To appreciate the benefits that capitalism brought to women, one must compare their status under capitalism with their condition in the preceding centuries. But the 19th Century critics of capitalism di not do this; instead, they distorted and falsified history, glamorizing the past and disparaging everything modern by contrast.
For instance, Robert Oastler, one of the most fanatical 19th Century enemies of capitalism, claimed that everyone was better off spiritually and materially in the Middle Ages than in the early 19th Century. Describing medieval England, Oastler rhapsodized about the lost golden age: “Oh, what a beautiful ship was England once! She was well built, well manned, well provisioned, well rigged! All were merry, cheerful and happy on board!”
This was said of centuries in which the bulk of the population were peasants in a servile condition, bound by status, not free to change their mode of life or to move from their birthplace, when people had only the promise of of happiness in the life beyond the grave to succor them against decimating plagues, recurring famines and, at best, half-filled stomachs; when people lived in homes so infested with dirt and vermin that one historian’s verdict about these homes was: ” From a health point of view, the only thing to be said in their favor was that they burned down very easily.”
The Effects of the Industrial Revolution on Women and Children – Robert Hessen (1962)
I like to think of this as a history lesson on the modern day representatives of Oastler, namely the enviro-nutjob movement. Also known as those who would like to see a return of serfdom, with the people serving their betters in government. Instead of Lords and Ladies, they would have us serving under regional Dictocrats.