Dickens's England by R. E. Pritchard Page A

rights is accepted by woman even less than by a man. Behind his destiny woman must annihilate herself, must be only his complement. A woman dedicates herself to the vocation of her husband; she fills up and performs the subordinate parts in it. But if she has any destiny, any vocation of her own, she must renounce it, in nine cases out of ten. Some few, like Mrs Somerville, Mrs Chisholm, Mrs Fry, have not done so; but these are exceptions. The fact is that woman has so seldom any vocation of her own, that it does not much signify; she has none to renounce. A man gains everything by marriage: he gains a ‘helpmate’, but a woman does not. . . .
    The ideal life is passed in noble schemes of good consecutively followed up, of devotion to a great object, of sympathy given and received for high ideas and generous feelings. The actual life is passed in sympathy given and received for a dinner, a party, a piece of furniture, a house built or a garden laid out well, in devotion to your guests – (a too real devotion, for it implies that of all your time) – in schemes of schooling for the poor, which you follow up perhaps in an odd quarter of an hour, between luncheon and driving out in the carriage – broth and dripping are included in the plan – and the rest of your time goes in ordering the dinner, hunting for a governess for your children, and sending pheasants and apples to your poorer relations. Is there anything in this life which can be called an Incarnation of the ideal life within?
    Florence Nightingale, Cassandra (1852; pub. 1928)
    WOMAN’S PROFESSION
    We say that the greatest of social and political duties is to encourage marriage. The interest of a state is to get as many of its citizens married as possible. . . . Women labourers are a proof of a barbarous and imperfect civilization. We should be retrograding in the art and science of civilization were more women encouraged to be self-supporters. And the reason of this is plain enough. Wherever women are self-supporters, marriage is, ipso facto, discouraged. The factory population is proof of this. In the manufacturing districts women make worse wives and worse helpmates than where they are altogether dependent on the man. And where there are fewer marriages there is more vice . . .
    Married life is woman’s profession; and to this life her training – that of dependence – is modelled. Of course by not getting a husband, or losing him, she may find that she is without resources. All that can be said of her is, she has failed in business, and no social reform can prevent such failures. The mischance of the distressed governess and the unprovided widow is that of every insolvent tradesman. He is to be pitied; but all the Social Congresses in the world will not prevent the possibility of a mischance in the shape of broken-down tradesmen, old maids, or widows. Each and all are frequently left without resources; and each and all always will be left without resources . . .
    Anon., ‘Queen Bees or Working Bees’, The Saturday Review (1859)
    THE LAW
    â€˜You were present on the occasion of the destruction of these trinkets, and, indeed, are the more guilty of the two, in the eye of the law; for the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction.’
    â€˜If the law supposes that,’ said Mr Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, ‘the law is a ass – a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law’s a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience – by experience.’ Laying great stress on the repetition of these two words, Mr Bumble fixed his hat on very tight, and, putting his hands in his pockets, followed his helpmate down stairs.
    Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist (1839)
    ME AND ‘ER
    We treads this parf o’ life as every married couple ought,
    Me and ’er – ’er and me;
    In fact we’re looked on as the