Cybele: What were the dynamics of marriage in the 19th century?
I know that women had few legal rights but what kind of unofficial roles did women and men have in marriage. Did women really obey their husbands? Did husbands really command their wives? Was it very different from modern marriages or essentially similar?
Answers and Views:
Answer by mande95747
I’ve had the interesting experience of knowing some Middle Eastern Muslims from Lebanon.
Now remember, this culture, supposedly the women are second class citizens, etc., and it looks that way in public for the most part.
However, back at home, the woman is boss.
I think that no matter what the “official” legal and/or cultural rights assigned to women are, they have, throughout history, known how to control their men, by either nagging, cutting them off from sex, giving them bad food, etc.
I think that the truth is, in this “enlightened feminist age” more women are abused by men, than they were back then, and this is especially true in inner cities, where the family unit has been devalued by the welfare check, so men and women no longer need each other.
So to answer your question, if a man “commands his wife” in public, he could expect a nagging, frigid wife and poorly made cold food at home, and I’ll bet men learned this within the first couple weeks of marriage.
Combine that, with the old cultural importance of men “being gentlemen”, and I’ll bet women for the most part were treated better then, than now.
That is certainly what my mother and grandmother told me (grandmother born around 1909, mother born 1931).
It would depend on what part of the 19th century you are talking about when it comes to women’s legal rights. In both Britain and the USA, married women’s legal rights improved in the second half of the nineteenth century, when acts were passed giving married women control over their own property and earnings. Also women were given the legal right to divorce their husbands, and in the event of a divorce, could in some cases be granted custody of their children. these were major breakthroughs in women’s rights.
The notion of ‘seperate spheres’ became very popular in the 19th century, the idea that the woman was too fragile and delicate to have any part in the outside world, and should confine herself to the home and caring for the children (in previous centuries, the worlds of home and work had not been so rigidly seperated, many people worked in their own homes for instance, and businesses were often family affairs, with wives and children being involved. The idea of the home as a place of refuge from work, where a man could go to relax, was a relatively new one in the 19th century, because in previous centuries the home had very often been his place of work as well.
Of course, many poorer married women had to go on working after marriage anyway, in factories or in domestic work or by taking in washing or sewing, because a poor family could not always survive on just the husband’s wages. But the idealised family in victorian eyes was the one where the wife looked after the home and made it comfortable for her husband to come home to.
The importance of the children in a woman’s life also was very much stressed during the 19th century. In previous centuries, housewives had primarily considered themselves as producers. In Colonial America, women were very busy producing the clothes and foodstuff necessary for survivial, but in more settled and prosperous times, most production began to be done elsewhere, and women concentrated their attentions on their children and on ‘homemaking’ which was a new idea. the idea that a woman’s primary duty is to care for her children and create a comfortable home for her husband really began in the early 19th century. Colonial households tended to be quite dirty, because women simply didn’t have time to clean them, they were busy doing more essential things. When their role of producer became obsolete, housewives turned their attention to cleaning and childrearing. The word ‘housework’ was only invented in 1841.
In the 19th century,as throughout history, it had always been assumed that the wife would obey her husband. Some women were quite happy with that. others paid lip service to the idea that they should obey their husbands, while managing to get their own way all the same. Others were openly rebellious, there were plenty of henpecked husbands about in the 19th century. Relations between husbands and wives were variable then, as now.
The nurturing of children became an increasingly important part of a married woman’s life in the 19th century. In previous centuries, most women had been expected to direct much of their energies towards other things apart from the rearing of children, but this aspect of their lives was emphasised much more during the 19th century.
Upper class wives did not have to do much in the way of housework, as this was done by servants. They would only be expected to supervise the servants’ work, order meals etc. Their children would be looked after by nannies nd governesses. they would spend a lot of time paying calls on friends or being visited in return, and writing letters (Victorian women were prolific correspondents). Women’s clubs became very popular in the later part of the 19th century in America, women would get together to discuss history or current affairs or literature, there were thousands of such clubs all over the USA.
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