Throughout history, the lives of women have in many ways been dependent on men. In Britain before 1857 wives were under the economic and legal control of their husbands, and divorce was almost impossible. It required a very expensive private act of Parliament costing perhaps £200, of the sort only the richest could possibly afford.
Traditionally a female went from the household of her father to that of her husband, and until a series of four laws called the Married Women's Property Act passed Parliament from 1870 to 1882, a wealthy married women usually had no control of their own property and a working class woman's wages were also the property of her husband.
Until more modern times, work opportunities for women were severely limited and many professions were limited to males only. Few universities allowed women to study, and in the first professions that did allow women, such as teaching, women were paid significantly less that their male counterparts, and were often expected to leave when they married.
This makes tracing our female ancestors especially challenging. Women were far less likely to leave a variety of records behind - things like land, occupation and trade, voting, education and tax records. Even when formally mentioned, a married woman would often be referred to by her husband's name - I have a newspaper article from 1930 which refers to a great-aunt as 'Mrs Wilfred Penney', not by her given name of Edna.
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