act that her class origins oblige her to work to help support the family. Indeed, her recourse to earning a living is one of the few assertive features of her character. In any case, her father is not a very effective breadwinner, which can be interpreted as Hardy's tacit comment on the ability or willingness of a certain type of man who does not fill the social role of leadership commonly associated with men.
Among the class her parents expect Tess to join, however, women have their proper identity only according as they are wives or daughters. When Angel proposes to Tess, the expectation is not that she will work for a living, for she is being lifted out of the dairymaid class and into the middle class. The working women of middle-class acquaintance are after all perceived to belong to a class below. Tess's position as a poultry servant is not only a result of Alec's withholding Tess's family claim from his mother but also an index of the social distance between genteel families and their employees. Her position as a dairymaid, Angel's fascination
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