A separation of spheres in the second half of the 19th century In the second half of the 19th century, men and women were seen to live in "separate spheres". Public activity for men and domestic/private activity for women. However, some upper class women had the opportunity to do volunteer work such as charity work. Upper class women at this time where they obeyed their husbands, they had a role, they were women, so they had to behave like women. Women were excluded from the public sphere, men were seen as the top of society, and women were not supposed to be involved in politics because they wouldn't understand. Men were seen as more intelligent and rightly thought they had control over their wives, before 1850 the common law was that married women had no identity other than that of their husband, husbands had the right to decide where and how to live live. At that time it was also legal to beat their wives and lock them up if they disobeyed their husband. Furthermore, women could not divorce their husbands, and if they separated, the husband got custody of the children. By the 1850s many women had accepted the fact that they were different and not the same as their husbands, especially middle and upper class women, but things changed and beliefs changed when the idea of ​​a "new woman" was introduced. In the 1850s there was rapid growth in the number of single women between the ages of 15 and 45, which increased by 72% between 1851 and 1871. There were three main reasons for this: · There were more male children dying at birth or during childhood · Many men went to different countries, many emigrated to have better opportunities for themselves · Many men where...... middle of paper ......h were groups of women. The Prim Rose led would not be suffrages, the female idea of ​​being an effective and practical organization. The Labor Party was more assertive and determined than the Primitives, they said women should shape and remember the role of women, both groups however did not agree with women's suffrage. Women were now not excluded from everything, they had a role in politics at a local level from 1869 onwards. This shows how, at the end of the 19th century, the "separate spheres" were changing, women were increasingly involved in public life and allowed things to change. In the late 1890s women began to enter local government, serve schools, together they passed new laws, which changed the higher status of male, slowly achieving equal opportunities for women..