Kyle O'Brien
DR. Jeff Hornibrook
3/19/18
In this paper I will show that in both A Daughter of Han and The Conditions of the Working
Class in England women are reasonable for working, work breaks up the family unit; and in both
families struggle to make ends meet.
In A Daughter of Han women are responsible for working. Women spend many hours of
their day working outside of the home. In the case of Mantez we see that she is forced to work
because her husband is a sever opium addict. Traditionally in their society her family would help
pay for some basic things such as food or cloths for the first child; but her parents had moved
away shortly after she was married off. With her family gone she was left only with her husband;
unfortunately for her her husband like many others at the time in china had a crippling opium
addiction. The time he was home he spent stealing every last penny he could to buy more opium.
With her husband more or less gone she had to work to try and feed her family. This became a
reality for many women in china at the time as the opium wars heated up more and more people
became addicted as the westerners flooded the market with opium. Having to work breaks up the
family unit for many families during this time. We see this in A Daughter of Han more than
once. One of the times we see this in A Daughter of Han when Mantez doesn’t feel comfortable
leaving her daughter home alone but she must because she has to go to work. We also see the
family unit broken up when Tai-tai's husband has to leave for long periods of time for his job as
a fisherman. This breaks up their family taking the father figure away for weeks or months at a
time and only bring him back for a few days at a time. In the case of Tai-tai we again see women
being forced to work because while her husband had a job the text shows that most fisher men
ended up spending all their money on alcohol and smoking leaving little or nothing for the
family. With the husband spending all the money she must work to feed her family.
In The Conditions of the Working Class in England we see women being forced to work
because factories preferred to heir women; as a result of this women ended up representing a
majority of the work force about 70% of the workforce1. We see this in the story of Jack a
working man who moved to St. Helens in search of work only to find that while work for women
and children was plentiful men had a significantly harder time finding work2. These hiring
practices were most likely the result of the significantly lower wages that could be paid to
women and children. Because of the majority of the work force being women working at a lower
rate than the men many families had trouble making ends meet. We see this when Engels
mentions that the wages of women and children would have fallen more had they not been so
low to begin with3. This lead to a breakup of the family unit which had detrimental societal
impacts. This breakup of the family unit took the mother away from the home for 12 hours a day
leaving the children to fend for themselves often times. In districts where the this type of family
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dynamic was common child mortality rose dramatically. In industrial districts there were 225
accidental deaths involving children while in non-industrial districts there were only 146 such
deaths in the same span of time4. Aside from this also takes the parents out of the home during
dining times. However this doesn’t always completely destroy the family dynamic as families
where the father is unable to find work they are left home to assume the traditional matronly
duties, in these families they were better able to look after their children as both parents aren't out
of the house 12 plus hours a day.
These two sources have many similarities. People in these two sources though separated
by thousands of miles lived somewhat similar lives. In both one of the key points is how the
family dynamic is effected by the changing and globalizing workforce. We see how the opium
wars started by the globalization of trade brings opium to the Chinese shores creating dramatic
changes in the Chinese workforce and home structures.
In A Daughter of Han the effect opium has on the population stands out, as we see
families torn apart by the drug. Surprisingly I feel that the men and women of this time would fit
in to the 21st century world better then one might expect. This would be due to men and women
being used to people working in nontraditional gender roles as many of them worked in
nontraditional gender roles.
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