This is not true at all. In terms of having kids, certainly the kinds of birth control we have today had not been invented, but there were still methods of preventing pregnancy - how do you think prostitutes kept themselves from being pregnant all the time? They used some kind of "cleaning" method with a sponge and vinegar or some such thing. There were also various herbs one could purchase on the sly from the local "wise women" that might induce abortion, plus back-ally abortions - some even done by husbands. Women have always had ways of preventing pregnancy or killing their own babies.
Divorce was more difficult for both men and women, it couldn't be done on a whim. But if you read books, it was still possible (for those with financial means) to simply abandon their spouse and live elsewhere with their lover, which might induce the spouse to agree to divorce.
Poor and lower class women have always had to work, as you should know - who do you think housemaids, laundry women, housekeepers, dressmakers were? Women (and children) even worked in coal mines, plus factories of course. There were jobs that either barred women, or they couldn't easily access because they were seldom educated for it, but that also applied to most poor men too. They could also own businesses - the most common were probably dressmaking/milliner's shops, or boarding houses.
Depending on where she lived, there were things a woman couldn't do, or couldn't easily have access to, but these history myths are a gross exaggeration. There is a strange tendency with feminists to keep parroting these myths about downtrodden, enslaved women in comparison to privileged men. They're comparing myths about women to the top ranks of men - the vast majority of men didn't have choices in education or jobs, the majority of them had dangerous low-paying jobs, and no money for education to get a better one, and weren't "in charge" of anyone, just had a supervisor yelling at them for their 8 or 10 or 12 hour shift.
This is not true at all. In terms of having kids, certainly the kinds of birth control we have today had not been invented, but there were still methods of preventing pregnancy - how do you think prostitutes kept themselves from being pregnant all the time? They used some kind of "cleaning" method with a sponge and vinegar or some such thing. There were also various herbs one could purchase on the sly from the local "wise women" that might induce abortion, plus back-ally abortions - some even done by husbands. Women have always had ways of preventing pregnancy or killing their own babies.
Divorce was more difficult for both men and women, it couldn't be done on a whim. But if you read books, it was still possible (for those with financial means) to simply abandon their spouse and live elsewhere with their lover, which might induce the spouse to agree to divorce.
Poor and lower class women have always had to work, as you should know - who do you think housemaids, laundry women, housekeepers, dressmakers were? Women (and children) even worked in coal mines, plus factories of course. There were jobs that either barred women, or they couldn't easily access because they were seldom educated for it, but that also applied to most poor men too. They could also own businesses - the most common were probably dressmaking/milliner's shops, or boarding houses.
Depending on where she lived, there were things a woman couldn't do, or couldn't easily have access to, but these history myths are a gross exaggeration. There is a strange tendency with feminists to keep parroting these myths about downtrodden, enslaved women in comparison to privileged men. They're comparing myths about women to the top ranks of men - the vast majority of men didn't have choices in education or jobs, the majority of them had dangerous low-paying jobs, and no money for education to get a better one, and weren't "in charge" of anyone, just had a supervisor yelling at them for their 8 or 10 or 12 hour shift.