Women's Role in the Late-Victorian England: George Gissing's The Odd Women and the 19th century Debate on Marriage and Divorce

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faithful friends and stepped forward to guard the interests of Gissing's 
sons and keep his books in print
14
.  
Women left a lasting imprint upon Gissing. Thanks to all of them 
(sisters, friends and wives), he could portray the society of his time 
and deal with the so-called 'Woman Question'. The author, in fact, saw 
it as an important movement of the century. Feminists persuaded 
many women to give up the old ideal of womanhood for a new one; 
they fought for freedom, independence and the right to vote. During 
the last two decades of the century, the New Woman appeared on the 
scene. She was described as emancipated, advanced, enlightened. By 
the end of the century, everyone was talking about her, Gissing 
himself had been asked to write a series of articles for a magazine and, 
in some of the author's novels, there was also the description of 
characters who represented the first type of New Woman. In Denzil 
Quarrier, written after New Grub Street and published in 1892, Mrs. 
Wade, the first of Gissing's feminists, promotes the cause of the 
women's movement. In The Odd Women (1893), the novel that I chose 
to analyse, Rhoda Nunn fights for girls' education and independence, 
she claims that women have to work and earn money, in order to live 
without men's help. In The Emancipated (1890), the Denyer sisters 
express the resolve to be modern liberated women or perish in the 
attempt. According to Haydock, however, Gissing's finest portrayal of 
the new woman was Constance Bride, from Our Friend the Charlatan 
                                                           
14 See Paul Delany, George Gissing - A life, pp. 377-378.