ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. Yet the complexity and ambiguity arising from much of the evidence, finally raises more questions than it answers, especially in relation to class and to the wider meaning of womens adaptability in the face of change. Adaptability and determination are not qualities that have been associated traditionally with Victorian distressed gentlewomen, nor with Victorian middle-class women generally. While it is clear that middle-class women were fully capable of adapting to colonial life, it is equally clear, paradoxically, that the most disadvantaged were repeatedly deprived of the opportunity to do so. The chapter illustrates that their tolerant attitude towards harder, presumably more demeaning work, was inseparable from their new found relative liberation from a range of social constraints, a less rigid definition of gentility, easier mobility and more informal social relationships.
