The Reason Women Given the Vote in 1918

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The Reason Women Given the Vote in 1918 Women were not treated as equals with men before the second half of the eighteenth century. They had to marry, obey their husbands and have children, only receiving little education. In the eyes of the law they had little power and men were their superiors. For example, once they were married, everything they owned belonged to their husband, this meant that if they separated the women would be left with nothing, not even her children, as they too, belonged solely to the husband. Around 1850, the rights of women started to change, as laws were made to improve women's education and rights in marriage. However women were still not allowed to vote in the general elections. Many women considered this as a huge prejudice, and that they would have to carry on being second-class citizens until they received the right to vote because a lot of women thought that having a say in general elections would give them more opportunities and rights. Before 1918, only men had the vote, even though they had to qualify by meeting the property qualification (which was someone who earned 40 shillings a year and was a freeholder). Therefore, not all men did qualify, but many women did qualify, and as a result could vote in local elections. Women did have very strong arguments to give them the vote. Here are a few of those arguments: As I mentioned above, people had to meet the property qualification in order to vote. Many women did own property of the right value, and so were entitled to the vote. The Married Women's Property Act made even more women qualify, as they could keep their earnings. Wom... ... middle of paper ... ...world such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the USA had given the vote to women or were introducing it. Britain could not be seen as the one that is left behind. Having evaluated all of the evidence I believe that all the mentioned factors all contributed to women receiving the vote and that they are all interlinked with each other and each factor made getting women the suffrage happen a bit faster. I agree with this statement: "There were three stages in the emancipation of women… the long campaign of propaganda and organisation (the Suffragists)…the campaign of the militants (the Suffragettes)…war. Had there been no militancy and no war, the emancipation of women would have come, although more slowly. But without (the work of the Suffragists), neither militancy nor the War could have produced the crop."

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