Women certainly suffered a number of legal disabilities in this period. They could not vote in Parliamentary elections, although a very small number of women who qualified as ratepayers might vote in local elections from 1869, and, by the end of the century, be elected to local authorities responsible for such matters as schools, public health and the poor.

Until 1857, a divorce could be obtained only by private Act of Parliament, which was available only to the very wealthy. Divorces were therefore rare, and attracted publicity when they did happen, so would not be sought by women who did not wish their private affairs to become public knowledge. The Divorce Act of 1857 made divorce more easily obtainable, although it was still available only to the well-off, and it was easier for a man to divorce his wife than for a woman to divorce her husband. A husband only had to prove adultery against his wife; a wife had to prove her husband guilty, not only of adultery, but of one of a range of other faults, such as cruelty or desertion. The distinction was presumably due to the Victorian man’s desire to be certain that all the children his wife had birthed were, in fact, his. There was still a great social stigma attached to divorce. A divorced woman, even if she was the innocent party, was not permitted in the presence of the Queen.

For the lower classes, for whom divorce was not an option, women whose husbands were violent, or who failed to maintain their families, could appeal to their local magistrates for a court order restraining the husband, banning him from the family home, or requiring him to hand over a proportion of his earnings each week. Failure to comply could result in the husband being imprisoned. These proceedings, however, were reported in the local papers, therefore, women who wanted to maintain respectability might be reluctant to take this course. In 1878, an Act of Parliament formalized this process, giving magistrates power to grant separation orders, with arrangements for maintenance, to wives of violent men. Other couples simply made their own arrangements, setting up home with new partners. This was not considered scandalous in all communities, and where there was no property to be inherited, the illegitimacy of the children of unmarried couples was not an issue.

Until 1870, married women were not legally allowed to own property. The Married Women’s Property Act of 1870, however, allowed women to keep property acquired during their marriage. A further Act of 1882 allowed women to retain control of any property they brought to the marriage. Before that it was possible for a legal settlement to be drawn up at the time of the marriage allowing the woman to retain control over some or all of her own property, and ensuring that it would pass to her children if she died before her husband. Such settlements, however, especially if they guaranteed a large separate income for the wife, were not always approved. In January 1860, The Times, the leading British newspaper, declared “such settlements are not to be encouraged, they lead to disputes between man and wife . . . . They tend to destroy the true relation between husband and wife . . . . There are hundreds of cases where the wretchedness, misery and unhappiness of the parties can be safely and unerringly traced to this cause. The power which a woman obtains is too great . . . . No sensible man who is engaged to be married to a woman of large fortune would think of objecting to a fair sum in reason being settled on her.” In a ladies’ magazine of the same year, it was argued that women with their own incomes were more likely to be unfaithful and desert their husbands. It was reported that a married lady of high social standing had eloped with a groom, and suggested that the lady’s “vulgar companion” was only interested in her money.

Whether she was financially independent seems to have been the principal factor in determining whether a woman, married or single, was able to do as she pleased. Charlotte Brontë is often depicted as being oppressed by her father and prevented from ever leaving home. Charlotte, however, frequently visited London or went to stay with friends or acquaintances. Even her marriage was against her father’s wishes. She was able to do these things because she was not financially dependent on her father, having a small inheritance from her aunt and the money she earned by writing.

The myth of Mr Brontë being a monster seems to have been created partly by Charlotte herself, who used him as an excuse to avoid doing things she did not want to do, and partly by her first biographer, her friend and contemporary, the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell. In order to explain aspects of Charlotte’s work which contemporaries found “coarse,” Gaskill over-emphasized Charlotte’s isolation, saying she had not mixed much in “normal” society, and blamed Mr. Brontë for forcing Charlotte to remain at home in Haworth.

Mrs. Gaskell herself, although married to a Manchester clergyman, seems to have done exactly as she pleased for most of her married life, refusing to adopt the role of clergyman’s wife, but spending her time writing and travelling in Britain and Europe, with lengthy periods away from home. Long before the Married Women’s Property Act, she seems to have had no difficulty in retaining control of the money she earned in her successful writing career. One of the last things she did before dying in 1864 was to buy, without telling her husband, much less gaining his permission, a large house in the south of England, intending that they should leave Manchester and settle there.

