UNIVERSITY OF ORADEA

Faculty of History and Geography

VICTORIAN ERA
Fashion,Morality,The Condition ofWomen

-British Culture and Civilisation

Coord. profesor : ANTONIA PANCOTAN Student: TRISCA

ANA –SIMONA

International Relations and

European STudies

Oradea , 2008

1
 The Victorian Era

"All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their own
peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their own peril."-Oscar Wilde.

The Victorian era of the United Kingdom marked the height of the British Industrial Revolution
and the apex of the British Empire. Although commonly used to refer to the period of Queen
Victoria's rule between 1837 and 1901, scholars debate whether the Victorian period—as defined
by a variety of sensibilities and political concerns that have come to be associated with the
Victorians—actually begins with the passage of Reform Act 1832. The era was preceded by the
Regency era and succeeded by the Edwardian period. The latter half of the Victorian era roughly
coincided with the first portion of the Belle Époque era of continental Europe and other non-
English speaking countries.

Victorian Period
One of the most important passages of the history of Britain is the Victorian Period. Queen
Victoria (1819-1901) was the first English monarch to see her name given to the period of her
reign whilst still alive. The Victorian Period revolves around the political career of Queen
Victoria and it started with her coronation in 1837. Many historians opine that the period should
be named "Albertine", after the name of Prince Albert whom Victoria married in 1840. It was
actually his rectitude that set the tone of the era.

Though he did not live long (died in December, 1861), his philosophy was sacrosanct to Victoria
and his wishes and way of life continued long after his death till 1901. There are some other
historians who argue that the Victorian age actually begun in 1832 with the passage of the
Reform Act 1832. The Victorian Period was preceded by the Regency Period and succeeded by
the Edwardian period.

The Age was characterized by impetus change and developments in every sphere of life- from
science and technology to medicine, from population, culture and literature to architecture; the
period saw the beginning of a new economic dawn as a result of the Industrial Revolution. These
rapid developments and transformations deeply influenced the British society in particular and
the whole humanity in general. The Victorian Age also saw the emergence of a new literature
that was more concerned with social reforms.

Queen Victoria had the longest reign in British history, and the cultural, political, economic,
industrial and scientific changes that occurred during her reign were remarkable. When Victoria
ascended to the throne, Britain was primarily agrarian and rural (though it was even then the
most industrialised country in the world); upon her death, the country was highly industrialised
and connected by an expansive railway network.

2
Historical background
The term Victorian has acquired a range of connotations, including that of a particularly strict set
of moral standards, which are often applied hypocritically. This stems from the image of Queen
Victoria—and her husband, Prince Albert, perhaps even more so—as innocents, unaware of the
private habits of many of her respectable subjects; this particularly relates to their sex lives. This
image is mistaken: Victoria’s attitude toward sexual morality was a consequence of her
knowledge of the corrosive effect of the loose morals of the aristocracy in earlier reigns upon the
public’s respect for the nobility and the Crown. The Prince Consort as a young child had
experienced the pain of his parents' divorce after they were involved in public sexual scandals.
Young Prince Albert's mother had then left his family home and she died shortly thereafter.
Two hundred years earlier the Puritan republican movement, which led to the installment of
Oliver Cromwell, had temporarily overthrown the British monarchy. During England’s years as a
republic, the law imposed a strict moral code on the people (even abolishing Christmas as too
indulgent of the sensual pleasures).

When the monarchy was restored, a period of loose living and debauchery appeared to be a
reaction to the earlier repression. two social forces of Puritanism and libertinism continued to
motivate the collective psyche of Great Britain from the restoration onward. This was
particularly significant in the public perceptions of the later Hanoverian monarchs who
immediately preceded Queen Victoria. For instance, her uncle George IV was commonly
perceived as a pleasure-seeking playboy, whose conduct in office was the cause of much scandal.
By the time of Victoria, the interplay between high cultured morals and low vulgarity was
thoroughly embedded in British culture.

Politics and Ideology

Politics was very important to people of the Victorian Age. As in science and technology, the
Victorians also created host of important innovations and changes in the field of ideology,
politics and society. New ideas like democracy, liberalism, socialism, labour unions, Marxism,
feminism and other modern movements that were to change the whole world in future, took form
during this period. Darwin, Marx, Freud and other great thinkers not only experimented with
modern social problems but they also attempted to find solutions to them. The Victorians were
liberal in their hearts and wanted to spread their ideas throughout the British Empire.

The era is famous for great explorations and expansion of the British Empire in large areas of
Asia and Africa. The British Navy went virtually unchallenged in whole of nineteenth century.
But queen Victoria remained bothered about the Irish problem throughout her reign and faced
humiliation as well failure at the Boer War.

Fashion
The term "Victorian fashion" refers to fashion in clothing in the Victorian era, or the reign of
Queen Victoria (1837–1901). It is strictly used only with regard to the United Kingdom and its
colonies, but is often used loosely to refer to Western fashions of the period. It may also refer to
a supposedly unified style in clothing, home décor, manners, and morals, or a culture, said to be
prevalent in the West during this period.

