The place of women in society was long subordinate to the male and remains so today to a great degree even in the supposedly enlightened Western democracies. In the nineteenth century, it was especially difficult for a woman to find any means of becoming independent, and women generally remained dependent on their fathers, their husbands, or some other male relative. Few women worked, and those who did generally worked in menial capacities and also had to face the scorn of society. A woman such as the title character in Emily Bronte's novel Jane Eyre is at the mercy of fortune in a number of ways. Jane Eyre can serve as an example of the difficulties which a woman had to overcome to achieve any sense of independence as a woman in her time. She is also an example of the shifting role of women in victorian literature, a woman with a traditional role but with a somewhat more empowered orientation.
The story of Jane Eyre takes place at the beginning of a shift from a largely agricultural society to an industrialized society, and this also meant a shift in the labor participation of women in society. Early labor participation was just as likely for women as for men, but in the nineteenth century, the labor force became more male as part of the process of industrialization:
In the eighteenth century, as cottage industries gave way to small textile factories, many employers continued to hire women and children. Not only were women and children more likely to be available in some areas, but they worked for lower wages than men did (Reskin and Padavic 19).
Of course, there are class differences in the degree of participation in labor in all periods, and Jane seeks employment in the upper class of her society. A doctrine that applied at the time was known as the doctrine of separate spheres:
This doctrine, which was born among the English upper-middle classes, called for the separation of work and family life. It held ...