Victorian morality. About the clothes and decency of girls in Victorian England The most beautiful girls of the Victorian era

The life of a typical Englishwoman of the Victorian period seems to many to be too limited. Of course, the rules of etiquette of the 19th century were much stricter than modern ones, but make no mistake - the clichés we are used to, inspired by literature and cinema, do not reflect the reality of the Victorian period of English history. Below, five major misconceptions about women's lives in 19th-century Britain are debunked.

They didn't die young

The average age to which people lived in the Victorian era was 40 years. Like all averages, it is taken into account the high mortality rate of children and infants, which is why the figure is so low. However, it does not reflect reality - if a girl did not die in childhood and adolescence, then her chance of living to a ripe old age was very high. English ladies lived to be 60-70, or even 80 years old. The likelihood of reaching extreme old age has increased with improvements in sanitation and medicine.

They didn't marry in their youth

By the end of the 18th century middle age first marriage was 28 years for men and 26 years for women. In the 19th century, women walked down the aisle earlier, but the average age did not fall below 22 years. Of course, this depended on the social and financial status of women. Representatives of the working class tied themselves into marriage much later than aristocrats, but even in the upper strata of society, girls, as a rule, were not married off in their youth.

They didn't marry relatives

The history of England shows frequent marriages between representatives of the same family, especially if we mean the ruling dynasty. In the early 19th century, marriages between first cousins ​​were the norm, as endogamy offered a number of benefits. Possessions remained in the hands of close relatives, and the easiest way for girls was to find grooms within the family circle. Later, endogamy became much less common. This was influenced by the development of railways and other modes of transport, which significantly expanded opportunities for dating. Also in the 19th century, marriages between relatives began to be considered for the first time as a cause of inbreeding and defects in the birth of children. However, among representatives of the aristocracy, the tradition of endogamy continued for some time. Even the great founder of the theory of evolution, Charles Darwin, was married to his cousin. Queen Victoria married Prince Albert, her cousin.

They didn't wear tight corsets

The popular image of the Victorian girl was always accompanied by a very tight corset, which often caused fainting. This image is not entirely correct. Yes, ideal female beauty was based on a wasp waist, which could only be achieved with the help of corsets, but the everyday outfit of an English lady did not require the most tightened cords. Many considered the corset more of an orthopedic device for straightening posture than a decorative element of the toilet.

It is now believed that for a narrower waist, the Victorian era gave rise to the procedure of surgical removal of the thighs. In reality, such an operation did not exist in the 19th century.

They weren't dressed all in pink

If the British victorian era If they saw today's color preferences for children of different sexes, they would probably be very surprised. In the 19th century, it was customary for children under 6 to dress in white clothes. This preference was due not so much to the “innocence” of the color, but to a practical approach to washing children's clothes. White fabric it was easy to boil and bleach. As children grew older, they were dressed in clothes of more muted colors, which were also worn by adults. Red was considered a strong masculine color, while blue was considered more delicate and feminine, so pink boys were dressed, while blue was preferred for girls. The color revolution in children's clothing happened only in the middle of the 20th century.

There are a lot of pictures and photos of vintage Victorian and modern dresses.

Quotes from the book by Tatyana Dittrich " Daily life Victorian England"

The Victorian world was divided into only two colors: white and black! Either she is virtuous to the point of absurdity, or she is depraved! Moreover, one could be classified in the last category simply because of the wrong color of shoes, because of flirting in front of everyone with a gentleman during a dance, and you never know why young girls were awarded the stigma from old maids that, having pursed their lips in a thin thread, watched the youth at the balls.

Girls and young women were also under constant surveillance by the servants. The maids woke them up, dressed them, served them at the table, the young ladies made morning visits accompanied by a footman and groom, at balls or at the theater they were with mothers and matchmakers, and in the evening, when they returned home, sleepy maids undressed them. The poor things were hardly left alone at all. If a miss (an unmarried lady) slipped away from her maid, matchmaker, sister and acquaintances for only an hour, then dirty assumptions were already made that something might have happened. From that moment on, the contenders for their hand and heart seemed to evaporate.