The other well-known “monster” among Victorian fathers is Mr. Barrett of Wimpole Street. He also had abnormal possessiveness, doing his best to prevent any of his large family from marrying, or, in the case of his sons, from pursuing careers. When Elizabeth Barrett had decided to marry Robert Browning, her father could not prevent her, because she had inherited a small legacy from an uncle—sufficient for Elizabeth and Robert to support themselves, along with what they earned from literary work. Elizabeth’s younger sister, Henrietta, had no money of her own, and she had to wait for their father’s death before she could marry the man she loved, an army officer with no private income.

One topic debated during the Victorian period was the availability, or otherwise, of work for women. In the view of middle-class men, domestic service was the ideal occupation for young working-class women. In 1841, the Registrar General said of the large number of domestic servants, “It must be a matter for congratulation that so large a number of females should be comprehended in a class in which habits of steady industry, of economy and of attention to the maintenance of good character are so necessary.” As late as 1883, when more enlightened attitudes were beginning to emerge, a clergyman said in a sermon, “It is indeed contrary to every principle of delicacy to see young women leave their domestic duties, their household employments, to work in the fields.” Factory work was also disapproved of, because it required women to work alongside men, and because, as it was relatively well-paid, it made young women independent of their parents’ authority. Nevertheless, Victorian women worked in factories, in the fields, and even, until 1844, down the mines. Women in the workhouse in one market town in 1851 were domestic servants, fieldworkers, charwomen, needleworkers, hawkers, laundresses, and rag sorters.

Women also owned and ran a wide range of businesses during the Victorian period. In one town in 1855, women were running schools, lodging-houses, public houses, hotels, dining rooms, beershops, and shrimp warehouses. They were shopkeepers, bakers, grocers, greengrocers, milliners, straw-hat makers, dressmakers, staymakers, haberdashers, booksellers and printers, boot- and shoemakers, pawnbrokers, basket-makers, dealers in eggs and fruit, stationers, whitesmiths, dealers in marine stores, furniture dealers, market gardeners, barge owners, ironmongers, leather-sellers, wax-modellers, and glass- and earthenware dealers.

The professions, however, were closed to women; Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was the first woman doctor in the 1860s, and there were only 212 women doctors in Britain by 1900. There were no woman lawyers or senior civil servants. However, the first women’s college at Oxford University was founded in 1869, the first at Cambridge in 1879. Women could attend lectures and take examinations, but were not granted degrees. The establishment of the state education system in 1870 provided wider opportunities for young working-class women. It created a need for thousands of qualified teachers, and through the teacher training system, gave these young women access to further education. Increasing numbers of women were also taking up office work in the late nineteenth century.

Not everyone welcomed the widening of employment opportunities for women. A correspondent of The Lady’s Review of Literature, Art and Social Economy wrote in 1860, “The plan of training young women with the idea of their getting their own living . . . would, I think, prove very disastrous to society . . . . The reason given for making women independent is [said to be] because so many do not marry, and become dependent from various causes. Now I think her chances of marrying would be much less . . . if she is to be made to proclaim her independence . . . . No, this masculine sort of woman will not gain husbands . . . . My idea of woman’s education is that it should tend to fit her for the performance of home duties. Her physical and mental powers should be trained . . . to enable her to fulfil the three functions of Wife, Mother and Mistress of a family . . . entering in to competition with men in the field of labour . . . I think must be very revolting to truly feminine feeling.”

A somewhat more enlightened correspondent did not wish to see women admitted to the professions, but suggested they might be employed as railway clerks or in telegraph offices. It was argued, however, that this would make men jealous and be a blow to females’ delicacy of mind. Another journal, The Lady’s Newspaper and Pictorial Times, said in 1860, “A father would not be very willing to give his daughter an expensive education, when such a very probable event as her marriage would prevent her from profiting by it . . . . A woman may give her leisure to literature, to art, even to scientific research, without disqualifying herself for her ordinary and natural avocations . . . but let her once set her foot within the pale of professional life and she is practically unsexed.”

The most oppressed women in Victorian England were probably those of the middle classes with no money of their own. They could not afford to live independently of their families, and if they did have to earn their own livings, only the work of a governess was considered sufficiently genteel, though even that was too vulgar for some. A charitable organization which arranged the sale of needlework by “Ladies of Limited Means” asked, “How many genteel women are there . . . whose delicacy would induce them to shrink with invincible repugnance from any open way of working for a livelihood?” On the other hand, women who enjoyed financial independence, and those of the working class who were not restricted by considerations of respectability, could do as they pleased.