Socia Social Reform: Dorothea's Action In Asylum Reform

Although, Dorothea broke off the engagement. Gollaher believes that she never married because she did not want to repeat her parents’ disastrous marriage. However, it is important to note that when a woman married in the nineteenth century, her husband obtained all of her legal and financial standing. In The Law of Baron and Femme, a leading instructor in law during the early years of the century reads, “the husband, by marriage acquires an absolute title to all the personal property of the wife.” If Dorothea married she would not only lose a legal right to dictate the expenditure of her money, but also her ability to lead social reform because once she married her sole occupation would become her husband's household. Additional in England Dorothy met and befriended Dr. Tuke an advocated for the reform of the mentally insane. Tuke introduced Dorothea to the unjust world of the mentally ill, acting as a catalyst for the most extensive Asylum reform in America.
Education, religion, and the condition of the poor were all aspects of society that women felt morally obliged to improve. Dorothea’s action in asylum reform portrays how women of the time maneuvered through the legal world of men in order to gain social reform. Although, Dorothea returned to America in 1837, it was not until 1841 when invited by Reverend John T. G. Nichols to teach a Sunday school in the East Cambridge jail in New England, did Dorothea begin her