MARRIAGE, MORALITY, AND DEPENDENCY: CONSTRUCTING WOMEN’S SOCIAL IDENTITY IN REGENCY ENGLAND
Keywords:
marriage, morality, women’s social identity, gender ideology, Regency England, feminist criticismAbstract
Marriage and moral ideology were central forces shaping women’s social identity in late eighteenth–early nineteenth century England. This article examines how women’s lives were regulated through interconnected expectations of virtue, obedience, and domestic responsibility, arguing that marriage functioned as a key social mechanism reinforcing gender hierarchy. Drawing on feminist literary criticism and social history, the study analyzes how legal dependency, limited education, and moral surveillance contributed to women’s restricted autonomy. By situating these structures within their historical context, the article demonstrates that marriage in Regency England was not merely a personal institution but a cultural system that defined women’s value and social legitimacy. This framework provides an essential background for interpreting women’s representation in English literature, particularly in the novels of Jane Austen.
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References
Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class 1780–1850 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 29–45.
Margaret Kirkham, Jane Austen, Feminism and Fiction (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1983), 15–33.
Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, ed. Miriam Brody (London: Penguin Classics, 2004), 73–90.
Bridget Hill, Women, Work, and Sexual Politics in Eighteenth-Century England (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 58–70.
Amanda Vickery, The Gentleman’s Daughter: Women’s Lives in Georgian England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 134–142.
Claudia L. Johnson, Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 27–40; Mary Poovey, The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 5–28.
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