Talk:Women in the Victorian era

Early comments
What sources are there, if any? >< --Chezzie 14:26, 6 August 2006 (UTC) Chezzie

Prose needs to be cleaned up. -Emiao

I cleaned up the article, then made some changes.

Working Class Domestic Life
This sentence is misleading: "The poorer the neighbourhood, the higher the rents." The next sentence is correct, and explains that slum rents were 4 to 10 times greater than West End rents *per foot*. (This is supported by an accurate citation to "The Blackest Streets.") Rents were not actually higher in the slums: rather, total rental income was higher - as the cited book explains, so many people were crammed together in small spaces that landlords could achieve higher rental income per foot than from West End properties. But as written, someone might think that rents were literally lower in nicer parts of town, which is incorrect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.194.91.52 (talk) 23:44, 28 February 2012 (UTC) By the way, this does not give any information that people are looking for.......

Inaccurate
The line: "The legal rights of married women were similar to those of children; they could not vote or sue or even own property." This is incorrect, they actually could own property. It was just legally absorbed by their husbands when they married. Someone fix this please.

i know this sounds like totally dumb, but all these comments are really negative!!! just wanted 2 add, thanks to everyone who wrote accurate pieces of informations onto this site, it really helped me with my homework!!!! love chloe x —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.147.7.233 (talk) 17:58, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

An absurdity that just bounced out
"and he had the right to enforce this by a writ of habeas corpus" in Limited rights of married women section.

Now this is amusing for 3 reasons 1) habeas corpus is a writ relating to detained persons 2) "bring me my wifes body" invokes some fairly interesting sexual connotations most of which are not entirely in line with the alleged Victorian sacred temple concept - the remainder of the article makes this very funny. 3) its very hard to enforce ones will on somebody merely by having their physical presence.

I think what the author was intending on suggesting was that a husband could apply for an enforcement of "conjugal rights" - although IIRC so could a wife and the concept of "restoration of conjugal rights" still exists in some jurisdictions Paul Hjul 07:47, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Unbelievable
I'm sorry if I'm writing my comment on the wrong page, I'm not quite sure how this programme works. While doing some reseach I came accross these sentences at the end of the topic 'Women and sex'.. "It was also hot and the men liked it very much. The women wore normal chlothes to find the men to sell themselves to. She liked when the man..... The man liked it too. The woman also ...all over." I'm sorry, but this person is clearly on the wrong site, has a low IQ (judging by his english) and has very little knowledge about sex... If I knew how it worked I would edit this page myself, unfortunately when I click on edit - these sentences don't appear! I don't understand why... but could someone else be so kind as to do something about it?!

POV
This article doesn't strike me as having a particularly neutral POV.

"they were to be treated as saints, but saints that had no legal rights."

Niall Jackson 13:04, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Silly Vandalism
I removed the line: "can you actually change anything on this site? that's whack." as it it is unrelated to the topic and a form of petty vandalism —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Paul Hjul (talk • contribs) 08:15, 5 December 2006 (UTC).

I'm a bit fed up about this as I am trying to do serious research, but there seem to be a lot of edits by people with only IP addresses (not logged in as proper users) that get reverted. It appears that someone is vandalising this page somehow. Now if anyone here definitely knows about this subject I would love to get in touch with them as I'm having difficulty finding what I want on the web or in the University library... Aboodoo (talk) 20:54, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

This article is limited
This article only explores Victorian women (especially sexuality) on the most superfical level, and seems to rely more on pre-concieved stereotypes of Victorian womanhood than actualy historical sources. It talks about sexual repression, but it doesn't even see fit to so much as MENTION Female hysteria, or how "pelvic massage" (read:masturbation) was actually recommended for this. Nor does it mention women in the American West broke several taboos. This an unsourced, simplistic, shallow, POV trainwreck of an article and it desperately needs to be worked on by an expert. Asarelah 17:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Just from a cursory look at this article I fear I find myself sympathetic to the above sentiment. When someone more expert on this subject does tackle this, could they please include material about the distinguished Victorian surgeon who claimed that decent women were untroubled by sexual pleasure? Was this indeed a prevalent medical opinion at the time? - Wordherder, August 2007


 * This article seems only to consider upper-class women. There was a huge difference between upper-class and lower-class women in Victorian era. I am making edits to enforce this distinction. Roger6r (talk) 23:20, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Inaccurate Grounds for Divorce?
The article states, "But while the husband only had to prove his wife's adultery, a woman had to prove her husband had not only committed adultery but also incest, bigamy, cruelty or desertion."

