WOMEN IN THE 'FORTIES AND 'FIFTIES
On the position and influence of women in society Punch, as we have already seen, furnishes a critical if not a complete commentary. Extravagance, exclusiveness and arrogance are faithfully dealt with. There is genuine satire in the picture of the fine lady who, on hearing that her pet dog had bitten the footman in the leg, expressed the fervent hope that it would not make the dog ill. Fashionable delicacy is ridiculed, and Punch ranged himself on the side of "S.G.O." (Lord Sidney Godolphin Osborne) in his crusade in The Times against Mayfair matrons for not nursing their own offspring, and for employing wet-nurses who, in turn, had to starve their own children. A few years earlier, when the question "Can Women regenerate Society?" was seriously discussed in the same journal, the issue is drowned by Punch in a stream of comic suggestions. There is not much to choose between the "Dolls' House" ideal and that expressed in the sonnet printed in the winter of 1846:—
I idolize the ladies. They are fairies
That spiritualize this earth of ours;
From heavenly hotbeds, most delightful flowers,
Or choice cream-cheeses from celestial dairies.
But learning in its barbarous seminaries,
Gives the dear creatures many wretched hours,
And on their gossamer intellects sternly showers
Science with all its horrid accessaries.