Europe in an Age of Nationalism, 1848–70 493property of her husband. Bodichon undertook a peti-
tion campaign and gathered tens of thousands of signa-
tures that encouraged Parliament to take a first (and
naturally, partial) step toward equal rights, the Married
Women’s Property Act of 1857. Encouraged by this
progress and by the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857
(which created Britain’s first divorce courts), Bodichon
devoted her resources to financing The Englishwoman’s
Journal(1858), which became the leading voice of
British feminism.
The most debated mid-Victorian reform was elec-
toral. Radicals had been disappointed in 1832, and in
the 1850s they mounted another campaign to expand
the electorate. John Bright produced a list of seventy-
one constituencies with a population equal to metro-
politan Manchester, noting that those boroughs held
117 seats in parliament to Manchester’s 3. Several bills
to expand the franchise or to redistrict seats failed dur-
ing the next decade, until reform won a surprising
champion—Benjamin Disraeli, a leader of the Tory
Party. Disraeli concluded that “change is inevitable” and
decided that it would be best if a conservative govern-
ment arranged this “leap in the dark.”
Disraeli’s Reform Bill of 1867 doubled the electorate
from approximately one million (4.2 percent of the pop-
ulation) to two million. It enfranchised urban males who
paid £10 per year in rent. It also adjusted the overrepre-
sentation of England (which held 72 percent of the seats
in the kingdom) and the underrepresentation of cities; it
denied rural workingmen the vote and explicitly ex-
cluded women by giving the vote to “every man.” The
debate included the first introduction of women’s suf-
frage, however, championed by the liberal philosopher
John Stuart Mill. Mill advocated women’s suffrage in a
speech insisting that the infringement of women’s rights
was “repugnant to the... principles of the British con-
stitution.” His motion received seventy-three votes in a
house of 658 members, but that defeat led to the forma-
tion of suffrage societies in Birmingham, Manchester,
and Edinburgh within the year. Two years later, Parlia-
ment accepted a partial form of women’s suffrage when
the Municipal Corporations Act (1869) allowed single
women to vote in municipal elections.The Crimean War, 1853–56
Between 1815 and 1853, the Metternichian balance of
power had given Europe a degree of stability in interna-
tional affairs and a general peace among the great pow-
ers. Then, in 1853–56, Europe witnessed the first warDOCUMENT 25.3
Barbara Bodichon: The Status of Married Women, 1854
A man and wife are one person in law; the wife loses all
her rights as a single woman, and her existence is, as it
were, absorbed in that of her husband. He is civilly re-
sponsible for her wrongful acts, and in some cases for her
contracts; she lives under his protection or cover, and her
condition is called coverture.
In theory, a married woman’s body belongs to her
husband; she is in his custody, and he can enforce his
rights by a writ of habeas corpus; but in practice this is
greatly modified....
A man may not lend, let out, or sell his wife; such
transactions are considered as being against public de-
cency, and they are misdemeanors.
A wife’s personal property before marriage [such as
stock, shares, money in hand, money at bank, jewels,
household goods, clothes, etc.] becomes absolutely her
husband’s, unless when settled in trust for her, and he may
assign or dispose of it at his pleasure, whether he and his
wife live together or not....
Neither the Courts of Common Law nor of Equity
have any direct power to oblige a man to support his
wife....
Money earned by a married woman belongs ab-
solutely to her husband....
The legal custody of children belongs to the father.
During the lifetime of a sane father, the mother has no
rights over her children, except limited power over young
infants, and the father may take them from her and dis-
pose of them as he sees fit....
Bodichon, Barbara. “A Brief Summary in Plain Language of the Most
Important Laws of England Concerning Married Women” (London,
1854). In Patricia Hollis, eds., Women in Public, 1850–1900. Documents
of the Victorian Women’s Movement.London: 1979.