Analyzation of Elizabeth Poole Sandford's "Women in Her Social and Domestic Character"

"Women in Her Social and Domestic Character" was written by Elizabeth Sandford, as Mrs. John Sandford, which (as one shall see) follows her advice of women's roles. It is 1842 in Industrial England, a time of rapid technological changes, not to mention explosive social revolutions. The writer reaches to an audience of middle class men and women, whose gender roles are still quite mixed up and ill-defined. Her intent is to clearly mark out where a woman belongs and what her temperment should be. A woman is a dependent creature, one who needs the husband, and has no place in a business environment, at least according to Mrs. Sandford... It is a reflection of the "prudish" and genteel nature that middle and upper class women are expected to have, but also includes romantic love, which is a shift from previous social requirements of upper class marriages.
To this writer, a middle-class woman's place is in the home, where she is expected to be her husband's everything, from psychiatrist to backscratcher to hostess. It seems that the influences of working class society and revolution force many middle class women to distinguish them from their "inferior" counterparts; the need for a woman to work for financial stability was only for the poorest of the poor, and was highly unacceptable because of this stigma. The Industrial Revolution by-produced such thinking, as more and more became aware of just how poor the poor really were, and Sandford is more than likely to be a product of this era's thinking. However, in today's society where everyone (regardless of sex, race, or preferences) have equal rights, many women and men would shun this notion. Although some feel that society is screwed up because of the gender-bending of rules, it is of the majority's belief that women can do as they wish. The women of the Academy, for example, would never stand for going with the grain, and not against it. To women all over the world, this enclosing of opportunities and rights is outrageous, and judgement on the poor person who even encourages this ancient notion would be extremely harsh to say the very least.