Does the author mean to say that a man could not be divorced unless he was guilty of all five offenses? This does not seem to be correct. While I have not examined the statute in question, a more likely answer is that a husband could divorce his wife only for adultery, while a wife could divorce her husband for adultery and also had the additional grounds of incest, bigamy, cruelty, or desertion.

John Paul Parks (talk) 16:22, 3 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I assume it's intended to say that a woman had to prove adultery AND ALSO one of the additional aggravating factors. Before ca. 1850, women's rights in England to divorce allowing subsequent remarriage was extremely limited. Churchh (talk) 15:45, 5 December 2009 (UTC)


 * A man could divorce by proving the adultery of his wife, but a woman had to prove "aggravated adultery" (ie. that her husband had committed adultery AND cruelty). This was the case until 1923 (when the Matrimonial Causes Act 1923 was enacted treating male and female adultery the same). 2A02:2F0F:B106:B800:6524:85B0:2812:60C4 (talk) 09:02, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi, IP. It sounds like you're quite knowledgeable about this. I think this article would be much better if you tried to improve it directly. Clovermoss 🍀  (talk) 10:59, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Women and Sex
Someone (preferably with knowledge of Victorian laws) should rewrite this section, it is a mess. What relevance do medieval beliefs have here? The unequal treatment of women and men when it came to adultery is well-known, but is the justification presented true (i.e. do we have legal judgments that mentioned the reasons to do with inheritance of property), or is this an example of modern musings about why people did this or that in the past? Also, in some places courts made laws, in others it was the legislature or a fiat from the monarch - we can't just generalize about courts making laws. And if sex was for procreation only, never for pleasure, what were those 50,000 (or whatever the number) brothels engaged in in Victorian London?

Gsandi (talk) 21:21, 10 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Not just this section - the whole article needs to be re-written from start to finish, and it needs someone who can WRITE to overhaul it. My two cents worth... Hohenloh +22:02, 16 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Agreed. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/victorian_britain/women_home/ideals_womanhood_01.shtml is a good source: it's written by Lynn Abrams, who is the Professor of Gender History at Glasgow University, and has written various books and articles on the subject. Also, something needs to be done about the silly vandalism. Currently it's calling Victorian women 'slutfaces', which is just stupid. Alimorag (talk) 08:48, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Women's Work
Why does this article self-contradict? The abstract and the article contradict each other over the jobs a woman could hold in the Victorian period... this sort of thing should not be happening on Wikipedia where you can edit the article... Aboodoo (talk) 20:47, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Plaigiarism
This article is almost exactly the same as the text found at http://5b-english4us.blogspot.com/2009/01/role-of-women-in-victorian-age.html. I believe that solves the "sources" problem. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bunnygal239 (talk • contribs) 01:34, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It looks like the blog was actually plagiarizing the Wikipedia article, since our text predates the blog post. It's also possible that both this article and the blog post are plagiarizing a third source. Kaldari (talk) 00:54, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Consider changing title
This article is really more about gender discrimination in the Victorian era. Roger6r (talk) 23:34, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: No consensus to move - No alternate title has gained broad support. Neelix (talk) 18:26, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Women in the Victorian era → Gender discrimination in the Victorian era – Precision is needed to distinguish the subject of this article from the subject of notable women in the Victorian era. The primary subjects of this article include "Restrictions on Women's rights", "Discrimination against women", and "The process of reform." Taken together, these produce an article on the subject of "Gender Discrimination in the Victorian Era."

Replacing "women" with "gender discrimination" is a good comprimise between precision and simplicicty. No disambiguation will be needed for the use of this title.

