Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Women's Rights in the 1890s
- Laws/Acts
- The Matrimonial Clauses Act 1857
- easier for women to divorce
- The Married Women's Property Act 1870 -
women could keep their earnings after
marriage, and later their own property too
- The Married Women (Maintenance in Case of
Desertion) Act 1886 - if a husband left his wife,
he would still have to pay maintenance for her
- The Guardianship of Children Act allowed women to be their
children's legal guardians if the father was no longer around
- Professions
- Typically worked for low pay and in poor conditions
- Limited professional jobs and higher education for women
- Queen's College, London trained women teachers
- Florence Nightingale established nursing
as a respectable job and trained others
- Women Couldn't Vote
- AGAINST votes for women:
- Stereotyping - women should be at
home and men in the public sphere
- 'They're not rational'
- Politicians thought only householders should get
the vote, and hardly any women own their home
- Liberals didn't want rich women to vote
Conservative if they were allowed the vote
- FOR votes for women:
- Women's rights were improving so 'have
the vote would be the natural next step'
- Women were just as capable as
men at making sound decisions
- Women had already gained the vote in other countries, (e.g. New Zealand) so 'why not in Britain?'