Girls from good families they were never allowed to be alone with a man, even for a few minutes in the living room of their own home. Society was convinced that as soon as a man was alone with a girl, he would immediately harass her. These were the conventions of the time. Men were in search of victims and prey, and girls were protected from those who wanted to pluck the flower of innocence.

Courtship was supposed to be public, consisting of ritual conversations, symbolic gestures and signs. The most common location sign intended specifically for prying eyes was permission young man carry a prayer book belonging to a girl upon returning from Sunday worship..

However, all conventions ended where poverty reigned. Girls born into poor families worked until exhaustion and could not resist when, for example, the owner of the store where they worked persuaded them to cohabitate. Imagine if at the same time she had to feed her elderly parents and little sisters! She had no choice but to sacrifice herself for them! For many poor girls, this could have been a way out of poverty, if not for the children born out of wedlock, which changed everything in their situation. At the slightest hint of pregnancy, the lover left them, sometimes without any means of subsistence.

During the feast, the custom of the so-called segregation of sexes was observed: at the end of the meal, the women got up and left, the men remained to smoke a cigar, drink a glass of port and talk about abstract problems and lofty matters..

The statistics were inexorable. For every former saleswoman from a store who proudly walked in expensive outfits into the apartment that her lover rented for her, there were hundreds whose lives were ruined for the same reason. A man could lie about his status, or intimidate, or bribe, or take by force, you never know the ways in which resistance can be broken. But, having achieved his goal, he most often remained indifferent to what would happen to the poor girl, who would definitely tire of him.

Open manifestations of sympathy and affection between a man and a woman, even in a harmless form, without intimacy, were strictly prohibited. The word "love" was completely taboo. The limit of frankness in explanations was the password "Can I hope?" and the response “I have to think.”
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With the beginning of the season, there was a revival in the world, and if a girl had not found a husband last year, her worried mother could change the matchmaker and start hunting for suitors all over again. In this case, the age of the matchmaker did not matter. Sometimes she was even younger and more playful than the treasure she offered and at the same time carefully guarded. Retire to winter garden allowed only for the purpose of marriage proposal..

If a girl disappeared for 10 minutes during a dance, then in the eyes of society she had already noticeably lost her value, so the matchmaker during the ball constantly turned her head in all directions so that her ward remained in sight. During the dances, the girls sat on a well-lit sofa or in a row of chairs, and young people approached them to sign up in a ballroom book for a specific dance number.

Two dances in a row with the same gentleman attracted everyone's attention, and the matchmakers began to whisper about the engagement. Only Prince Albert and Queen Victoria were allowed three in a row.

And it was certainly completely inappropriate for ladies to visit a gentleman, except on very important matters. Every now and then in the English literature of that time examples are given: “She knocked nervously and immediately regretted it and looked around, afraid to see suspicion or ridicule among the respectable matrons passing by. She had doubts, because a lonely girl should not visit a lonely man. She pulled herself together, straightened up and knocked again more confidently. The gentleman was her manager, and she really needed to talk to him urgently.”

Months, or even years, passed in Victorian times between the emergence of sympathy for each other, beginning with the fluttering of eyelashes, timid glances lingering a little longer on the object of interest, sighs, a slight blush, rapid heartbeat, excitement in the chest, and the decisive explanation. From that moment on, everything depended on whether the girl’s parents liked the candidate for her hand and heart. If not, then they tried to find another candidate who met the main criteria of that time: title, respectability (or public opinion) and money. Having interested their daughter’s future chosen one, who could be several times older than her and cause disgust, the parents reassured her that he would endure it and fall in love. In such a situation, the opportunity to quickly become widowed was attractive, especially if the husband left a will in her favor

Months, or even years, passed in Victorian times between the emergence of sympathy for each other, beginning with the fluttering of eyelashes, timid glances lingering a little longer on the object of interest, sighs, a slight blush, rapid heartbeat, excitement in the chest, and the decisive explanation. From that moment on, everything depended on whether the girl’s parents liked the candidate for her hand and heart. If not, then they tried to find another candidate who met the main criteria of that time: title, respectability (or public opinion) and money. Having interested their daughter’s future chosen one, who could be several times older than her and cause disgust, the parents reassured her that he would endure it and fall in love. In such a situation, the opportunity to quickly become a widow was attractive, especially if the husband left a will in her favor.