This move improves the neutrality of the article. In its present form, the article seems to be about women when it is more aptly about society as a whole. Gender discrimination is a societal construct. Roger6r (talk) 00:40, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually it should be moved to Gender discrimination in Victorian England, as that is the only area of the world that is discussed. Kaldari (talk) 00:56, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Point well-taken. Is there a way to edit the move request at this point to reflect that? Roger6r (talk) 02:47, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
 * You just did. —  AjaxSmack   05:45, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Support the requested move or, better, a move to Gender discrimination in Victorian England as suggested above. As the nominator notes, the article's contents are better reflected by the new title.  This article also needs some global context in the intro and a few sources would be nice.  —  AjaxSmack   05:45, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Support the move to Gender discrimination in Victorian England for the reasons suggested above by Roger6r and Kaldari. Voceditenore (talk) 13:01, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Changing to Oppose. Softlavender's arguments below are persuasive and I've had a look at the previous versions of the article which bear this out. However, it probably ought to be moved to a title that reflects its focus on Engand, e.g. Women in Victorian England (or something similar). Voceditenore (talk) 12:41, 21 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose. The article has been massively tinkered with over the past 6 years to the effect that much valuable material has been summarily deleted without cause, and the only material left is about 'gender bias'. The information that has been deleted needs to be restored; it offers a much broader picture of women's roles, occupations, and rights in Victorian England. See, for instance, Voceditenore's list of deleted sources in the section below this. Gender bias is far too narrow a title, and the term did not even exist then so it's an anachronism. Softlavender (talk) 08:56, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * If the information is restored, this title should be moved to something like Gender and Society in Victorian England. Roger6r (talk) 20:56, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I checked the history of the article for the last few months before making my comment above. If the article changes within the period of this discussion, then the effects of the changes can be discussed.  Otherwise, the current title of the current incarnation of the article shouldn't hinge on hypothetical future edits.  See WP:CRYSTALBALL too.  —  AjaxSmack   18:04, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * AjaxSmack, thanks for that explanation. Does that same rule mean the title shouldn't hinge on previous incarnation from several years ago? Roger6r (talk) 20:51, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, WP:CRYSTALBALL doesn't apply directly to titles at all but its spirit should guide us here. More specifically, WP:MOS: Article titles says, "Titles should match the article contents, and should be neither too narrow nor too broad."  It doesn't mention past contents or future plans.  —  AjaxSmack   00:07, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks again for the info, AjaxSmack. I should've checked the link to WP:CRYSTALBALL the first time.  Didn't realize it would answer my questions :) Roger6r (talk) 18:07, 24 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Support a move to something more country-specific but comment: please stop conflating England and the United Kingdom. This article is about the latter, I suspect, but it's all very confused (remember England was not the sovereign state at the time and still is not). 137.205.222.193 (talk) 16:44, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think it necessarily has to be country specific. Most of the article seems to be specific to England, and no mention is made of Ireland (or other parts of the UK or British Empire). I imagine Ireland had its own customs and laws at the time. Kaldari (talk) 17:47, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree. The article refers only to the situation in England and, with the different political and legal situations in Scotland and Ireland at the time, the situation in England should not be extended without supporting information.  —  AjaxSmack   18:04, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Although it seems that there is disagreement about the initial wording of the title, there seems to be more or less consensus that changing the last part to "in Victorian England" would be a good idea. Unless anyone has further objections, I'll go ahead and change that part. Kaldari (talk) 19:13, 24 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I'd go for something like Status of women in Victorian England. Although the article seems to be something of an unsourced essay, which might be best merged into Victorian era.--Kotniski (talk) 10:17, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree. First, since the article is only about women in that time and place, why use the vaguer "gender." It certainly wasn't the phrase used at the time. Only if sources specifically talk about gender should that term be used in the article. Status also is better since we are talking not just about acts of discrimination, but about cultural attitudes and legal definitions that shaped every aspect of a woman's life. CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:08, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree. Vote below. Andrewa (talk) 14:26, 5 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Neither the current nor proposed article title are ideal IMO. Kotniski has the right idea. Andrewa (talk) 14:26, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose As mentioned elsewhere and by me, "gender" is anachronistic for the time. And perhaps specifying country not necessary for reasons others mention. CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:01, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Missing sources
I checked the history of this article and found that in 2005 it had quite a lot of sources (although not as inline cites). The problem is, the article has been vandalised and reverted so many times since then that they disappeared and were never restored. I'll list them below as they may prove useful for sourcing the article in its current state. Voceditenore (talk) 12:55, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for checking. CarolMooreDC (talk) 03:56, 6 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Sources


 * Prof. Dr. Vera Nünning’s Seminar “Angels and Whoress: Women in the 19th century” at the English Department of the Ruprecht-Karls University of Heidelberg, Germany, winter semester 2004/2005.


