Victorian Context: Marriage 

In the 19th century there were marriage manuals, which included advice for young wives. This included William Andrus Alcott’s 1837 book The Young Wife, or Duties of Woman in the Marriage Relation 

• It covered a range of topics: domestic economy, conjugal duties, and submission to one’s husband
• The bulk of 19^th century marriage manuals were directed at young middle and upper classes wives 
• There was a reliance on christian teachings/beliefs as a foundation for women’s conduct 
• Thet were based on Alcott’s description being married = a life sentence of misery and servitude – especially if the gentlemen they chose acted inappropriately 
• For this reason, many authors of 19^th century marriage manuals emphasise the critical importance of choosing a proper husband. 

 The Young Wife, or Duties of Woman in the Marriage Relation – William Alcott (1837)

• a forbearing silence on the subject of her wrongs
• fulfilling as usual the daily routine of Christian and domestic duties, calm and unruffled
• let her transfer her alienated affections to her children.

Mention of men 

• being naturally more sensual – excusing adultery for men as its innate 
• Men are less called and less accustomed than women

Modern day articles and Youtube videos are still created demonstrating how people think women should conduct themselves to get a husband 

The Story of an Hour – Kate Chopin 

• The story follows a woman whose husband dies in an accident 
• She is seemingly elated and thinking of her now better future w/o the husband – ‘years to come that would belong to her absolutely’
• The husband didn’t actually die – he returns and she dies 

‘She had died of heart disease – of joy that kills 

• Ironic – Finds freedom in death 
• Shows there’s no winning for a woman in victorian society – especially in marriage 

From 1800-1857 only saw 4/200 divorces instigated by wives – despite the Matrimonial Causes Act granting this in the first place – there remained a sexual double standard

• Husbands could file based on adultery but wives had to meet more than one condition on top of that 
• Divorces were reported in the press and took away social status 
• For most of the century, childbirth was anaesthesia free and the leading cause of death for women 
• Lack of birth control → average of six children at mid-century 
• By 27-30, unmarried women were probably doomed to spinsterhood and remain their family’s social embarrassment and financial drains 

Marriage and Desire 

From the Antique 

• ‘It’s a weary life, it is, she said:

Double blank in a woman’s lot:

I wish and i wish i were a man:’

• Emphasise the bleak and monotonous life of a women 
• Rosetti didn’t want to seem like she was going against the societal norms/gender expectations so chose to publish it in her lifetime 

The Book of Household Management – Mrs Isabella Mary Beeton 

• Compares mistress of house as ‘commander of an army’ – enters the highest rank when entering knowledge of household duties 
• ‘… discomfort and suffering which I had seen brought upon men and women by household mismanagement’
• I have always thought that there is no more fruitful spec of family discontent than a housewife’s badly cooked dinners and untidy ways’

William Acton: ‘The majority of women (happily for he) are not very much troubled with sexual feeling of any kind’

• Diminishes women’s sexual desires
• Shun any women in vict society who tries to explore their sexual desires – fallen women, unclean, not pure

Augustus Egg – Past and Present Series 

The theme of the triptych is the discovery of the woman’s infidelity and its consequences

Depicts a man finding out his wife has been unfaithful House full of symbols: House of cards collapsing = failed marriageApple cut in half = Eve

The two orphaned girls comfort each other – father recently died while mother was driven out of the home as a fallen women

The children’s mother, now destitute, has taken refuge under one of the Adelphi arches, sheltering the child from her affair

• Egg’s pictures demonstrate how in Victorian England the full weight of the moral code fell upon women. 
• A man could safely take a mistress without fear of recrimination, but for a woman to be unfaithful was an unforgivable crime.

Caroline Norton (an early feminist) : ‘the faults of women are visited as sins, the sins of men are not even visited as faults’ (quoted in Lambourne, p.374).

Ibsen + Rosetti 

• Both explore oppression of female speakers – due to legal restrictions and 
• also differences in education

• middle/upperclassmen go to univeristy for careers such as law and medicine 
• Women: focus on aspects which would make them appealing within marriage e.g housekeeping 
• ‘Blue stocking’: women who tried to pursue higher education – ovaries shrivel making them inadequate for marriage 

• Issues are still seen in Africa w/ only 70 girls enrolled in ed for every 100 boys 
• Shut out + past and present share similarities in the depiction of fallen women; degraded, cast out 
• Similarly also with ‘skenes pale young wife’ (In The Round Tower)
• Standings of inequality sexual relations are still in the modern era – female rape victims accused of provoking male attackers via choice of outfit, instead of the law condoning the man’s actions 

A Mummer’s Wife 

• recognised by W B Yeats as the first Naturalist novel written in English and he forbade his sister to read it
• Charles Mudie’s (English publisher) decision to ban it from his famous circulating library prompted an attack by Moore in his pamphlet Literature at Nurse.
• Summary: the novel tells the story of Kate Ede, a bored Midlands housewife unhappily married to an asthmatic draper.  When a handsome travelling actor comes to lodge with her family, she succumbs to temptation, with disastrous consequences.
• NATURALISM: to present the physical essence of man and his environment.
• Naturalism received an impetus after World War I, when novelists felt they had a duty to depict the filth, suffering, and degradation of the soldier’s life, without euphemism.
• Rosetti: transformation of a woman’s desire 

• GM – Laura + Jeanie
• Soeur Louise 

Before the affair 

• Highlights her monotonous life – gaining solace in reading 
• Unappreciated and unloved by husband 

The Affair begins 

• ‘He was forgotten in a sudden delirium of sense’ → easily forgets husband when in the arms of her lover 
• This acne was one of the main reasons why the novel was banned in some libraries and seen as controversial

After the affair 

• ‘Become twisted, broken, confused … The middle-class women .. had disappeared’
• ‘Dragged the nails of the other down his face’ → turned manic, mad 
• Ending reinforces the view of women as being unable to survive after giving in to their desired 
• Show consequences in women receiving freedom, especially sexual freedom

Reception of the Novel

• The novel is still seen as supporting views on gender at the time → since Kate ends up being manic and eventually dying 
• Seen as a warning against women reading [as Kate gets ideas in her head about romance and changing her life from the novels she reads.]

Prostitution 

• Prostitutes are often arrested (avg 2.5k) annually – to keep streets ‘clean’ and free of ‘fallen and ‘wicked’

• Prostitution done instead of low pay of other women’s work – to escape from supervision of factory work and domestic services
• prostitution was highly representative of women in the 19th century – most women in the 19th century (prostitutes and married women) had no choice anyway e.g they cannot say no to their husband 
• In the 19th century, people used the term prostitute more widely to refer to women living with men outside marriage or women with illegitimate children or women who had relations with men but for pleasure rather than money 

• Acton said he ‘counted 185 [prostitutes] in the course of a walk one’ – seems he based his judgements on women in the way they dressed or behaved in ways men considered inappropriate were deemed to be whores – still seen in the modern era with women seemingly ‘asking for it’ when wearing more revealing clothing 
• A magazine at the time suggested the answer for women to not be accosted was to dress in ugly clothes and keep their heads down 
• 1971: police magistrate estimated there were 50k prostitutes in London