If a girl did not marry and lived with her parents, then most often she was a captive in her own home, where she continued to be treated as a minor who did not have her own opinions and desires. After the death of her father and mother, the inheritance was most often left to the elder brother, and she, having no means of subsistence, moved to live with his family, where she was always put in last place. The servants carried her around at the table, her brother’s wife commanded her, and again she found herself completely dependent. If there were no brothers, then the girl, after her parents left this world, moved to her sister’s family, because it was believed that an unmarried girl, even if she was an adult, was not able to take care of herself. There it was even worse, since in this case her fate was decided by her brother-in-law, that is, a stranger. When a woman got married, she ceased to be the owner of her own money, which was given as a dowry for her. .

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Times have changed. Looking for Victorian features in the life of modern Britain is the same as asking an Englishman to study life modern Russia based on the novels of Turgenev and Dostoevsky. But the sign remained that at the wedding there should be something old, something new, borrowed and something blue (“something old and something new, something borrowed and something blue”).

This sign began in Victorian times and since then many brides have tried to dress in accordance with tradition. Something old symbolizes the connection with the bride's family, peace and wisdom in marriage. Many brides wear some old family jewelry. Something new symbolizes good luck and success in the bride's new life. Something borrowed reminds the bride that her friends and family members will always be there if their help is needed, this item can be borrowed from a married woman who is happily married with the blessing of a good family life. Something blue (both among pagans and Christians) means love, modesty, and fidelity. Usually this is a garter.

In Victorian England, a woman who wore makeup was considered a prostitute. And although a pale complexion and bright red lips were popular even before Queen Victoria came to power, the ruler called such makeup “vulgar.” This prompted most English women to give it up and try something more natural.

As a result, the 1800s saw a plethora of inventions designed to enhance women's natural beauty, but many of them deformed women's bodies or slowly killed them with toxic chemicals.

1. Face whitening

In the 1800s, women aspired to have an extremely pale complexion. Representatives of the upper class wanted to show that they were rich enough not to work under the scorching sun. They tried to make their skin so pale and “transparent” that others could clearly see the veins on their faces. In the Victorian era, people were obsessed with death, so they found it attractive when a woman looked unhealthy.

In one of the books of the Victorian era, women were recommended to apply a small amount of opium from lettuce leaves to their face at night and wash their face with ammonia in the morning to always look fresh and pale. To remove freckles and age spots, as well as tan marks, it was recommended to use arsenic, which, according to representatives of the Victorian era, helped to look younger and more attractive. They knew that arsenic was poisonous and addictive, but they deliberately used it to achieve their ideal of beauty.

2. Hair burning

In the 1800s, fashion was curly hair. The first curling irons were tongs that had to be heated over a fire. If a woman was in a hurry to apply a hot curling iron to her hair, she had to say goodbye to it: it instantly burned.

As a result, baldness became a common problem among women during the Victorian era. But even if they skillfully used a curling iron, constantly wearing curly hairstyles had a negative impact on the scalp.

To combat hair-related problems, women have tried various means, including teas and medicines. Some of them washed their hair in water with an ammonia solution to stimulate hair growth. Ammonia is known to burn the respiratory tract and skin. It also “eats out” the eyes.

To combat baldness, women were recommended to use a mixture of equal parts of quinine sulfate and aromatic tincture. To prevent all these problems, they were advised to avoid direct contact of the curling iron with their hair, which many realized too late.

3. Blood purification

In the Victorian era, many people died from consumption (pulmonary tuberculosis), and society was terribly fascinated with death. The complexion of people who had just fallen ill with consumption was considered the most pleasant and beautiful. Women suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis constantly vomited blood, but this was considered normal occurrence. Representatives of the Victorian era claimed that in this way the body was cleansed of dirt, which is why the skin became clean and pale.

During illness, women were advised to eat as little as possible: a handful of strawberries for breakfast, half an orange for lunch and cherries for dinner. If they felt that this was not enough for them to maintain strength, they could drink some warm broth.

Victorian beauty experts advised women to apply ammonium carbonate and powdered charcoal to their facial skin to maintain their beauty. In addition, they were advised to take various medications every three months to “cleanse” their blood, although in fact they were sick because they wanted to look sickly pale.

