a. Ties between members of households loosened, and among the working classthe institution of marriage tended to break down.

b. Women of the upper and middle classes in Britain, on the other hand, faced increasingly higher levels of isolation, although their lives were made easier bydomestic maids who cooked, cleaned and cared for young children on low wages.

c. Women who worked for wages had some control over their lives, particularly among the lower social classes. However, many social reformers felt that thefamily as an institution had broken down, and needed to be saved or reconstructed by pushing these women back into the home.

d. The city encouraged a new spirit of individualism among both men and women, and a freedom from the collective values that were a feature of thesmaller rural communities.

e. But men and women did not have equal access to this new urban space. Aswomen lost their industrial jobs and conservative people railed against theirpresence in public spaces, women were forced tto withdraw into their homes.