Social Restrictions of Women

Social change takes time, and the role of women in society is one that continues to change even today. George Eliot’s novel Middlemarch is set in England, in the 1830s. At that time, women were very much controlled by the various men in their lives: fathers, brothers, husbands, and other male relatives. There were not many jobs available to them, so they ended up doing domestic service, being a laborer or seamstress, or serving the wealthy, just to name a few.

The basis of Eliot’s novel is the everyday lives of those living in and around the small town of Middlemarch. The central character, though, is Dorothea Brooke. Although she succumbed to the usual role that women had to play in those days, Dorothea very much had a mind of her own. She was known for speaking that mind, which almost always frustrated her younger sister, Celia. In one moment of frustration, Celia scolds Dorothea by saying, “…you went on as you always do, never looking just where you are, and treading in the wrong place. You always see what nobody else sees; it is impossible to satisfy you; yet you never see what is quite plain. That’s your way.”

When Dorothea decides to marry a man who is twenty-seven years older than her, it is not only Celia who disagrees with her decision: most of the town is appalled. But Dorothea, wanting to be her own woman with her own choices, responds by saying, “I should not wish to have a husband very near my own age.” Here, she shows her unique independence for a woman from her era. But as she continues in the same dialogue, we can see that she cannot escape the social restrictions put upon her because she is a woman. She remarks, “I should have a husband who was above me in judgment and in all knowledge.” She goes on to explain that “I cannot imagine myself living without some opinions, but I should wish to have good reasons for them, and a wise man could help me to see which opinions had the best foundation, and would help me to live according to them.”

I have lived out the experience of being a woman who believed that her roles in life were already chosen for her and were very limited by social restrictions. Growing up in the 70s, in the heart of the women’s liberation movement, I distinctly remember feeling that the best job I could ever attain would be that of a legal secretary.

I am astounded that, a mere forty years later, it would not even occur to my daughters or granddaughters that they could not become anything they desire. Change does happen, but it takes time.

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