Citation

Mccalman J. Victorian Historical Journal 2022; 93(1): 31-46.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022)

DOI

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PMID

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Abstract

Protection of body and soul in colonial Victoria depended on race and class but also gender. A woman without a reliable, effective and respectable male protector as breadwinnera father, a husband or a blood relative would die younger; lose more of her children; have smaller babies at birth; suffer more infertility; risk or suffer destitution; be afflicted by addiction; commit suicide or be murdered than women who enjoyed respectable male protection. There was a hierarchy of entitlement to safety, with convicted women on the second bottom rung along with non-British women such as Chinese, while, at the bottom, utterly vulnerable, were Aboriginal women and girls. The fates of all these groups were the penalties of gender rather than the wages of sin. © 2022, Royal Historical Society of Victoria. All rights reserved.

Language: en