Women's Status in Victorian Literature: Browning and Mayhew
This paper examines the status of women in Victorian period literature through two contrasting works: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem "Lord Walter's Wife" and Henry Mayhew's journalistic piece "Prostitution Among Needlewomen." The paper traces Browning's bold challenge to social hypocrisy — illustrated by Thackeray's refusal to publish her poem — and compares it with Mayhew's interviews documenting how poverty drove working-class women to prostitution. Together, both works reveal that women across all social classes were exploited and marginalized, differing mainly in the class dynamics each author chose to expose.
- Introduction: Women as Second-Class Citizens in Victorian Society: Victorian women's roles limited to marriage and courtship
- Browning's 'Lord Walter's Wife' and the Challenge to Hypocrisy: Browning's bold poem rejected by Thackeray over controversy
- The Poem's Confrontational Dialogue: Woman confronts male seducer, exposes his double standards
- Mayhew's 'Prostitution Among Needlewomen': Poverty drives factory women into prostitution, interviews reveal
- Comparing Browning and Mayhew: Class, Hypocrisy, and Exploitation: Elite hypocrisy versus lower-class exploitation across both works
- Conclusion: Both works expose Victorian women's marginalization across classes
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What makes this paper effective
- Uses direct quotations from primary sources — both the literary text and letters — to anchor its claims about social hypocrisy, lending credibility to the argument.
- Draws a clear comparative framework between two very different genres (poetry and journalism) to illuminate the same social problem from opposing class perspectives.
- Incorporates the Thackeray rejection episode as a concrete historical example of the censorship and double standards Browning was challenging.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates comparative textual analysis: it reads two primary sources — a poem and a journalistic article — against each other to show how the same theme (the exploitation of women) manifests differently depending on the social class being depicted. By grounding the comparison in direct quotation, the paper avoids vague generalization and keeps its argument anchored to evidence.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with historical context about women's roles in Victorian England, then introduces Browning's poem and the censorship controversy surrounding it. It analyzes the poem's confrontational dialogue in detail before pivoting to Mayhew's journalism. A comparative section draws out similarities and differences between the two works, and a brief conclusion synthesizes the argument. The structure follows a classic compare-and-contrast pattern, moving from one source to the other before unifying them thematically.
Introduction: Women as Second-Class Citizens in Victorian Society
Women in English literature have always occupied a subservient place akin to that of a second-class citizen. This was especially pronounced during the Victorian period, when it was widely believed that marriage was the only possible career for women. They were expected to prepare themselves for courtship, make themselves skilled enough to be liked by men, and finally secure a good husband. That was considered the be-all and end-all of their lives.
However, not everyone subscribed to that viewpoint, and some voices rose against the status of women in society and how it contributed to their poor standard of living. One such voice belonged to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, whose ballad "Lord Walter's Wife" was refused publication in 1861 on the grounds that it might provoke public outcry, since it depicted a man's improper love for a woman. The person refusing publication was none other than William Makepeace Thackeray — who had himself written more openly about love and passion than Browning could ever be accused of. In his rejection letter, he wrote:
"…one of the best wives, mothers, and women in the world writes some verses which I feel would be objected to by many of our readers . . . . In your poem, you know, there is an account of unlawful passion felt by a man for a woman, and though you write pure doctrine, and real modesty, and pure ethics, I am sure our readers would make an outcry, and so I have not published this poem." (Barrett Browning, Letters II 444, 77)
References
Henry Mayhew. "Prostitution among the needlewomen." In Voices of the Poor: Selections from the Morning Chronicle. 1971.
Barrett Browning, Elizabeth. The Poetical Works. Ed. Ruth M. Adams. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974.
Browning. Letters. Vol. II. Ed. Frederic G. Kenyon. New York: Macmillan, 1897.
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