Do you agree with the view that the double standards of Victorian morality had seen no significant change by the end of the 19th century

Do you agree with the view that the double standards of Victorian morality had seen no significant change by the end of the 19th century? (40 marks)
The double standards morality suggested that men and women could get away with different things and had different rights within marriage and their lives. There is debate about whether the status of women and their rights had changed by the end of the 19th century. Areas which showed the clear double standards between men and women include: divorce law, property law, and also the Contagious Diseases Act and the way it discriminated against just women.
Source 1 supports the idea that divorce law showed little significant change throughout the 19th century as it says that there were ‘distinctly unequal moral standards applied to each of the sexes’. The Matrimonial Causes Act was reformed throughout this time from when it was established in 1857. This initially allowed men to secure a divorce on the grounds of his wife’s adultery but for women adultery alone was insufficient grounds to divorce her husband and she had to prove another charge such as desertion. This shows that there were double standards between what men and women could get away with, which is also supported by Source 1 as ‘women were expected to forgive and forget an adulterous husband’. The Matrimonial Causes Act was reformed in 1878 to allow cruelty as grounds for divorce and again in 1884 to allow women to petition for divorce immediately on the ground of adultery and desertion, rather than waiting two years. This shows a significant change between women’s legal status regarding divorce at the start and end of the century, in that they previously had no access to it at all and now their petition for divorce could be submitted straight away. Although this was very different to the existing laws, source 1 suggests that the change seen was insignificant saying ‘women’s access to divorce was [still] limited’. However the reliability of this is uncertain as it is unclear which ‘new legislation’ it is talking about and therefore which period it is referring to. Overall, divorce law status of women saw change throughout the 19th century and although the change was slow and gradual, the status of women improved over this period, which shows that the double standards of Victorian morality had seen some significant change.
Property law also saw some change by the end of the 19th century. At the start of the period, women effectively became a legal part of their husband on marriage and had no independent existence. This meant that any property of the wife’s became her husband’s. Additionally, they had no right to run a business, make a will or any other legal contract. Under the Matrimonial Causes Act in 1857, a divorced wife could inherit property, enter contracts, sue or be sued and protect her earnings from a deserter. This was some change however not significant enough as the wife still became part of her husband. However, this was extended by the Married Woman’s Property Act in 1870 which allowed woman to keep up to 200 pounds of their earnings and to inherit their own property and small amounts of money. However, anything else acquired before or after marriage still belonged to her husband. Source 3 supports that in 1882 the Married Women’s Property Act allowed ‘all deposits… to be the property of such married woman’. This is combined with the 1884 Married Women’s Property Act allowed women to keep all property acquired before or during marriage and had the same rights over these properties as unmarried women. This shows that there was large and significant change in property law regarding married women as they were now entitled to be the possessor of their own property.
The Contagious Diseases Act were originally passed in 1864 demonstrated the degree of double standards between men and women in Victorian society. The act allowed prostitutes to be examined for venereal diseases which men were contracting. Men were responsible for the demand for prostitutes, yet only women had to endure humiliating personal medical examinations and be contained in locked hospitals if found to be infected; women's reputations were threatened but not men's. Source 2 agrees that the double standards were prevalent between the treatment of men and women. The source repeatedly refers to the role of ‘men’ and ‘man’ and uses emotive language such as ‘flung’ and ‘messed’ which induces feelings of sympathy as we feel they were incredibly ill-treated. However, this source formed part of campaign literature and is therefore going to be sympathetic towards the cause of the time and perhaps exaggerate the facts. This means that its reliability is limited. Overall, these CDAs showed that the double standards were extremely imprinted in Victorian Society.
In conclusion, the double standards of Victorian morality had seen some significant change by the end of the 19th century. Particularly, regarding the Property laws, married women had become legally the owners of their own property acquired before and during marriage which was a stark contrast to the start of the century. The Contagious Diseases Acts, however, demonstrated the remaining prevalent degree of double standards between men and woman. To some degree, the divorce laws had been reformed but still had a long way to go to bringing men and women equal in terms of their ease of divorce as women still required more grounds for divorce than men. Overall, the double standards of Victorian morality saw little change, although the legal situation of woman became much improved, it appears society still remained imprinted with these double standards.