What was it like for the rich in Edwardian Britain?

Answer 1

it would depend very much on the person's class.

Working-class women would mostly have had to work for a living, they would be in domestic service, or working in the textile trade, i.e. sewing, or in the new factories that were opening in the towns. Some of them would have worked in shops and at other trades. opportunities for women in business were much more limited than they had been in earlier centuries.

middle-class and upper-class women would mostly not have worked, but would have been expected to stay at home until they married. Expectations fo r wives had changed over th elast couple of centuries, and women of the upper and middle class were no longer expected to be actively involved in the runnin gof their homes as they had been in the past, but were increasingly leaving domestic work to their servants. And middle-class women were no longer expected to be involved in their husband's businesses, as they would have been in the past.

you can see how things are changing in 'pride and prejudice' when mrs Bennet is insulted when mr Collins asks her which of her daughters were responsible for making the dinner'. she is affronted that he thinks her daughters would be cooking rather than the servants. In previous centuries, it was taken for granted that even well-born women were actively invovled in domestic matters, but this was becoming unusual.

Most women of the upper and middle class would expect to get married, and most would have a lot of children. A high proportion of women died in childbirth, from the dreaded 'childbed fever' , and the Infant Mortality Rate was high too. Three of Jane Austen's brothers lost wives through childbirth. much of a married woman's life would be taken up with the bearing and raising of children. upper-class women often had wetnurses to feed their babies, rather than doing it themselves. it was usual for mothers to teach their children themselves when they were very small.

Opportunities for women of the upper and middle class to earn a living were very limited, teaching was really the only respectable job at that time, and it wasn't a very desirable prospect to most women. And there were a few women who managed to make a name for themselves as writers, like Jane Austen, Fanny Burney, and Maria Edgeworth.

Some women concerned themselves with social issues, most famously the Quaker Elizabeth Fry, who campaigned to reform conditions in prisons, especially for women and children. She established a school in Newgate prison in London, and founded a prisoner's aid society in 1817. she lobbied vigorously for improvement in conditions for prisoners transported to Australia. During the 1820s she toured the country insopecting prisons, demanding reform, and founding women's associations and presure groups. And she had ten children.

Re; the comment above on the vote. it is true that women in the early 1800s didn't have the vote, but neither did most men. Only about one man in twenty had the vote before the Reform Act of 1833.

Answer 2

women were know as the weaker sex and therefor had to obey their husbands as men were dominant.