Transcript Victorian Lifestyles and Influence on Thomas Hardy

Victorian
Morality
Social Class
Not dependent on amount of $$$
Income
Birth/family connections
Class revealed in:
Manners
Speech patterns
Clothing
Education
Values
Social Class
Each class had it’s own standards
People were expected to conform to
rules for their specific class
Wrong to behave above or below your
class
A married woman’s class came from
her husband
Courtship
NO DATING!!
19TH century courtship terminology
“making love”
“lover”
Working men and women had more
freedom in their courtship
“walking out”
Simple announcement of marriage – no
permission needed
Courtship
Rural areas
Sex is okay as long as the couple
intended to marry – many of them did as
soon as the woman got pregnant!
Marriage
The law determined who could marry
and how marriages were conducted
Affected a woman’s legal status!
“Husband and wife were ‘one person,
and that person is the husband.’”
Victorian Morality
Prudery, hypocrisy, sexual
repression, rigid social control
“Hard work a moral good in itself; if
wealth followed, it was a fitting
recognition of man’s virtue.” (13)
“Respectability” often more important
than class line
Qualities of the “Respectable”
Punctual
Early rising
Orderly
Concerned for little things*
Self-denial
Self-control
Initiative
Constructive use of leisure time
Prudent marriage
Qualities of the “Respectable”
Good men were chivalrous even
though they made women responsible
for defending their own sexual
morality
Kept quiet about pre-marital or extramarital affairs
Guides for young women advised
them to ask about personal habits
and medical history of potential
husbands
Victorian Feminine Ideal
Stereotyped roles are class bound
Respectable woman = no paid work
Pure woman = home centered life
“Man for the field and woman for the hearth;
Man for the sword, and for the needle she;
Man with the head, and woman with the
heart;
Man to command, and woman to obey;
All else confusion.” - Tennyson
Victorian Feminine Ideal
Respectable girls should know
NOTHING about sex or sexuality until
their wedding night
Since almost all Victorian women
were chaperoned at all times, men
could assume that an unchaperoned
female walking alone was sexually
available