The Fourth Estate: Women In The Early Modern Britain

The time when the issue of women rights had been paid enough attention to could be traced back to the Enlightenment. Around the middle seventeenth century to the middle eighteenth century, the ideal of liberalism and egalitarianism extended to the European women from the noble class and the middle class, as well as the working class people. The convention that women should be existing only for men had been oppugned and challenged, more and more women began to obtain opportunities which were comparatively equal to that of men's, in terms of education, work and politics, though the last two were strictly confined within a certain degree as early as then.The English Bourgeois Revolution, which was the milestone of the Enlightenment Movement, took place in 1642, and continued to 1649. This period is also the beginning time of this thesis.As the cradleland of the Enlightenment, Britain had witnessed the very initial stage of women's awakening consciousness of their social status and roles. The fundamental changes as this thesis observing originated from the social foundation--the religion of Christianity, which was socially mental criterion of that time; therefore, the thesis would start from the religious changes for women, mainly concentrates on their changed roles for the unworldly institution. Then, the general social scene, which as the result of the change of ideology, had been changed, too, would be presented one by one in this thesis: including legal, politic and economic aspects of women. In this section, several British cities would be analyzed too by contrast and comparison, in order to find out the British social changes as a whole. In these typical cities, this thesis would also observe how did women become aware of their disadvantaged situation and how did they respond to that from the legal, political and economic aspects which have been referred to above.Chronically, this thesis would move to the eighteenth century, which witnessed the gradual but steady germination of women's social activities and occupations, some of which were even lasting for the modern time. This was not an easy progress indeed, comprised with both visible and invisible struggles of women of that time. This thesis would discuss this point from a class-classification method, observing respectively the noble, the middle and the working class, then to obtain a more impersonally analyzed result.The content of this thesis would end by about 1750, which was also the ending time for both the "Early Modern" time and the Enlightenment Movement. In this last section, emphasis would be focused on further enlarged women's legally-admitted status, political rights, economic roles, social activities, as well as their education and occupation situation. The thesis would also present women involved with literature of that time. Although most of them were not writers, they still successfully developed such a career for women of later-comers and both for the whole human beings; in Britain, thereafter, the occupation of writing which has existed only and been lasting only for thousands of years for men finally became generally-recognized for women.Although in the middle seventeenth century to that of the eighteenth century, the British women's social status was almost not legally-guaranteed, they, however, found themselves the suitable ways for developing and liberating. The British women were the Fourth Estate during that period, and they were also the true Estate of that time; their struggles and endeavors were meaningful for the afterwards women's liberation movement.