The empowerment of women in Charlotte Bronte's novels

Abstract

Many people in Victorian society conformed to the attitude of the 'conservative approach', which regarded women as being submissive and inferior to men. In respect to this attitude, the legal rights of married women were similar to that of children. Married women were considered as the ideal pure woman, whose reputation could not be tarnished in any way, thus the role of the Victorian married woman was to raise a family and tend to their needs. However, the Victorians slowly began to adopt a more broad minded approach where women were not regarded as inferior but different to men. Granted, higher education, as well as professional careers, were still not suited for women. The only work regarded as acceptable for single females in Victorian society was that of a teacher or governess. The concept of an independent woman was still regarded as radical. Charlotte Bronte herself was conscious of the subservient place women occupied in Victorian society, due to the fact that her father, Patrick Bronte was a tyrant who believed men were dominant. Her idea of a happy union between a man and a woman was their ability to live inter dependently of one another, which meant that neither of them was dominant in their relationship. She also disagreed with the widely perceived idea of marrying someone for the sake of marriage and not for love.