
Charlotte Gilman’s story “The Yellow Wallpaper” was written to illustrate the hardships that women endured due to the gender roles of the 19th century. Prior to the 19th century, women would go out and perform jobs and labor a lot like men would, but during the 19th century the only job men wanted to see women perform were them taking care of the children. Charlotte Gilman’s story is about a woman whose husband has taken it upon himself to diagnose her with a mental illness. He rents out a house that used to be a private asylum and locks her up inside of it. She requests to stay in a prettier room and be able to have a social life, but her husband shuts all of those ideas down and orders her to do what he says. Due to the fact that he is a “doctor” she feels the need to trust him when she really shouldn’t. Her only job in this story is to serve him and get better so she can take care of the children. Charlotte Gilman’s story illustrates the issues with marriage, sexuality, and education in the 19th century,

During the Victorian Period marriage does not even compare to the same as todays. Women have the same rights and the same amount of freedom today, but back in the 19th century you would practically sign yourself over to become some man’s “property”. A quote from a library website states that “Women were assumed to desire marriage because it allowed them to become mothers rather than to pursue sexual or emotional satisfaction” (Hughes). This statement goes right back to the story itself. The woman has no choice when it comes to pursuing sexual or emotional satisfaction, her only job in her life is to raise her children. Her husband locks her up in a private asylum by herself because the only reason he even wants her to be better is to raise the children so that he can go fulfill his dreams and find his own form of satisfaction. During this time period is was also normal to marry men much older than the women. This is due to financial success, which isn’t a bad idea at all. The problem with this though is that sometimes it would take years before a man would be granted permission to marry a woman due to his financial situation, so he would use prostitutes. This would often bring back the popular STD of that time, syphilis, which would ruin marriages and could result in death. Marriage was not a fair contract during this time period. Men would decide when and how it was going to work and women would suffer through it.   

Sexuality is also another huge issue within the 19th century. While men could be out searching for prostitutes another quote from the website says “Young and not-so-young women had no choice but to stay chaste until marriage. They were not even allowed to speak to men unless there was a married woman present as a chaperone” (Hughes). So while men could run around with as many women as they please and still be known as “respectable” (Hughes). Women were forced to be abstinent and wait until possibly their thirties to be sexual with a man that has a fair chance of being a carrier of an STD. While Gilman does not state whether the husband is loyal or not in the story, history proves that most men were not loyal and you could make a strong assumption that he wasn’t one of the good husbands during that time period. The 19th century is very hypocritical; men could do as they please while women could do nothing. 

Education was also a huge fight throughout the 19th century. A quote describing a women’s education is “Women did, though, require a new kind of education to prepare them for this role of “Angel in the House” (Hughes). Rather than attracting a husband through their domestic abilities, middle-class girls were coached in what were known as ‘accomplishments’.” Women did not receive the same education as a man did. They were educated on how to act proper, how to higher their voice, and how to take care of others. In Gilman’s story the narrator was always sneaking off to write in her journal. Proving that women strived to be educated just like men were. The reason for their lack of education in government and subjects like that is simple. With education comes rebellion. The reason marriage is no longer the same as the 19th century is that the educated women of that time period knew that there was more to marriage than simply being signed over. They no longer could take the lack of freedom of that day’s society and now women are just as powerful, if not more powerful than men today.

Charlotte Gilman’s story illustrates the issues with marriage, sexuality, and education in the 19th century. Women were forced to be slaves and home wreckers in their marriages, forced to be abstinent while their fiancés were running around, and given an education that didn’t train them to succeed. Nearly everything was hypocritical in the 19th century. Whatever men could do; women could not do. It was unfair and a terrible time of social justice between genders. 