4. Devices for correcting the shape of the nose

During the Victorian era, many men and women were unhappy with their physical appearance, just as people today are. Many years before the appearance plastic surgery There were many different companies that produced devices to correct the shape of the nose. These metal devices were strapped to a person's face to make the soft cartilage of the nose smaller or straighter than it was before.

Devices for correcting the shape of the nose have not lost their popularity even after many years. Hezar Bigg invented a spring-loaded contraption with straps that helped keep a metal “mask” on a person’s face while they slept or did other things during the day. With its help, the nose took on a more attractive shape over time.

Dr. Cid, a Victorian-era Parisian surgeon, reported to his English colleagues that he had created a spring-loaded metal device that corrected the large nose of his fifteen-year-old patient in just three months.

5. Eating tapeworms

In the Victorian era, corsets were extremely popular, designed to make a woman's waist as thin as possible. To lose weight, some representatives of the fair sex deliberately swallowed tapeworm eggs (tapeworm). These slimy little creatures hatched inside the stomach and devoured everything the woman ate. Having achieved her goal of losing weight, she took pills to remove the tapeworm. In the Victorian era, it was believed that a worm would come out on its own if you sat with your mouth open in front of a bowl of milk. However, as you know, tapeworms can reach 9 meters in length, so even if this method were effective, a person could suffocate in the process.

Dr. Meyers from Sheffield (a city in England) invented a device designed to remove tapeworms from a patient's stomach. It was a metal cylinder filled with food. It was forced down the throat of an infected person, who was forbidden to eat for several days. This was necessary in order to lure the tapeworm into the cylinder, which was subsequently removed from the patient's stomach with it inside. Unfortunately, many of those who sought help from Meyers died from asphyxiation during this strange procedure.

6. Deadly belladonna eye drops

In addition to a pale complexion, women with pulmonary tuberculosis also had dilated pupils and watery eyes. In the Victorian era, English women with large pupils were considered very beautiful. To achieve this effect, they used belladonna eye drops.

Belladonna is one of the most poisonous plants in the world. If a person eats a couple of berries or a belladonna leaf, he can die. In small doses, the plant's poison can cause intestinal irritation, rash, swelling and even blindness. Women of the Victorian era knew about this, but still continued to use products that contained poisonous belladonna.

Queen Victoria used belladonna eye drops to treat cataracts. They dilated her pupils, so it seemed to the queen that her vision was improving. For this reason, she continued to use them and refused to have surgery.

7. Dangerous oral hygiene products

Victorian beauty experts recommended ingesting a teaspoon of ammonia dissolved in water for fresh breath and to prevent tooth decay (especially for those who suffered from acid reflux). Toothpaste People living at that time were replaced by powder made from stale bread or charcoal.

To relieve toothache, people took cocaine-based tablets, which were sold in every pharmacy. They were also believed to be effective in treating coughs and colds.

8. Chemical method of removing body hair

During the Victorian era, unwanted body hair was removed various methods- with tweezers, by shaving, rubbing the skin with wood ash pulp, and so on.

However, not all methods were safe. One of the books recommended that women use bleach to remove body hair (as well as bleach their shoulders). It was recommended to do this near an open window and with great caution, since bleach can corrode the skin if left on it for a long time.

9. Shadows with mercury and lead

Women of the Victorian era avoided wearing eye makeup to avoid looking like fallen women and to look natural. They paid the most attention to complexion and eyebrows. However, to highlight their eyes, they applied homemade creams to their eyelids, consisting of, for example, cold cream and crushed cochineal (insects).

The eye shadows sold in stores at that time were called “eye kohl.” They were mainly worn by prostitutes or bold Victorian ladies on special days. These shadows typically contained hazardous chemicals including lead, mercuric sulfide, antimony, cinnabar, and vermilion. They poisoned the body, and mercury sometimes caused insanity.

10. Taking baths with arsenic

Dear friends! As a sign that we are not dead, from this day on we will regale you with huge doses of texts about our beautiful Old New England, where we are all going to live.

