemporary marital convention, made her position as a female monarch less threatening to the otherwise male dominated executive. In her preservation of the conservative dictation of society within her own household, the Queen suggested a willingness to comply and a lack of interest in undoing the patriarchy; that the monarch, the ultimate symbol of the country, was not harmful to the upholding of tradition and convention, was important for the crown. More widely, Victoria’s own behaviour impressed upon her subjects. The focus on the royal familial life, contemporary portraits and work creating an image of idyllic familial relations, was of course encouraging to the wider female image. If the Queen could maintain the throne and the prospects of the country whilst remaining the “Angel in the house” (Patmore, 1854), the importance of this idealised image would persist.
Victoria’s subservience to her husband, was widely mirrored in marital relationships of the period. Legislative provisions within marriage were equally limiting to the position of women. The damaging double standard of a crippling social expectation but decisive lack of legal provision (particularly within matters of the domestic court) for women, is definitive of the periods attitude towards female citizens. However, the introduction of the Custody of Infants act 1839 marked the first key legislative change for women of the period. The key case of Caroline Norton explores the lack of legal separation for married women in early Victorian Britain. In the case of marital separation, any children (as products of the marriage), as well as all material and monetary property was legally constituted to the husband. The separation case of the Nortons is deeply reflective of the legal position of women; despite suffering physical abuse from her husband and his admitting to adultery, Caroline was still granted no legal custody or even right to see her three young children. Not only is this an example of the legislative trials facing the female in Britain, but also an active change in the law. The aforementioned Custody of Infants act 1839, awarded mother’s greater rights over their offspring in the case of divorce. Whilst this is seemingly a presentation of a changing role of women by terms of their legal rights, it seems interesting that this is only in a case that reinforces the domesticated role of women. The legislative dictates their greatest social role is as a mother. In the case of divorce women were still significantly inferior by legal terms (men had only to claim adultery whereas a petitioning woman must provide evidence of either bigamy, r**e, desertion, bestiality, cruelty or sodomy in conjunction – as stated by the Divorce and Matrimonial act 1857). Although exemplary of a marked change in the legislative rights of females, Norton’s personal action in influencing law may be deeply accredited to her respective relationships with many of the Whigs of the time.
The most marked legislative change to the role of women, perhaps, was the enfranchisement of women through the respective 1918 and 1928 Representation of the People Acts. Beyond allowing women a vote, the legislatives’ contribution to an overall change in the social perception of the female role is to be challenged. It is of further question, whether the legislation was inducted on the basis of the work of the Suffragettes, the Suffragists, or the necessary social progress as caused by World War One.
The juxtaposed efforts of the two key suffrage movements within the period arguably both contribute to the social progress of a vote for women. It is easy to view the romanticised history given by modern historiography and dedicate the success of the female emancipation movement entirely to the plight of the suffragette movement. Though preceded by the pacifist suffragist movement, who believed categorically in their cause and intelligence speaking for itself, the use of direct action by the suffragette movement was more certain in its forceful engagement with the executive. Politicians could, for instance, no longer laugh groups of women out of the commons with no regard for their case. Use of militant tactics, quite literally within parliament, saw the WPSU target both key members of parliament and the building itself, forcing discussion and publicity for the movement. But, as argued by Fern Riddell in her essay Sanitizing the Suffragettes, it seems history has quite literally forgotten the essential terrorism contained within these acts. The ideal of Suffragettes as “perfect martyrs” (Riddell, 2018) for the cause and the genuine response of historians to “leave out the bombs” (Riddell, 2018), dictates a social history that simply isn’t representative. The suffragettes, before the war, achieved very little measurable change in the case of gender equality other than to project the cause through the media to new levels of fame. The WPSU self titled their campaign a ‘reign of terror’ and its tangible goal was to shock the country into change. Instead, the brutal tactics of the executive in force feeding hunger strike prisoners and repeatedly arresting offenders only acted to further antagonise the cause from the executive it so desperately needed to ally with to produce change.
It is therefore, instead, the genuine contributions of both the suffrage movements and the wider female sex within the First World War that can be held more directly accountable for the introduction of women to the franchise. The suffragette support of the war offered a genuine opportunity for women to prove their adequacy in line with their husbands; national campaigns, such as that produced by the Ministry of Munitions in 1916 citing that “These women are doing their bit” (Ministry of Munitions, 1916), encouraged a collective responsibility that women had previously been exempt from. Lead member of the WPSU, Millicent Fawcett stated in a speech at the start of the war effort “Women your country needs you… let us show ourselves worthy of citizenship, whether our claim to it be recognised or not.” In quite literal contrast to the earlier actions of the movement where Christabel Pankhurst claimed “If men use explosives and bombs for their own purpose…Why should a woman not make use of the same weapons as men.”, the movement was mobilising the proactiveness of women as genuine proof of women’s honest ability to contribute to the country alongside men. Though it would take until 1928 for full equality under the franchise, women had earned this through proof of their equal responsibility in a time of crisis. As the future of the country was practically defended by the combined efforts of men and women, so would it be democratically safeguarded.
