** Subservient **

"..the conditions and practices of one's class, gender, race, and sexuality began to acquire new meanings, to take on new importance, and to attract a new kind of attention.  Changes in living conditions developed in connection with prescribed gender roles, which began to seem 'natural' and 'innate'...Victorians tended to think about identity in terms of oppositions: male and female, rich and poor...Such oppositions had the effect of establishing seemingly stable types and suggesting that the differences were natural and unchangeable...the ideology of separate spheres for men and women proposed that gender and sexual identity were fixed categories and that 'true womanhood' was the inherent opposite of normative manliness.  Still, in the literary works of the period, the line between 'opposites' was constantly crossed and revealed as problematic and variable" (Arnold LXVII).

Although England was ruled by a female ruler, a woman's role was not that of a leader, and she did not have power over her husband or lover.  Women did not have rights - no right to sue or to own property.  The husband or father decided where they would go and what they would do.  She would have had the seducing influence or power, but physicality was not the strong suit for the women.  Her opinion may have been asked, but the man gave the final word.