GM has an idea that the neuroses-ridden Victorian society (the era ended with Her Majesty Victoria in 1901) in 1909 is still alive in the minds and souls of the British, but this harsh mentality is gradually being replaced by its lighter version - Edwardianism , more refined, sophisticated, frivolous, prone to luxury and adventure. The change of milestones occurs slowly, but still the world (and with it the consciousness of people) is changing.

Today let's look at where we all lived before 1901 and look at history and Victorian morality. This will be our foundation, the bottom from which we will push off (and for some, the platform on which they will stand firmly and confidently).

Here's the young Queen Victoria, who valued morality, morality and family values ​​above all else.
A living person fit extremely poorly into the Victorian value system, where each subject was supposed to have a specific set of required qualities. Therefore, hypocrisy was considered not only acceptable, but also obligatory. Saying what you don’t mean, smiling when you want to cry, lavishing pleasantries on people who make you shake—this is what is required of well-mannered person. People should feel comfortable and comfortable in your company, and how you feel is your own business. Put everything away, lock it, and preferably swallow the key. Only with the closest people can you sometimes allow yourself to move the iron mask that hides your true face a millimeter. In return, society readily promises not to try to look inside you.

What the Victorians did not tolerate was nudity of any kind - both mental and physical. Moreover, this applied not only to people, but to any phenomena in general. If you have a toothpick, then there should be a case for it. The case with the toothpick should be stored in a box with a lock. The box must be hidden in a locked chest of drawers. To prevent the chest of drawers from seeming too bare, you need to cover every free centimeter of it with carved curls and cover it with an embroidered bedspread, which, in order to avoid excessive openness, should be filled with figurines, wax flowers and other nonsense, which it is advisable to cover with glass covers. The walls were covered with decorative plates, engravings and paintings from top to bottom. In those places where the wallpaper still managed to immodestly come out into the light of God, it was clear that it was decorously dotted with small bouquets, birds or coats of arms. There are carpets on the floors, smaller rugs on the carpets, the furniture is covered with bedspreads and strewn with embroidered cushions.

But human nakedness, of course, had to be hidden especially carefully, especially female nakedness. The Victorians viewed women as some kind of centaurs, who had the upper half of the body (undoubtedly, the creation of God), but there were doubts about the lower half. The taboo extended to everything connected with feet. This very word was prohibited: they were supposed to be called “limbs”, “members” and even “pedestal”. Most words for pants were banned in good society. The matter ended with the fact that in stores they began to be quite officially titled “unnameable” and “unspeakable”.

Men's trousers were sewn in such a way as to hide the anatomical excesses of the stronger sex from view as much as possible: thick fabric linings along the front of the trousers and very tight underwear were used.

As for the ladies' pedestal, this was generally an exclusively forbidden territory, the very outlines of which had to be destroyed. Huge hoops were worn under skirts - crinolines, so that a lady's skirt easily took 10-11 meters of material. Then bustles appeared - lush overlays on the buttocks, designed to completely hide the presence of this part female body, so that modest Victorian ladies were forced to walk, dragging behind them their cloth butts with bows, protruding half a meter back.

Victorian family
“The average Victorian family is headed by a patriarch who married a virginal bride late in life. He has rare and restrained sexual relations with his wife, who, exhausted by constant childbirth and the hardships of marriage to such a difficult man, spends most of her time lying on the sofa. He holds long family prayers before breakfast, whips his sons with rods to enforce discipline, keeps his daughters as untrained and ignorant as possible, kicks out pregnant maids without pay or recommendations, secretly keeps a mistress in some quiet establishment, and probably visits minors. prostitutes. The woman is absorbed in worries about the household and children, and when her husband expects her to fulfill marital duties, she “lies on her back, closes her eyes and thinks about England” - after all, nothing else is required of her, because “ladies do not move.”

Gender relations
Victorianism achieved its least success in the ethics of gender relations and family life, as a result of which about 40% of Englishwomen of the so-called “middle class” of this era remained unmarried throughout their lives. The reason for this was a rigid system of moral conventions, which led to a dead end for many who wanted to arrange their personal lives.

The concept of misalliance in Victorian England was brought to the point of real absurdity. For example, at first glance, nothing prevents the descendants of two equal noble families from marrying. However, the conflict that arose between the ancestors of these families in the 15th century erected a wall of alienation: the ungentlemanly act of Gilbert’s great-great-grandfather made all subsequent, innocent Gilberts ungentlemen in the eyes of society.