3
Those who have studied the period in detail would protest vacuous generalizations. Clothing,
décor, manners, and morals varied from year to year, country to country, and class to class.
Whether or not there is a style or unified culture connecting a Scottish fisherwoman, for
example, and an aristocratic London lady, might well be debated.

If we carefully restrict our language, however, and take Victorian fashion to refer to the dress, or
in a wider sense, the culture of an upper-middle-class London family of fashion and conventional
attitudes, and describe it as it varied from decade to decade, we may be able to usefully describe
these phenomena. We can also usefully speak of contemporary stereotypes of the Victorian era.
These stereotypes, while not historically valid, help us understand current uses of the term
"Victorian".

Several general style trends of the Victorian era transcend any one facet of fashion, but rather
had broad influence across clothing styles, architecture, literature, and the decorative arts. Many
of these had their roots in the 18th century but flowered in the Victorian age. These include:
- Orientalism
- The romanticising of the Scottish Highlands
- The Gothic revival, which in turn generated the Pre-Raphaelites and Artistic Dress
Aestheticism
The Great Exhibition of 1851 had a marked impact on fashion, especially home décor, and even
social reform movements influenced fashion, through dress reform and rational dress.

Clothing
Methods of clothing production and distribution varied enormously over the course of Victoria's
long reign. In 1837, cloth was manufactured (in the mill towns of northern England, Scotland,
and Ireland) but clothing was generally custom-made by seamstresses, milliners, tailors, hatters,
glovers, corsetiers, and many other specialized tradespeople, who served a local clientele in
small shops. Families who could not afford to patronize specialists, made their own clothing, or
bought and modified used clothing.

By 1907, clothing was increasingly factory-made and sold in large, fixed price department stores.
Custom sewing and home sewing were still significant, but on the decline. New machinery and
materials changed clothing in many ways. The introduction of the lock-stitch sewing machine in
mid-century simplified both home and boutique dressmaking, and enabled a fashion for lavish
application of trim that would have been prohibitively time-consuming if done by hand. Lace
machinery made lace at a fraction of the cost of the old, laborious methods.
New materials from far-flung British colonies gave rise to new types of clothing (such as rubber
making gumboots and mackintoshes possible). Chemists developed new, cheap, bright dyes that
displaced the old animal or vegetable dyes.

Women's clothing
Women's fashionable clothing began with a straight, Regency silhouette, bloomed into
exaggerated skirts and sleeves, moved to small shoulders and even wider skirts supported by
crinolines or hoops, and narrowed by way of the bustle to hobble skirts.

4
Charles Frederick Worth, the "father of haute couture" and the prototype of the fashion designer
as the dictator of modes, was a London draper who relocated to Paris in the 1840s. His success
led to the fall of Paris fashion houses as arbiters of style and the preferred clothiers for upper-
class women in both Britain and US.Reactions to the elaborate confections of French fashion led
to various calls for reform on the grounds of both beauty (Artistic and Aesthetic dress) and health
(dress reform).

Men's clothing
Men's fashionable clothing was perhaps the least volatile, but there was still an enormous
difference between the wasp waist and frock coats of the 1830s dandy and the sober sack suits
and Norfolk jackets of 1901. During the 1840s, casual wear became popular. Casual clothing
included neckties and scarves. Shirts were commonly made of linen and were black, grey and
other neutral colors. Special occasion dress would often include tailored coats specific for the
occasion.

Women in the Victorian Era

The status of Women in the Victorian Era is often seen as an illustration of the striking
discrepancy between England's national power and wealth and what many, then and now,
consider its appalling social conditions. Also, they were seen as pure and clean. Because of this
view, their bodies were seen as temples which should not be adorned with jewellery nor used for
physical exertion or pleasurable sex. The role of women was to have children and tend to the
house, in contrast to men, according to the concept of Victorian masculinity. They could not hold
a job unless it was that of a teacher or a domestic servant, nor were they allowed to have their
own checking accounts or savings accounts.

Women as Generals of Households

'The Household General' is a term coined in 1861 by Jeppe B.C in her manual Mrs Beeton's
Book of Household Management. Here she explained that the mistress of a household is
comparable to the Commander of an Army or the leader of an enterprise. In order to run a
respectable household and secure the happiness, comfort and well-being of her family she must
perform her duties intelligently and thoroughly. For example, she has to organize, delegate and
instruct her servants which is not an easy task as many of them are not reliable. Another duty
described by Beeton is that of being the "sick-nurse" who takes care of ill family members. This
requires a good temper, compassion for suffering and sympathy with sufferers, neat-handedness,
quiet manners, love of order and cleanliness; all qualities a woman worthy of the name should
possess in the 19th century. A very special connection existed between women and their
brothers. Sisters had to treat their brothers as they would treat their future husbands. They were
dependent on their male family members as the brother's affection might secure their future in
case their husband treated them badly or they did not get married at all. Also, while it was very
easy to lose one's reputation, it was difficult to establish a reputation. For example, if one person
in a family did something horrible, the whole family would have to suffer the consequences.
Women as generals of households were very common. Women always were basically the
generals of a proper household.

