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A man’s home should be to him also a rest. Will it be much of this with his
wife in and out all day, called up all night, neglecting the household
management and leaving the little ones to the care of servants? I think not. 48
Similar sentiments were expressed in the pages of The Irish Times. In 1895, a letter
to the editor from ‘Tommie’ expressed strong objections to women ‘endeavouring to
occupy male positions’; the writer feared that the day might come when men would
have to ‘don the petticoats and take up their position beside the cradle’. 49 In 1897, a
similarly anti-feminist article was published in response to an article by Janet E.
Hogarth, an activist for women’s rights. The article was extremely critical of Hogarth
and echoes the sentiments of Tommie’s letter, fearing that the world would not be
better for the transformation of the ‘modern woman’. 50 Not only was it suggested
that women’s work as doctors would endanger their roles as wives and mothers, but
it was also believed that mental strain through medical education might cause
damage to the female reproductive system. 51
These sentiments reflect Victorian attitudes which placed middle-class women
firmly in the home. 52 Gorham explains this by arguing that as a result of the tension
produced by industrial change, Victorians sought to establish the family as a source
of stability, and this resulted in the establishment of ‘a cult of domesticity, an
idealised vision of home and family, a vision that perceived the family as both
enfolding its members and excluding the outside world’. 53 This ‘cult’ assisted in
relieving the tensions ‘that existed between the moral values of Christianity, with its
emphasis on love and charity, and the values of capitalism, which asserted that the
world of commerce should be pervaded by a spirit of competition and a recognition
that only the fittest should survive’. 54 Thus, the Victorian middle classes were able
48
‘A lady on lady doctors’, p.680.
49 nd
‘The editor’s letter box’, Irish Times, February 2 , 1895, p.1.
50 nd
Untitled, Irish Times, December 2 , 1897, p.6.
51
Burstyn, ‘Education and sex’, p.79.
52
Margaret Bryant, The unexpected revolution: a study in the history of the education of
women and girls in the nineteenth century, (London: University of London Institute of
Education, 1979), p.28.
53
Deborah Gorham, The Victorian girl and the feminine ideal, (London: Croom Helm Ltd.,
1982), p.4.
54
Gorham, The Victorian girl and the feminine ideal, p.4.
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