“Can We still Use ‘Separate Spheres’? British History 25 Years After Family Fortunes”

Abstract Historians of Britain often call the period between 1780 and 1850 the age of ‘separate spheres’ or ‘domestic ideology’ for men and women, and when they do, they are likely to reference Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall’s Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Working Class, 1780–1850 (1987). This essay takes the 25th anniversary of Family Fortunes as an occasion on which to assess the book and its treatment of the ideology of separate spheres. Careful reading reveals that while Family Fortunes is often remembered as championing an historical focus on the emergence of separate spheres ideology, it is in fact an account of the formation of the English middle class that interprets separate spheres ideology in complex and nuanced ways. The principal contribution of Family Fortunes is its demonstration that notions of gender were central to class as it was constructed and as it was experienced and lived out. Gender was not merely an aspect of social life; rather, gender and class were mutually constitutive.