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Cover of A Widening Sphere

A Widening Sphere Changing Roles of Victorian Women

  • Published: 8 Oct 2013
  • DOI: 10.4324/9780203402412
  • Print ISBN: 9780415837064
  • eBook ISBN: 9780203402412

First published in 1977, this book is a companion volume to Suffer and Be Still. It looks at the widening sphere of women’s activities in the Victorian age and testifies to the dual nature of the legal and social constraints of the period: on the one hand, the ideal of the perfect lady and the restrictive laws governing marriage and property posed limits to women’s independence; on the other hand, some Victorian women chose to live lives of great variety and complexity. By uncovering new data and reinterpreting old, the contributors in this volume debunk some of the myths surrounding the Victorian woman and alter stereotypes on which many of today’s social customs are based.

Contents

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    Front Matter
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    Introduction By Martha Vicinus
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    1
    Victorian Wives and property: Reform of the Married Women’s Property Law, 1857–1882 By Lee Holcombe
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    2
    The Forgotten Woman of the Period: Penny Weekly Family Magazines of the 1840’s and 1850’s By Sally Mitchell
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    3
    Feminism and Female Emigration, 1861-1886 By A. James Hammerton
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    4
    The Marking of an Outcast Group: Prostitutes and Working Women in Nineteenth-Century Plymouth and Southampton By Judith R. Walkowitz
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    5
    Image and Reality: The Actress and Society By Christopher Kent
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    6
    Women and Degrees at Cambridge University, 1862-1897 By Rita McWilliams-Tullberg
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    7
    Victorian Masculinity and the Angel in the House By Carol Christ
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    8
    Sex and Death in Victorian England: An Examination of Age- and Sex-Specific Death Rates, 1840–1910 By Sheila Ryan Johansson
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    9
    Sexuality in Britain 1800=1900: Some Suggested Revisions By F. Barry Smith
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    10
    The Women of England in a Century of Social Change 1815=1914: A Select Bibliography, Part II By Barbara Kanner
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    Back Matter