However, despite legislative change post war, the new promotion of women within the working environment, as a consequence of the First World War, achieved only a “short-lived” (Mayer, 2002) progression, as explained by Annette Mayer in Women in Britain 1900-2000. The academic, whilst reflective of the major contribution of women to the war effort describes the “reinstating of men to their jobs once the war had ended” (Mayer, 2002) as a reflection of Lloyd George’s “definition” of the “future role” of women , “The workers of today are the mothers of tomorrow” (Mayer, 2002). Not only does this suggest the regression of female opportunity in the workplace to the Victorian ideal of the maternal figure but use of Lloyd George as a source material suggests a wider issue of perception for the female sex. As Lloyd George, after his role as Minister of Munitions went on the become the British Prime Minister indicates an attitude within the British executive that equally would be limiting for women. Perhaps it is of further interest that a suffrage attack specifically targeted Lloyd George’s house in the years preceding the war. One of the most prominent members of the WSPU, Emmeline Pankhurst cited responsibility for the £500 worth of damage inflicted on Lloyd George’s property on the 19th February 1913. As a victim of the terrorist actions of the suffragette movement it is therefore unsurprising that in Lloyd George, the female equality movement did not find the greatest ally. As Mayer states “Despite the expectation…that war must have changed men’s opinions of women… the demobilisation of women from wartime work was substantial” (Mayer, 2002).
This statement is further corroborated by statistics of unemployment rates for women in the years following the war. Some 113,000 women, within two weeks of the war ending, were dismissed; by 5 months post war, this figure would stand at a mammoth 600,000 (Rees, 2008). Though perhaps this figure feel diminished when posed against the 15.1 million women in the UK aged 16 and over in employment in October-December 2017. When contrasted with the estimated two million women replacing men in employment within the war years this figure is staggering. Over a quarter of the female working population became unemployed within 5 months of the war ending; in any modern economic setting this is both “substantial” and frankly astounding. Asides from women being “encouraged to return to domestic life” the source depicts the tangible reintroduction of an early version of British society. The interpretation seems to reference an attempt to recreate the economic environment and workplace of the years preceding a war, enforcing a domestic expectation onto women that the war years had allowed them to evade. The source’s use of the term “domestic responsibility” seems to characterise the returning patriarchal attitude towards women; domestic life was a “responsibility” not a choice for women.
Whilst in agreement with Mayer’s interpretation that “expectations about the family and domestic life as the main concern of women remained unaltered” (Grayzel, 2014), Susan Grayzel’s essay on Changing lives: gender expectations and roles during and after World War One contrasts in its citing the “mourning” of society as a key reason for this. Grayzel indicates that females had to retain a strong sense of domestic duty on account of the huge numbers of father and male familial figures that never returned on account of the war. Grayzel comments on the “combined efforts of men and women in public and… private” as part of the “process of rebuilding” (Grayzel, 2014). This suggests that instead of a reversion to the outdated expectations of the female character pre war, the maintenance of a domestic expectation for women was instead a necessity and in many cases unavoidable- with no other parental figure, women played both Mother and Father. This more humane effect of conflict gives convincing argument to the lack of social change for women. Arguably, despite the displacement of people as consequence of the war, women still remained at home and maintained the domestic setting alongside their work on the home front.
Grayzel’s interpretation equally reflects the minor superficial changes to women’s image post war, noting that “women’s visible before 1914 and after 1918” was “markedly different” (Grayzel, 2014). In line with the more masculine career paths open to women as part of the home front effort, certain areas of “femininity” were replaced with “shorter hair, shorter skirts and even trousers” (Grayzel, 2014). Yet, as the academic argues, it is “hard to gauge” significant “cultural change” (Grayzel, 2014) purely on the basis of aesthetic change.
It cannot be underestimated that the First World War lost the country 750,000 men. The effects of this on society are understandably astronomical. The huge focus on marital life and domesticity was perhaps accentuated by the war in women having to take on both parental roles within the household as well as all domestic responsibility. Of course this would also suggest a slight change in expectation for widows and mothers, expected to survive independent of the male sex as there simply was a shortage of men. The economic effect of a lack of males was to essentially nullify a percentage of the female population who there simply were not enough men to marry; in a society still driven by extreme chauvinism, and though influenced by the war, an essential principle of conservatism, a developing number of ‘spinsters’ and unproductive young women was dangerous to both a burgeoning economic and population crisis. By all accounts, the war and its effect in bringing the start of legislative equality for women was effective in altering their role within society. But overwhelmingly the reality of life post war was both a domestic struggle for survival in a climate of reparations, continued rations and essential grief, as well as a desperate effort to recapture a sense of the Britain lost to so many through years of war. A regression in the vocational role of women was, as suggested by both Lloyd George and Annette Mayer, necessary to the reestablishment of the entire country- Britain needed all the “mothers of tomorrow” it could generate.
In conclusion, whilst the legislative change to the role of women as encapsulated by the extension of the franchise act in 1918 and 1928 provided clear concession to the hard fought claim for equality throughout, it seems reflective that the domestic expectation on women differed very little throughout the period. The actual reality of life for the female sex throughout, was that both their life and economic promise was held in their ability to reproduce and maintain a household. Rather than the consistent inflictions of a chauvinistic society, however, this may be more deeply reflective of a heightened respect for women in the years post war. Whilst the workplace reverted to being fairly inaccessible for the average woman and the wide consensus was an attempt to recapture a sense of the Britain lost to years of war, the Lloyd George’s sentiment that the “workers of today are the mothers of tomorrow” is implicit of the genuine responsibility this carried. Women had proven throughout the war years, that they like men could take collective responsibility for ensuring the security and success of their country, and were greatly rewarded in legislative equality. The country, on the brink of a population crisis following war, required from its women a new social commitment; domesticity and the literal promise of offspring within the marital home was in the national interest. That there is a noticeable aesthetic change in women alongside legislation suggests this arguments legitimacy. Women were again indicted to contribute to the home front, through offering a service men quite practically could not and mobilising their biological difference toward the common aims of the country.
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