The Victorian era of the United Kingdom was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901.<1> The reign was a long period of prosperity for the British people, as a result of profits gained from the British Empire, as well as from industrial improvements at home. Some scholars extend the beginning of the period—as defined by a variety of sensibilities and political games that have come to be associated with the Victorians—back five years to the passage of the Reform Act 1832.

The era was preceded by the Georgian period and succeeded by the Edwardian period. The latter half of the Victorian era roughly coincided with the first portion of the Belle Époque era of continental Europe and the Gilded Age of the United States.

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The status of Women in the Victorian Era is often seen as an illustration of the striking discrepancy between England's national power and wealth and what many, then and now, consider its appalling social conditions. During the Era symbolized by the reign of British monarch Queen Victoria, difficulties escalated for women because of the vision of the "ideal women" shared by most in the society. The legal rights of married women were similar to those of children. They could not vote, sue, or own property. Also, they were seen as pure and clean. Because of this view, their bodies were seen as temples that should not be adorned with makeup nor used for such pleasurable things as sex. The role of women was to have children and tend the house. They could not hold a job unless it was that of a teacher, nor were they allowed to have their own checking accounts or savings accounts. They were to be treated as saints, but saints that had no legal rights.
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Socially, the Edwardian era was a period during which the British class system was very rigid. It is seen as the last period of the English country house.

The lower classes, as with earlier periods, were segregated from the aristocratic and mercantile "society", and led lives far removed from the relative luxury enjoyed by the other classes.