The Changing Role of Women in Edwardian society Cont'd

As Horn points out, an 'educated' woman was expected to play piano, speak a little French and German, acquire (perhaps) a superficial knowledge of history and geography and learn to draw and paint. She was certainly not expected to go to univeristy or set up her own business, although there were upper and middle class women who were entrepreneurs (and who needed the money!). Lady Lucy Duff-Gordon, for example, established a dress salon in Hanover Square, Mayfair under the name 'Madame Lucille'. Ursula, of course, is not engaged in any 'fashionable' sort of business such as this and, without an aristocratic background, faces society's censure and hostility over her decision to try and manage her father's textile empire. Moreover, she refuses to marry and assume the appropriate role of a woman in Edwardian society. In The Serpent and The Scorpion I got the chance to explore Ursula's quest for independence against a background that heralded major changes in the role of women. In 1912 Ursula feels besieged on all fronts in her efforts to maintain control over her father’s textile empire. When writing the book however, I could hardly ignore the historical reality that in just over two years, the Great War would require women of all classes to adapt and change - and that the war would, in turn, open up roles that until then were unheard of for women.