Phase 3- Contagious Disease Acts

Option 2: Look more closely at “Mrs. Malleson’s Reply”

1) How can the topics and arguments she offers inform us of what was customary at the time?
Mrs. Malleson makes several arguments that show the reader what was customary and socially acceptable at the time. The overarching social problem seems to be, in Mrs. Malleson’s opinion, the unconditional power men have over all women. She points out several problems that come from this. The first is that the Contagious Disease Acts only punish the women who are prostitutes, not the men who use their services. She points out that men have so much power they can use these women and never suffer consequences. While the prostitutes may have a certain degree of responsibility for the spread of venereal disease the men who are their clients have more responsibility. Not only are they catching the diseases themselves, they have the potential to spread it amongst other prostitutes and they could also take the disease home to their innocent wives and children. Mrs. Malleson says that while prostitution is certainly immoral the men, not just the women, need to be held responsible.
According to her there were no real consequences for men who used prostitutes, not only could they not be punished by law, their wives could not leave them. At this time only men could ask for divorce and they could ask for it for one episode of infidelity by their wives. The women on the other hand could know of countless episodes of unfaithfulness and could not leave the situation. This posed a problem for them because they were essentially required to meet their husband’s sexual needs in marriage, but by doing this they were at risk of getting a venereal disease from their husbands.
This fact that upstanding women could end up with a disease because of unfaithful husbands probably helped to fuel another concern of those opposed to the contagious disease acts. This concern was that men in power would abuse their power over women and upstanding women would be punished for their disease as much as prostitutes. She said that so far this has not seemed to happen but the potential is there because the power men have over women is complete.
Mrs. Malleson does not believe the contagious disease acts are the best solution to the problem of prostitution and venereal disease. She believes that forcibly examining and treating these women is simply treating a symptom of the problem rather than the cause. She believe that women need to be educated so they can be independent from the power men have over them and consequently be free of the immoral influence of men. She also believes that women need to have more opportunities for honest work so that they can make a living without needing to rely on a man. She points out that this would not only help women who are considered prostitutes by society but also women who she believes participate in a form of socially acceptable prostitution. She believes that the way women must use themselves to get a man to marry them and provide for them is simply another form of women selling themselves.
2) How can the way she develops her critique demonstrate certain tropes or strategies that were valued in women’s public discourse?

Mrs. Malleson uses her position as a woman, and therefore a supposedly more pure and moral human to argue her points. She often says that the reader should not look at whether the legislation is necessary but whether the legislation is right (i.e. moral). At this time it seems that (most) women were considered morally superior beings and Mrs. Malleson uses this belief to her advantage. Not only does she paint herself as speaking from a position of morality, but she also paints prostitutes as victims of immorality by men rather than intrinsically immoral people. When she uses this position of speaking about morality it allows her to communicate in the public sphere without losing her femininity. If she were to argue this from a scientific standpoint with less discourse of morality she may have been considered un-feminine and therefore would have lost any credibility she had on the subject. She manages to maintain her identity as a woman throughout which allows her to discuss moral implications of prostitution with some authority because she is a woman and therefore a supposed guide to morality.

I find it interesting that Mrs. Malleson was able to voice this opinion and apparently be a married woman. I wonder if her husband had some objection to this or if maybe she had a rather untraditional sort of marriage for the time? I also wonder how difficult it was for her to attack men as immoral being without compromising herself?