I bought this book years ago from a charity shop and to be honest it never really appealed to me. Maybe the title and the ugly book cover put me off, but last month I finally picked it up and I have been mesmerised ever since. most evenings I just dipped into it and I found it fascinating. It's weird I never studied history past the age of 13 at school but it's something I find more and more fascinating as I get older. Anyway this was social history at it's best and all from a woman's perspective. Lots of topics were put into context. How different classes of woman lived and worked. I particularly enjoyed the working class section ,of which over 75% of women belonged to in the 19th century. All women were industrious at doing piecework and running their own businesses from their homes, but everything was recorded as money earned by their husbands. My god, their lives were hard. Running the house, toiling from sunrise to sunset, doing hourly paid work when you could, looking after the kids, being constantly pregnant, not being able to say no to your husband when he wants sex, The industrial revolution bought lots of changes, where children and women, were treated as cheap slave labour. Unmarried women were often given boring , laborious tasks and men were often given more interesting work. This resulted in women often having different entrances and departments in jobs so they couldn't actually see what men did ( this carried on in the post office until the 1950s!) as soon as women married they were ordered to leave their jobs and women in service to the gentry had to remain single.
The section on sex and sexuality was really interesting. Premarital sex before 1760 wasn't really looked down on at all and lots of women got married pregnant as people were far less judgemental. but after this time more and more women got jilted as people were beginning to live away from their families and they didnt have to live under the watchful eyes of their families anymore.
English law codified what 'full sex 'actually meant in the 18th century.( before this time I think anything was permissible!!) From this time adultery in the eyes of the law had to be full sex with a person of the opposite sex. Penetrative sex was now seen as the only ' correct' way and I believe after this time English society became far more prudish and the rights of women became less as society became far more judgemental and less pragmatic. After this time being single or celibate or married without kids was looked down on and the result was a huge population boom and lots more vulnerable women.
The word lesbian didn't even exist at this time and there are no real historical records of lesbians because it wasn't a crime , but even so many women lived happily with other women and they were often just left in peace. Lots of men died in wars during this time so the over spill of too many 'independent' minded woman was smoothed over by not minding if women lived together, but these women had to be rich and financially capable of not needing a husband. Lots of middle class women at this time( both lesbian and straight I presume!) often went to the colonies at this time too because of the lack of appropriate husbands here. True independent travel for women was born!
The section on religion was all about how women's political roles were filled by belonging to a church. And my god, lots of churchs were created in England at this time!! Far more women than men went to church and this was how women could really get involved with local and worldwide issues. Many women were involved in fighting against workhouses, Jamaican slave holdings and Indian women living in purdah through belonging to a church. Church was often a legitimate way for women to feel involved in the society and it really made me rethink what the role of churches played in women's lives then.
The fear of syphilis and VD was rife at this time. Nearly a half of all soldiers had a sexual disease. The clean streets act resulted in all prostitutes in England having to be subjected to violating checks by the police and doctors. Unlike other European countries the majority of prostitutes here were self employed(no madam or huge brothel to protect them/control them.)
The Poor Law Acts of the 1830 s really took the country backwards for about 15 years. Lots of vulnerable and poor women were picked off the streets and dumped in workhouses. The government stopped giving money to local authorities to fund poverty on a local level and money was centralised around workhouses. Here all your dignity was stripped away and husbands, wives and children were separated and lived a life of abject poverty and fear. The word 'undeserving poor' had been invented and the country turned into a place of even more fear, crime and corruption until the reform acts later in the century.
The sections on education and suffrage were also brilliant. An interesting fact I learnt was that some educated middle class women hated it when working class men got the vote before them. They got involved with voting rights after this law was passed. They weren't really that bothered about voting rights for all women, just that farm labourers and uneducated men shouldn't be treated better than them! Women were often more entrenched in their class than fighting for their rights as women.
Infact the whole book was a complete gem and I recommend it, (if you are into this kind of thing. ) It was never dull, really well written, easy to follow and very interesting It made me realise that women have not just been passive victims or spectators in history but true players. It is just that their voices are more likely to get lost in the passage of time.