Open manifestations of sympathy between a man and a woman, even in a harmless form, without intimacy, were strictly prohibited. The word “love” was completely taboo. The limit of frankness in explanations was the password “Can I hope?” and the response “I have to think.” Courtship was supposed to be public, consisting of ritual conversations, symbolic gestures and signs. The most common sign of favor, intended specifically for prying eyes, was permission for the young man to carry the girl’s prayer book upon returning from Sunday services. A girl who was left alone in a room for even a minute with a man who had no officially declared intentions towards her was considered compromised. An elderly widower and his adult unmarried daughter could not live under the same roof - they had to either move away or hire a companion in the house, because highly moral society was always ready to suspect father and daughter of unnatural relationships.

Led by the burgher queen, the British were filled with what Soviet textbooks liked to call “bourgeois morality.” Splendor, splendor, and luxury were now considered not quite decent things, fraught with depravity. The royal court, which for so many years was the center of freedom of morals, breathtaking toilets and shining jewelry, turned into the abode of a person in a black dress and a widow's cap. The sense of style caused the aristocracy to also slow down in this matter, and it is still widely believed that no one dresses as poorly as the high English nobility. Saving was elevated to the rank of virtue. Even in the houses of lords, from now on, for example, candle stubs were never thrown away; they were to be collected and then sold to candle shops for recasting.

Modesty, hard work and impeccable morality were prescribed to absolutely all classes. However, it was quite enough to appear to have these qualities: there was no attempt to change human nature. You can feel whatever you want, but giving away your feelings or doing inappropriate things was highly discouraged, unless, of course, you valued your place in society. And society was structured in such a way that almost every inhabitant of Albion did not even try to jump one step higher. God grant that you have the strength to hold on to the position you occupy now.

Failure to live up to one's position was punished mercilessly among the Victorians. If a girl's name is Abigail, she will not be hired as a maid in a decent house, since the maid must have a simple name, such as Anne or Mary. The footman must be tall and be able to move deftly. A butler with an unintelligible pronunciation or too direct gaze will end his days in a ditch. A girl who sits like this will never get married.

Don’t wrinkle your forehead, don’t spread your elbows, don’t sway when walking, otherwise everyone will decide that you are a brick factory worker or a sailor: that’s exactly how they are supposed to walk. If you wash down your food with your mouth full, you won't be invited to dinner again. When talking to an older lady, you need to bow your head slightly. A person who signs his business cards so clumsily cannot be accepted in good society.

Everything was subject to the most severe regulation: movements, gestures, voice timbre, gloves, topics of conversation. Every detail of your appearance and manners should have eloquently screamed about what you are, or rather, trying to represent. A clerk who looks like a shopkeeper is ridiculous; the governess dressed up like a duchess is outrageous; a cavalry colonel must behave differently from a village priest, and a man's hat says more about him than he could tell about himself.

In general, there are few societies in the world in which gender relations would be pleasing prying eyes reasonable harmony. But Victorian sexual segregation is in many ways unparalleled. The word “hypocrisy” here begins to play with new bright colors. For the lower classes, everything was simpler, but starting with middle-class townspeople, the rules of the game became extremely complicated. Both sexes got it to the fullest.

Lady

By law, a woman was not considered separately from her husband; her entire fortune was considered his property from the moment of marriage. Quite often, a woman also could not be the heir of her husband if his estate was a primogeniture.
Women of the middle class and above could only work as governesses or companions; any other professions simply did not exist for them. A woman also could not make financial decisions without her husband's consent. Divorce was extremely rare and usually led to the expulsion of the wife and often the husband from polite society. From birth, the girl was taught to always and in everything obey men, obey them and forgive any antics: drunkenness, mistresses, ruin of the family - anything.

The ideal Victorian wife never reproached her husband with a word. Her task was to please her husband, praise his virtues and rely entirely on him in any matter. However, the Victorians gave their daughters considerable freedom in choosing spouses. Unlike, for example, the French or Russian nobles, where children’s marriages were decided mainly by their parents, the young Victorian had to make a choice independently and with her eyes wide open: her parents could not force her to marry anyone. True, they could prevent her from marrying an unwanted groom until she was 24 years old, but if the young couple fled to Scotland, where it was allowed to get married without parental approval, then mom and dad could not do anything.