 * Notes and further reading


 * Bodichon, Barbara Leigh Smith. Married Women and the Law (1854) in Murray, J. Strong-minded women and other lost voices from nineteenth-century England. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984, 118-29.
 * Beeton, I. The Household General (1861) in: Murray, J. Strong-minded women and other lost voices from nineteenth-century England. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984, 83-88.
 * Gred, William Rathborne. Why are women redundant? (1862) in Murray, J. Strong-minded women and other lost voices from nineteenth-century England. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984, 50f.
 * Michie, Helena. Under Victorian Skins in Tucker, Herbert F. (ed). A Companion to Victorian Literature, 407-24.
 * Ryan, Michael Dr. Prostitution in London (1839) in Fisher, T. Prostitution and the Victorians, 2-5.
 * Adams, James Eli. Victorian Sexualities in Tucker, Herbert F. (ed). A Companion to Victorian Literature, 125-38.
 * Stone, Lawrence. The Road to Divorce. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1992, 153-65.
 * The Contagious Diseases Acts in Murray, J. Strong-Minded Women, 424-37 and Fisher, Trevor. Prostitition and The Victorians. 80-94.
 * Woodham Smith, Cecil. Florence Nightingale, 1820-1910 (London: Constable, 1950), 77f.
 * Nightingale Florence, Advice to Young Women 1868 in Murray, J. Strong-minded women, 303f.
 * Nünning, Vera. Der Englische Roman des 19. Jahrhunderts. Uni-Wissen Anglistik/Amerikanistik. Stuttgart: Klett, 2000
 * Sewell, Sarah. Against higher education for women (1868) in Murray, J. Strong-minded women and other lost voices from nineteenth-century England. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984, 213f.
 * Lewis, Sarah. Woman's Mission (1839) in Murray, J. Strong-minded women and other lost voices from nineteenth-century England. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984, 23-25.

This article had some good info at one point, now we're left with...what we have now. I think I'll take a go at adding info to it in the next few weeks. Since it's the Victorian era, I guess I'll take the scope of England-plus-the-colonies. We still observe Victoria Day in Canada every May, so what the heck. Hopefully others can add to areas I'm not very familiar with (e.g. India) Tentative outline: ......Hopefully that will get the article started again.....
 * Influences (brief discussion of Regency era and broader social/political/economic issues)
 * Legal rights (chronology of significant changes)
 * Education
 * Workplace role
 * Sexuality and birth control
 * Marriage
 * Parenting
 * Women's organizations
 * Women and social/government institutions
 * Growth of early suffrage movement
 * Women's leisure

OttawaAC (talk) 02:46, 7 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I got my mitts on a copy of "Strong-minded Women and Other Lost Voices" cited as a source above from the older version of this article -- so hopefully I can add inline citations to some of the older information that had been in this article. Yayz. OttawaAC (talk) 02:14, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

should be moved to feminism section and removed from others.
its heavily slanted towards making history prove women were victims in this period rather than describing their life.

key citations are missing, for example the women not being aloud to be educated in certain topics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Humblepedant (talk • contribs) 19:52, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Sentence repeatedly removed
The sentence "(the novel is deliberately ambiguous as to whether the encounter was consensual or a rape)" is being repeatedly removed by an IP. I have asked them on their talkpage to give a source here for their edit summary "Tess was raped, there is no ambiguity about it". Bishonen &#124; talk 17:22, 13 May 2015 (UTC).

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The Thames by James Tissot - Scandalous? I think not.
So, the section on "Victorian morality and sexuality" reads :"Portsmouth Dockyard by James Tissot, 1877. This work is Tissot's revision to his earlier work, The Thames. According to the Tate gallery, it "shocked audiences when it was shown at the Royal Academy in 1876 because of the questionable sexual morals of its characters. This painting was exhibited as a corrective".[29]"

The cited source provides 0 evidence that this was ever the case, though, and looking at the painting itself, it's a tough sell to think that anything in it could be scandalous, even by Victorian standards.

HOWEVER, I think that the author of the cited source perhaps meant to name another of Tissot's works - a piece very similarly titled On The Thames (emphasis mine)

This one I could easily see offending delicate sensibilities. For your reference, I've linked them both - what do you think?

The referenced piece, The Thames

Tissot's other work, On The Thames

I made a Wikipedia account for the sole purpose of coming here and posting this, so I'm hung up on it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Largewatercraft (talk • contribs) 19:22, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Outdated Notions of Fashion and Corsetry
I'm unsure of when this article was largely written, or by whom, but the portions on corsetry are outdated or misinformed.

Corsetry, especially when speaking over six decades that straddle massive culture shifts, is a very broad topic that ranges from extreme tight-laced fashion to everyday support for manual labor. Reducing it to a few mentions of "extremely small wastes" and vague mentions of some doctors having criticism is spreading misinformation at best, and actively pushing a discredited narrative for ideological gain at worst. 2604:CA00:138:208D:0:0:87E:CE70 (talk) 04:45, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Added tone tag
Generally I have no issue with the overall sentiment of the article however I don't think it fits an  encyclopedia-like style.

There is a lot of over-exaggerated, abstract and judgmental language. I tried removing some bits about the lack of battery powered vibrators and unnecessary comparisons to slavery and rewrote some parts of the top section but it still needs a lot of work. Quitw (talk) 18:13, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Gender and Technology
— Assignment last updated by Zara33 (talk) 15:43, 29 September 2023 (UTC)