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In the West Indian society there existed amoung women of European heritage a caste system that dictated their social and economic limitations and success. European females were either one of three classes. ... There were also working class white women: indentured servants, ex-indentured servants who worked as housekeepers and other white women who engaged in a variety of economic activities. The “ideal” European woman was schooled and perfected on Victorian Ideology and this was the background of to which all women who desired upward social mobility modeled themselves after. ... Women were often portrayed as either Madonnas or whores. ... " According to the family claim, women, far more than men were regarded as possessions of their families.
· FACTORS AFECTING ELITE & MIDDLE CLASS WOMEN
The life of a typical woman of elite or middle class basically entailed managerial tasks at home and socializing at organized dances, clubs, tea and dinner parties, church and the neighbouring planter’s home while posing as trophies for their planter husbands
-Marriage
The marriage contract into which the vast majority of women entered resembled an indenture agreement between master and servant. ... Once married, only one in ten women divorced. The permanence of most marriages was due to several factors: the relative maturity of those who wed; the cost of maintaining separate households; the difficulty most women found in supporting themselves; as well as the stigma attached to divorce. Part of the reason married women seemed to have surrendered their individual rights to their husbands, was due to way in which women were viewed by society. ... When the time arose for a woman to be wed her choices were also limited, as a woman would be scorned if she married anyone other than a well off white male (and single white women were pitied in society). ... His grandfather came from Dominica and they say he has coloured blood”
-Domestic Commitments
Women in the elite and middle class knew little or nothing of physical housework. ... However few European women stayed in bed past dawn, even when they were sick. They ran the house and at random times throughout the year women had to care for a husband or child who was sick. ... The managerial burdens that women faced were especially great because the British West Indies had such weak social aids at that time. ... Women were the nurses, psychiatrists, teachers, and social workers of the day. Without the services that they provided privately, British colonial society would have collapsed.
-Birth control
The burdens of family and social care that women bore were heightened by the difficulty they faced in controlling their fertility. ... Lower class women, in particular, relied on this most drastic means of birth control. The imperfect nature of birth control affected women in two important ways. ... Wherever the appearance of children posed an economic threat, women, more than men, were forced to assume responsibility for sexual control.
-Education
Elite women were better educated than women of other classes but this education was nowhere near the quality and quantity of that the men received, instead of being taught Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Sciences a woman’s education was based on Victorian ideology and as a result emphasis was placed on religious instruction and learning in other areas of education, which would prepare them to be good wives.
Approximate Word count = 2437
Approximate Pages = 9.7
(250 words per page double spaced)
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