Before the Industrial Revolution, men and women worked together as an economic unit, especially in rural communities. In well-off households, women would run the house.
The Industrial Revolution polarised women’s condition: the well-to-do withdrew from household management, leaving the way clear for the housekeeper. A woman was seen by the upper classes as an idealised creature, gentle, pure, and pious.
However, the ever more numerous working-class women would frequently work in factories. In 1851, 2.3m women and female children of working age out of 8m worked. Many women worked in service (1.2 million in 1881). Feminists disliked both these extremes.
Arguments against the franchise for women: women were disqualified by their sex; the franchise was based on property qualification; women were thought to be too emotional; most women did not need the vote (they were surrounded by men who often would have it).
For the rest, if vagrant and very poor men did not have the vote, then their women did not deserve it either; the “idealized” woman was above the dirty affairs of Parliament; female suffrage might well pose a threat to men’s sexual domination of women.
Women’s rights were limited if non-existent throughout the 19th century. Reforms were finally obtained after the perseverance of female/feminist activists.
