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An Ideal Husband context (Women (Women's suffrage (Fought for the…
An Ideal Husband context
Oscar Wilde
It was widely known that Wilde was in a relationship with 'Bosie', Lord Alfred Douglas.
He was eventually brought under prosecution for acts of gross indecency under the 1885 amendment law which made private and public homosexual relationships illegal
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The premier of an Ideal husband was the same year and Sos Eltis writes the scandal brings "an inescapable personal resonance to a drama which centres on marital secrets, love, and the threat of public disgrace"
Women
Position of women
Had more liberties than in Chaucer's day but were still restricted to domestic roles. "expecting to be loving, self-sacrificing, pure and purifying, a source of morality at home, but unfit for decision making in the public world" - S.P.Bose
"There were long established conventions that separated the spheres of men and women into the public and the private, ruled respectively by intellect and emotion" - S.P.Bose
New Woman Movement
A feminist ideal that emerged in the late 19th C. It was used to describe the growth in the number of feminist, educated, independent career women in Europe and the US.
Women's suffrage
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Contemporary theatre responded by largely mocking the demands of women for political equality. For example, in Arthur Pinero's 'The Weaker Sex', feminists were satirised as feeble minded and ridiculous in their demands for the vote
Wilde and feminism
Some argue Wilde had feminist sympathies given his editorship of the magazine 'Women's World' in which he commissioned articles on professions for women and access to higher education amongst other things
Characterisation of Gertrude and Mrs Cheveley can either be seen as a revelation of the "damaging effects of excluding women from knowledge of social and political realities and making them the keepers of artificially preserved realities" (Sos Eltis)
OR Gertrude's repression of her own ideals and Cheveley being put in her place/excluded from society could be "read as Wilde's rejection of contemporary feminist demands"
To modern readers the presentation of women can be seen as somewhat misogynistic, but to contemporary readers it would not have been unusual
Victorian morality
Victorians had a strong sense of morality which emphasised the importance of good social ethic and upholding strong ideals
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