Question

Summarise the concern in both nineteenth-century Europe and India about women reading novels. What does this suggest about how women were viewed?

Answer 1

Hint: In the early nineteenth century in Europe and India, there were a lot of fears and opinions about the women of society, starting to read books and novels. The fears of the people in both of these countries were very similar.

Complete Step by Step answer:
The concern in the early nineteenth-century in both Europe and India about women reading novels were very similar and the men of these two countries shared similar opinions and concerns. Women in both these countries were seen as people who were easily swayed and corrupted by thoughts. They thought that an imaginary world that the novel provided was a dangerous opening for the imaginations of its readers, who were mostly women back then. In certain Indian communities back in the nineteenth century, the men felt that women who read novels would want to leave their domestic households and aspire to be part of the outside world which was considered to be the male domain.

These opinions suggest that women were viewed as individuals who were delicate and incapable of being independent. They were only, merely expected to get married to a suitable man, who would take care of their financial needs, while they maintained the domestic household and remained that way throughout.

Note: A novel is usually a published book. This book is written by someone, called the author, in a long narrative form, in the form of a story. The first-ever novel was written and published in the year, 1717 by an author named, Daniel Defoe.