A Respectable Occupation: - University of Hertfordshire Research ...

division of labour and it was impossible for married women to invade the
business world, all attempts being strongly resisted. 15
Rank was also indicated by the employment of one or more female
servants to relieve the wife of all but supervisory household duties. 16 She
and her daughters devoted themselves to ‗paying calls‘, entertaining visitors
and creating a well furnished home as a testament to their status. 17
Charity work and philanthropy, provided they were unpaid, were suitable
pursuits for female members of the family, but any paid employment would
diminish the whole family‘s social standing. 18 King makes a similar point:
that married women and daughters involved themselves in charitable work
because it gave them a sociably acceptable purpose in life. 19 But goes on to
say that these charitable interests had to be balanced against their
commitment to domestic duties and nineteenth century views on female
propriety. 20 Middle class men tended to imitate their upper class superiors
by keeping their wives and daughters at home and thereby demonstrated
their financial success. It was a measure of a man‘s wealth and status that
he could afford to provide for his daughters, so that they could continue to
live at home until they married. To permit his daughters to go out to work,
whether it was a financial necessity or not was to incur discredit. Even to
undertake training, in case work ever became necessary, was equally
damaging. When Elizabeth Garrett, who eventually qualified as a doctor,
15
Morris, Men, Women and Property in England, p. 26 and Hughes, The Victorian Governess, p. 13.
16
Hughes, The Victorian Governess, p. 13.
17
Hughes, The Victorian Governess, p. 14.
18
McDonald, Clara Collet, p. 62 and Reader, Professional Men, p. 167.
19
J. Lewis, Women in England 1870-1950 Sexual Division and Social Change (Brighton, 1984), p. 92
quoted in King, Women, Welfare and Local Politics, p. 92, note 74.
20
J. Lewis, Women and Social Action in Victorian and Edwardian England (Cheltenham, 1991), pp. 1-2
and 9 quoted in King, Women, Welfare and Local Politics, p. 61, note32.
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