The Woman Question

Created by Carrie Sickmann on Thu, 04/18/2024 - 11:03

Part of Group:

ENG-L302 English Literature Survey II SP24

Timeline of Events related to Women's Rights

Timeline

Chronological table

Displaying 1 - 10 of 10

Date	Event	Created by	Associated Places
1835	The Life and Age of Woman In 1835, The Life and Age of Woman was created and published by A. Alden Barre. The picture depicts the seven phases of a woman’s life during the Victorian era. The caption states: “The virtuous woman is a crown to her husband.” In this image specifically, it shows the life of a woman and what their entire life was supposed to model. From early as age 1, women during the Victorian were made to model the elder women in their lives as well as observe and aspire to be just like them. The little girl is then expected to grow up into a young lady and tend to domestic attributes as well as to serve as a child- bearer and maternal figure. Once the woman reaches age 30, she’s expected to cleanse herself of all sexual and physical pleasures by instead, performing domestic activities such as tending to the house and becoming a great mother. This publication mirrors the life expectancy described in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, specifically Helen. Helen is trapped within her marriage and can’t leave due to the laws restricting women. She isn’t allowed to run away or perform tasks that she would like to due to all of the legal restrictions. Not only is Helen affected by the social and legal restrictions of women during the Victorian era, but so are all the other female characters. Brontë, Anne, and Margaret Lane. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall ; Agnes Grey. Dent, 1980.	Taylon Anderson		London, England
17 Aug 1839	Act on Custody of Infants On 17 August 1839, passage of an Act to Amend the Law Relating to the Custody of Infants. The Act allowed a separated wife to petition the court for custody of her children under the age of seven. Image: The Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Related Articles Rachel Ablow, “‘One Flesh,’ One Person, and the 1870 Married Women’s Property Act” Kelly Hager, “Chipping Away at Coverture: The Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857″ Jill Rappoport, “Wives and Sons: Coverture, Primogeniture, and Married Women’s Property”	David Rettenmaier		Palace of Westminster
14 Mar 1856	Petition for Reform of Married Women’s Property Law On 14 March 1856, presentation of the Petition for Reform of the Married Women’s Property Law, 1856. The petition began the joint effort by lawmakers and public women to grant married women control of their own wealth. Articles Jill Rappoport, “Wives and Sons: Coverture, Primogeniture, and Married Women’s Property” Related Articles Rachel Ablow, “‘One Flesh,’ One Person, and the 1870 Married Women’s Property Act” Anne D. Wallace, “On the Deceased Wife’s Sister Controversy, 1835-1907″	David Rettenmaier
28 Aug 1857	Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857 On 28 August 1857, passage of the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857. The Act legalized divorce and protected a divorced woman’s property and future earnings. The grounds for divorce for men was adultery (in legal terms, criminal conversation), for women adultery combined with bigamy, incest, bestiality, sodomy, desertion, cruelty, or rape. Image: The Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Articles Kelly Hager, “Chipping Away at Coverture: The Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857″ Related Articles Rachel Ablow, “‘One Flesh,’ One Person, and the 1870 Married Women’s Property Act” Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, “The Moxon Tennyson as Textual Event: 1857, Wood Engraving, and Visual Culture” Jill Rappoport, “Wives and Sons: Coverture, Primogeniture, and Married Women’s Property”	David Rettenmaier		Palace of Westminster
1858	English Woman’s Journal first published March 1858 saw the first issue of England’s first feminist monthly magazine, the English Woman's Journal. Aimed primarily at a middle-class audience, the magazine promoted new employment and educational opportunities for women, and featured a mix of political and social commentary, reportage of current events, poetry, book reviews, and a correspondence column. Image: Photograph of Bessie Rayner Parkes Belloc (date unknown). This image is in the public domain in the United States because its copyright has expired. Articles Janice Schroeder, “On the English Woman’s Journal, 1858-62″	David Rettenmaier		Langham Place
9 Aug 1870	1870 Married Women's Property Act On 9 August 1870, the Married Women’s Property Act was passed. Image: The Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This Act established limited protections for some separate property for married women, including the right to retain up to £200 of any earning or inheritance. Before this all of a woman's property owned before her marriage, as well as all acquired after the marriage, automatically became her husband's alone. Only women whose families negotiated different terms in a marriage contract were able to retain control of some portion of their property. Articles Rachel Ablow, "On the Married Woman's Property Act, 1870" Related Articles Kelly Hager, “Chipping Away at Coverture: The Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857″ Jill Rappoport, “Wives and Sons: Coverture, Primogeniture, and Married Women’s Property” Anne Wallace, “On the Deceased Wife’s Sister Controversy, 1835-1907″	David Rettenmaier		Palace of Westminster
1 Jan 1883	1882 Married Women's Property Act 1882 Married Women's Property Act passed on 1 Jan 1883. Referred to as the 1882 MWPA, the Act came into effect at the beginning of 1883. Although still identifying some married women's property as "separate," this Act significantly increased the scope and protections for married women's acquisition and retention of property separate from their husbands. Image: The Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Articles Jill Rappoport, “Wives and Sons: Coverture, Primogeniture, and Married Women’s Property” Anne Wallace, “On the Deceased Wife’s Sister Controversy, 1835-1907″ Related Articles Rachel Ablow, “‘One Flesh,’ One Person, and the 1870 Married Women’s Property Act”	David Rettenmaier		Palace of Westminster
14 Aug 1885	Criminal Law Amendment Act Criminal Law Amendment Act passed on 14 August 1885. The Act raised the age of consent for girls from 13 to 16 and introduced the misdemeanor of “gross indecency” to criminalize sexual acts between men in public or private. Image: The Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Related Articles Mary Jean Corbett, “On Crawford v. Crawford and Dilke, 1886″ Andrew Elfenbein, “On the Trials of Oscar Wilde: Myths and Realities”	David Rettenmaier		Palace of Westminster Clark Memorial Library The Dancer's Reward, Illustration for Salome
Aug 1888 to Sep 1889	Jack the Ripper murders From August 1888 to September 1889, the serial killer known as the Whitechapel Murderer or Jack the Ripper stalked women living in the East End of London. Related Articles Heidi Kaufman, “1800-1900: Inside and Outside the Nineteenth-Century East End” Marlene Tromp, “A Priori: Harriet Buswell and Unsolved Murder Before Jack the Ripper, 24-25 December 1872″	David Rettenmaier		Whitechapel
Jan 1898 to Apr 1898	January-April 1896, Aubrey Beardsley Publishes Under the Hill In 1896, fragments of Aubrey Beardsley’s erotic novella Under the Hill are published in the journal Savoy. Offering a Decadent reworking of Richard Wagner’s opera Tannhäuser (1845), the text dwells upon the eponymous character’s sexual adventures in the realm of Venus. In 1907, publisher Leonard Smithers issues an enlarged version of the novella which includes some previously censored material. The work is translated into Russian (1905/1907) and German. Articles Sasha Dovzhyk, "The Queer Little Grove: The Adoption of Aubrey Bearsley by Mikhail Kuzmin"	David Rettenmaier