本文就維吉尼亞•伍爾芙的散文〈女性的職業〉一文切入十九世紀末、二十世紀初的「新女性」所承繼的社會現實，切入「家庭天使」這一女德典範的源由。本文略述《家庭天使》一詩的概要始末，再深入分析這個形象背負的種種身份銘刻指涉，尤其是這個形象在女性的階級定位、社會性別與性相規束方面的意義。本文也將勾勒十九、二十世紀之交女權主義發展的思想脈絡，分析其嬗變與實踐對女性命途的影響，由此有助我們從歷史的角度更好地理解伍爾芙所謂「新女性要不懈對抗家庭天使」一言對當下的悠長意義。

By way of discussing Virginia Woolf’s “Professions for Women,” this essay introduces the source of “the Angle in the House,” and examines the social-historical implications of such an idealized womanhood against the background of late 19th—early 20th Century Women’s Movement. Of particular interests is how discriminations in class, gender and sexuality are inscribed into such an image to regulate the subjectivity of women. This essay suggests, “woman” is a space of imagination, a site of contention, one fluctuated under various discursive powers.