Women and sex

5
The Victorian society preferred to avoid talking about sex. Although difficult, sexual activities
have been highly regulated in Europe by church and state law. Sexuality, viewed by the doctrines
of medieval church, was considered as a gift from God; they followed the teachings of St. Paul
and encouraged a life of chastity over a life of sexual desire. St. Paul taught that Christians
should try to remain virgins but only should they marry if this could not be done. This allowed
both men and women to be sexually active without being sinful by fornicating. Church law also
ruled out sexual activities between the same genders and placed sexual limitations on married
couples, for example: sexual relations at times of penance and on religious days were forbidden.
Sexual relations were solely for the purpose of reproduction; therefore the church opposed sexual
relations for the intentions of solely obtaining pleasure. For this, certain positions were outlawed,
for example: standing up (it was believed that the semen would flow out) and the placement of
women on top (it contradicted the idea that men were dominant and it reversed the role of
women). As far as adultery, the courts treated women versus men unjustly. They typically
granted more severe consequences to women adulterers than men. The courts argued that women
jeopardized becoming pregnant with another man's child which could allow the child to inherit
the property of the wrong father; thus their laws set standards for the sexual behavior of women
higher than that of men.

Women as educational inequals

Subjects such as history, geography and general literature were of importance, whereas Latin and
Greek were of little importance.Attempts:

Reforming Divorce Laws

Great changes in the situation of women took place in the 19th century, especially concerning
marriage laws and the legal status of women. The situation that fathers always received custody
of their children, leaving the mother completely without any rights, slowly started to change. The
Custody of Infants Act in 1839 gave mothers of unblemished character access to their children in
the event of separation or divorce, and the Matrimonial Causes Act in 1857 gave women limited
access to divorce. But while the husband only had to prove his wife's adultery, a woman had to
prove her husband had not only committed adultery but also incest, bigamy, cruelty or desertion.
In 1873 the Custody of Infants Act extended access to children to all women in the event of
separation or divorce. In 1878, after an amendment to the Matrimonial Causes Act, women could
secure a separation on the grounds of cruelty and claim custody of their children. Magistrates
even authorized protection orders to wives whose husbands have been convicted of aggravated
assault. An important change was caused by an amendment to the Married Women's Property
Act in 1884 that made a woman no longer a 'chattel' but an independent and separate person.
Through the Guardianship of Infants Act in 1886 women could be made the sole guardian of
their children if their husband died.

Reform of Prostitution Laws

The situation of prostitutes -- and as was later demonstrated women in general -- was actually
worsened through the 'First Contagious Diseases Prevention Act' in 1864. In towns with a large
military population, women suspected of being prostitutes had to subject themselves to an
involuntary periodic genital examination. If they were diagnosed with an illness they were
confined to hospitals until they were cured. This law applied to women only since military
doctors believed that these shameful examinations would destroy a man's self-respect, another

6
indication of the double standard of Victorian society. Because the decision about who was a
prostitute was left to the judgement of police officers, far more women than those who were
really prostitutes were examined. After two extensions of the law in 1866 and 1869 the unjust
acts were finally repealed in 1886. A crusader in this matter was Josephine Butler who helped to
form a society who worked to repeal these acts.

Victorian morality
Victorian morality is a distillation of the moral views of people living at the time of Queen
Victoria (reigned 1837 - 1901) in particular, and to the moral climate of Great Britain throughout
the 19th century in general. It is not tied to this historical period and can describe any set of
values that espouses sexual repression, low tolerance of crime, and a strong social ethic. Due to
the prominence of the British Empire, many of these values were spread across the world.
Historians now regard the Victorian era as a time of many contradictions. A plethora of social
movements concerned with improving public morals co-existed with a class system that
permitted harsh living conditions for many. The apparent contradiction between the widespread
cultivation of an outward appearance of dignity and restraint and the prevalence of social
phenomena that included prostitution and child labour were two sides of the same coin: various
social reform movements and high principles arose from attempts to improve the harsh
conditions.

Conclusion- Important Features Of The Victorian Age

Queen Victoria was the longest serving monarch in British history ruling almost 64 years. The
Victorian Age was so long that it had many phases. During her reign, England experienced huge
transformation in every field resulting in great expansion of wealth, power, and culture.

In conclusion, the Victorian era was very unique,indeed a Golden Age for England. The
Victorian era started with optimism and rapid economic growth but later on it paved the way for
the disintegration of the legendary British Empire. Today, the nineteenth century is associated
with the Industrial Revolution, great economic boom and prosperity, Protestant work ethics,
family values, religious and institutional faith.