Author: Elizabeth Poole Sanford. A British female author whose works revolved around women’s gender roles in the social and domestic spheres in 1842.

 Context: Sanford’s wrote during the Victorian era. In British History, the Victorian era is marked by the reign and death of Queen Victoria from 1832 until 1901. This period was marked by cultural shifts from romanticism to rationalism as well as societal peace and economic prosperity; Sanford herself thought romantic notions of love and passion were in decline.

Language: The language is elementary. Sanford uses neither specialized jargon to weed out the less refined and educated members of society, nor language so simple as to hinder efficient writing.

Audience: Middle-class women. Primarily, married women who must nurture their man through the outlet of domestic comforts. Aristocratic women most likely have servants for domestic maintenance and their own elite social norms and mannerisms, while lower class women are most likely have differing, more industrial priorities.

Intent: Sanford’s intent is to teach the women of the middle class how to properly behave in the domestic and social spheres in order to support their husbands and to help them realize their role and position in accordance to their male counterparts in society.

Message: Romanticism is dying, and women now have a more practical role in society as a functioning domestic member rather than an object of love or passion. In order to obtain less romantic, but more sincere love a women must nurture her man by maintaining his and their domestic environment; to put as much of their domestic labor on her shoulders as her sincerely willing, dependent inferior. That remains her proper role in society as well as in the relationship.