40. Women and the Franchise, 1838

Until recently little research had been carried out in the history of Scottish women. This situation is slowly changing with more and more articles and books being published on Scottish women’s past. During Queen Victoria’s reign, middle and upper-class women were supposed to stay in the home, as domesticity and motherhood were considered as natural for women; poverty often pushed working-class women onto the labour market (in 1839, two-thirds of the workers in the Scottish textile industry w..