But usually young ladies were already sufficiently trained to keep their desires in check and obey their elders. They were taught to appear weak, tender and naive - it was believed that only such a fragile flower could make a man want to take care of him. Before leaving for balls and dinners, young ladies were fed for slaughter, so that the girl would not have the desire to demonstrate a good appetite in front of strangers: unmarried girl it was supposed to peck at food like a bird, demonstrating its unearthly airiness.

A woman was not supposed to be too educated (at least to show it), have her own views and generally show excessive knowledge in any issues, from religion to politics. At the same time, the education of Victorian girls was very serious. If parents calmly sent boys to schools and boarding schools, then daughters had to have governesses, visiting teachers and study under the serious supervision of their parents, although there were also girls’ boarding schools. Girls, it is true, were rarely taught Latin and Greek, unless they themselves expressed a desire to learn them, but otherwise they were taught the same as boys. They were also especially taught painting (at least watercolor), music and several foreign languages. A girl from a good family had to know French, preferably Italian, and usually German came third.

So the Victorian had to know a lot, but a very important skill was to hide this knowledge in every possible way. Having acquired a husband, the Victorian woman often gave birth to 10-20 children. Contraception and the miscarriage-causing substances so well known to her great-grandmothers were considered so monstrously obscene in the Victorian era that she had no one to discuss the possibility of using them with.

However, the development of hygiene and medicine in England at that time left 70% of newborns alive, a record for humanity at that time. So the British Empire throughout the 19th century did not know the need for gallant soldiers.”

Gentlemen
Having such a submissive creature as a Victorian wife on his neck, the gentleman took a deep breath. From childhood, he was raised to believe that girls are fragile and delicate creatures who need to be treated with care, like ice roses. The father was fully responsible for the maintenance of his wife and children. Count on the fact that difficult moment his wife would deign to provide him with real help, he could not. Oh no, she herself will never dare to complain that she lacks something! But Victorian society was vigilant in ensuring that husbands dutifully pulled the strap.

A husband who did not give his wife a shawl, who did not move a chair, who did not take her to the water when she was coughing so terribly all September, a husband who forces his poor wife to go out for the second year in a row in the same evening dress, - such a husband could put an end to his future: a profitable place will float away from him, the necessary acquaintance will not take place, in the club they will begin to communicate with him with icy politeness, and own mother and the sisters will write him bags of indignant letters every day.

The Victorian considered it her duty to be constantly ill: good health was somehow unbecoming of a true lady. And the fact that a huge number of these martyrs, forever moaning on their couches, lived to see the First and even the Second World War, outliving their husbands by half a century, cannot but amaze. In addition to his wife, the man also had full responsibility for his unmarried daughters, unmarried sisters and aunts, and widowed great-aunts.

In addition, this norm has changed over time towards softening. The Guardianship of Minors Act in 1839 gave mothers of good standing access to their children in the event of separation or divorce, and the Divorce Act of 1857 gave women (fairly limited) options for divorce. But while the husband had to prove only his wife's adultery, the woman had to prove that her husband had committed not just adultery, but also incest, bigamy, cruelty, or desertion from the family.

In 1873, the Guardianship of Minors Act expanded access to children to all women in the event of separation or divorce. In 1878, after an amendment to the Divorce Act, women were able to seek divorce on the grounds ill-treatment and claim custody of their children. In 1882, the "Property Law" married women“guaranteed a woman the right to dispose of the property she brought into marriage. Two years later, an amendment to this law made the wife not a “movable property” of the spouse, but an independent and separate person. Through the Guardianship of Minors Act in 1886, women could be made the sole guardian of their children if their husband died.

In the 1880s, several women's institutes, art studios, a women's fencing club were opened in London, and in the year of Dr. Watson's marriage, even a special women's restaurant, where a woman could safely come without being accompanied by a man. Among middle-class women there were quite a few teachers, and there were female doctors and female travelers.

In the next issue of our "Old New England" - about how Victorian society differs from the Edwardian era. God save the king!
Author emeraldairtone , for which I thank her very much.