During the Victorian era, women were expected to maintain a poised and dignified manner, and to obey their husbands. 

George Bernard Shaw was troubled by the fact that men often made  use of “laws that gave him total control of his wife’s person – and her fortune”. 

His play, ‘Mrs. Warren’s Profession’ (1905) was a critique of the ideological and economic system that produced Mrs. Warren, attacking the double standard of male privilege and the deeply entrenched objectification of women.

He said he wrote the play “to draw attention to the truth that prostitution is caused, not by female depravity, but simply by underpaying, undervaluing and overworking women so shamefully that the poorest of them are forced to resort to prostitution to keep body and soul together.”

Now do you see how Shaw might have seen himself as a type of Don Quixote?