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

In his novel ‘The Odd Women’, George Gissing describes London and all the places which are very important for the storytelling.
In this novel, there is an interesting connection between women and public spaces. Edmund Widdowson tries to restrict Monica’s movement around the city by marrying her, he argues that: ‘It is only this cursed London that has come between us’. He blames the underground, the transport services and all the places which he considers the cause of his separation from his wife.
Two other girls of the novel, Amy Drake and Miss Eade are accused of immorality because of their mobility in public spaces. Miss Eade, in fact, becomes a prostitute at Victoria Station. Gissing seems to believe that, for some women, freedom and independence can be very dangerous. Monica Madden loves to travel and makes frequent journeys alone (against her husband’s will). The underground represents a place where she can feel independent, but also an ideal place for long conversations.
In chapter XVIII, for example, Sloane Square Station is the place where Monica accidentally met Everard Barfoot, they travelled together and ‘[...] talked with a new appearance of mutual confidence and interest [...]’. Their friendly conversation was about marriage and relationships, later they reached Bayswater, where Everard lived, and she continued her travel alone until her stop at Portland Road.
This novel also shows the way in which women move around the city freely and alone. They know that they are subjected to the male gaze of potential suitors or jealous husbands, but their desire of freedom and independence is stronger than any possible accusation against them. Monica is a great example, she travels alone from the South London suburb of Herne Hill and she visits Battersea (where her sisters live), Regent’s Park, Bayswater (where both Everard Barfoot and her lover Bevis live) and also the Royal Academy art exhibition at Burlington House. The feminists Mary Barfoot and Rhoda Nunn live in Chelsea and run their important school in Great Portland Street.
Virginia, Monica’s sister, is another woman who walks alone around the city. She moves from Battersea Park, over Chelsea Bridge, through Victoria and Charing Cross and when she comes back home, she succumbs to a secret vice, solitary drinking, in the bar at Charing Cross Station. These women are perfectly capable of moving around the city by themselves, without any guide, especially without a male guide. For example, Monica’s confidence is also the consequence of her working experience. She was a shop-girl in a draper’s on Walworth Road, a trainee typist in Great Portland Street, then she got married and went living to Herne Hill.
She experienced both the life of working-class women and that of wealthy women. However, the change in her status did not prevent her from walking around the city alone, visiting her sisters and friends. Her desire for freedom was one of the reasons why she always quarrelled with her husband who did not want her wife to walk alone:

‘Oh, but I can't have you going about alone at night.
Why not? answered Monica, with a just perceptible note of irritation.
Are you afraid I shall be robbed or murdered?
Nonsense. But you mustn't be alone.
Didn't I always use to be alone?
He made an angry gesture’.

Edmund Widdowson is completely jealous of his wife and he thinks that respectable women should not walk alone, he refuses to accept Monica’s attitude and her continuous desire for independence. He argues that she is a married woman and must accept her husband’s will. Monica, however, does not care for what her husband thinks about her behaviour.