“The function and the shape of the family were completely transformed by life in the industrial city”. Clarify the statement with regard to urbanization that happened in England in the 18th century.
- Ties between members of households loosened, and among the working class, the institution of marriage tended to break down.
- Women of the upper and middle classes in Britain, on the other hand, faced increasingly higher levels of isolation, although their lives were made easier by domestic maids who cooked, cleaned and cared for young children on low wages.
- Women who worked for wages had some control over their lives, particularly among the lower social classes. However, many social reformers felt that the family as an institution had broken down, and needed to be saved or reconstructed by pushing these women back into the home.
- The city encouraged a new spirit of individualism among both men and women, and a freedom from the collective values that were a feature of the smaller rural communities.
- But men and women did not have equal access to this new urban space. As women lost their industrial jobs and conservative people railed against their presence in public spaces, women were forced to withdraw into their homes.