ABSTRACT
On the one hand, these reforms were the result of progressive, humanitarian social movements such as feminism, which, in less than two hundred years, has secured rights of guardianship, property ownership, political representation, and reproductive control for British women. On the other hand, protective legislation – such as the 1848 Factory Act limiting women and children to a ten-hour working day – countered the exploitation of women workers in the newly developing manufacturing industries primarily in order to ensure their allegiance to motherhood and wifely duties. In this sense, nineteenth-century parliamentary reforms went handin-hand with a gradual acceptance of the state’s right to directly intervene in and regulate the domestic sphere. During the 1960s and 1970s, ‘permissive’ legislation such as the legalisation of abortion, the introduction of the no-fault divorce, and the decriminalisation of homosexuality reversed this trend, reflecting the higher priority awarded to personal choice and freedom as opposed to public morality and duty. In recent years, the pendulum appears to be swinging back again, with legislation such as the Child Support Act, which enforced parental responsibilities by law, and calls to reintroduce more restrictive divorce laws. In the twenty-first century, there will undoubtedly be further contentious reforms in legislation concerning sexual discrimination, abortion, divorce, and sexual practice. All of these affect, and are in turn affected by, social attitudes and cultural activities. Their strongest impact, however, will be perceived in terms of the British family unit and so, when looking at trends in attitudes towards gender and sex, it is here that we must begin.
