The Victorian Woman:Under the terms of the marriage contract,a husband promised to support his wife in return for her promise to serve and obey him,and many men objected to their wives working outside the home on the grounds that doing so violated this solemn agreement.[Note that this agreement limited men as well,by making them single-handedly responsible for the economic support of the family] Divorce:Once married,only one in ten women divorced.The permanence of most marriages was due to several factors:the relative maturity of those who wed;the cost of maintaining separate households;the difficulty most women found in supporting themselves;as well as the stigma attached to divorce.But the law played an important role as well, especially as legislators became aware of a modest,but nonetheless unsettling,rise in the divorce rate at the end of the century.Between 1889 and 1906,state legislatures, greatly reduced the statutory grounds for divorce. Kits: Awaken+DoodlesLorene Diva