Victorian morality
Victorian morality is a distillation of the moral views of the middle class in 19th-century Britain, the Victorian era.
Victorian values emerged in all social classes and reached all facets of Victorian living. The values of the period—which can be classed as religion, morality, Evangelicalism, industrial work ethic, and personal improvement—took root in Victorian morality. Current plays and all literature—including old classics, like William Shakespeare's works—were cleansed of content considered to be inappropriate for children, or "bowdlerized".
Contemporary historians have generally come to regard the Victorian era as a time of many conflicts, such as the widespread cultivation of an outward appearance of dignity and restraint, together with serious debates about exactly how the new morality should be implemented.
Personal conduct
Victorian morality was a surprising new reality. The changes in moral standards and actual behaviour across the British were profound. Historian Harold Perkin wrote:
Between 1780 and 1850 the English ceased to be one of the most aggressive, brutal, rowdy, outspoken, riotous, cruel and bloodthirsty nations in the world and became one of the most inhibited, polite, orderly, tender-minded, prudish and hypocritical.[1]
Historians continue to debate the various causes of this dramatic change. Asa Briggs emphasizes the strong reaction against the French Revolution, and the need to focus British efforts on its defeat and not be diverged by pleasurable sins. Briggs also stresses the powerful role of the evangelical movement among the Nonconformists, as well as the evangelical faction inside the established Church of England. The religious and political reformers set up organizations that monitored behaviour, and pushed for government action.[2]
Among the higher social classes, there was a marked decline in gambling, horse races, and obscene theatres; there was much less heavy gambling or patronage of upscale houses of prostitution. The highly visible debauchery characteristic of aristocratic England in the early 19th century simply disappeared.[3]
Historians agree that the middle classes not only professed high personal moral standards, but actually followed them. There is a debate whether the working classes followed suit. Moralists in the late 19th century such as Henry Mayhew decried the slums for their supposed high levels of cohabitation without marriage and illegitimate births. However new research using computerized matching of data files shows that the rates of cohabitation were quite low—under 5%—for the working class and the poor. By contrast, in 21st-century Britain nearly half of all children are born outside marriage, and nine in ten newlyweds have been cohabitating.[4]
Slavery
Opposition to slavery was the main evangelical cause from the late 18th century, led by
Abolishing cruelty
Cruelty to animals
In the
Historian Harold Perkin writes:
Between 1780 and 1850 the English ceased to be one of the most aggressive, brutal, rowdy, outspoken, riotous, cruel and bloodthirsty nations in the world and became one of the most inhibited, polite, orderly, tender-minded, prudish and hypocritical. The transformation diminished cruelty to animals, criminals, lunatics, and children (in that order); suppressed many cruel sports and games, such as bull-baiting and cock-fighting, as well as innocent amusements, including many fairs and wakes; rid the penal code of about two hundred capital offences, abolished transportation [of criminals to Australia], and cleaned up the prisons; turned Sunday into a day of prayer for some and mortification for all.[13]
Child labour
Evangelical religious forces took the lead in identifying the evils of child labour, and legislating against them. Their anger at the contradiction between the conditions on the ground for children of the poor and the middle-class notion of childhood as a time of innocence led to the first campaigns for the imposition of legal protection for children. Reformers attacked child labor from the 1830s onward. The campaign that led to the Factory Acts was spearheaded by rich philanthropists of the era, especially Lord Shaftesbury, who introduced bills in Parliament to mitigate the exploitation of children at the workplace. In 1833, he introduced the Ten Hours Act 1833, which provided that children working in the cotton and woollen mills must be aged nine or above; no person under the age of eighteen was to work more than ten hours a day or eight hours on a Saturday; and no one under twenty-five was to work nights.[14] The Factory Act of 1844 said children 9–13 years could work for at most 9 hours a day with a lunch break.[15] Additional legal interventions throughout the century increased the level of childhood protection, despite the resistance from the laissez-faire attitudes against government interference by factory owners. Parliament respected laissez-faire in the case of adult men, and there was minimal interference in the Victorian era.[16]
Unemployed street children suffered too, as novelist Charles Dickens revealed to a large middle class audience the horrors of London street life.[17]
Sexuality
Historians Peter Gay and Michael Mason both point out that modern society often confuses Victorian etiquette for a lack of knowledge. For example, people going for a bath in the sea or at the beach would use a bathing machine. Despite the use of the bathing machine, it was still possible to see people bathing nude.[citation needed] Contrary to popular conception, however, Victorian society recognised that both men and women enjoyed copulation.[18]
Regular sex was seen as important to male health. Married women were expected to agree to sex whenever their husbands wished for it, though it was seen as immoral for men to ask for sex in certain situations, such as when their wife was sick. Too much sex was seen as unhealthy, which led to a moral panic about masturbation, especially its perceived prevalence among middle class adolescent boys. Women were expected to be faithful to their husbands, or if unmarried, to refrain from sexual activity. There was more tolerance for men employing prostitutes or engaging in extramarital affairs. In the early Victorian period, a traditional idea that married women had an intense sex drive which needed to be controlled by their husband was still common. As the period progressed, this changed, with wives expected to control the sexual behaviour of men.[19]
Victorians also wrote explicit
Homosexuality
The enormous expansion of police forces, especially in London, produced a sharp rise in prosecutions for illegal sodomy at midcentury.
Simeon Solomon and poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, as they contemplated their own sexual identities in the 1860s, fastened on the Greek lesbian poet Sappho. They made Victorian intellectuals aware of Sappho, and their writings helped to shape the modern image of lesbianism.[22]
The Labouchere Amendment to the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, for the first time, made all male homosexual acts illegal. It provided for two years' imprisonment for males convicted of committing, or being a party to public or private acts of homosexuality. Lesbian acts—still scarcely known—were ignored.[23] When Oscar Wilde was convicted of violating the statute, and imprisoned for such violations, in 1895, he became the iconic victim of English puritanical repression.[24]
Prostitution
During Victorian England, prostitution was seen as a "great social evil" by clergymen and major news organizations, but many feminists viewed prostitution as a means of economic independence for women[citation needed]. Estimates of the number of prostitutes in London in the 1850s vary widely, but in his landmark study, Prostitution, William Acton reported an estimation of 8,600 prostitutes in London alone in 1857.[25] The differing views on prostitution have made it difficult to understand its history.
Judith Walkowitz has multiple works focusing on the feminist point of view on the topic of prostitution. Many sources blame economic disparities as leading factors in the rise of prostitution, and Walkowitz writes that the demographic within prostitution varied greatly. However, women who struggled financially were much more likely to be prostitutes than those with a secure source of income. Orphaned or half-orphaned women were more likely to turn to prostitution as a means of income.[26] While overcrowding in urban cities and the amount of job opportunities for females were limited, Walkowitz argues that there were other variables that lead women to prostitution. Walkowitz acknowledges that prostitution allowed for women to feel a sense of independence and self-respect.[26] Although many assume that pimps controlled and exploited these prostitutes, some women managed their own clientele and pricing. It is evident that women were exploited by this system, yet Walkowitz says that prostitution was often their opportunity to gain social and economic independence.[26] Prostitution at this time was regarded by women in the profession to be a short-term position, and once they earned enough money, there were hopes that they would move on to a different profession.[27]
The arguments for and against prostitution varied greatly from it being perceived as a mortal sin or desperate decision to an independent choice. While there were plenty of people publicly denouncing prostitution in England, there were also others who took opposition to them. One event that sparked a lot of controversy was the implementation of the Contagious Diseases Acts. This was a series of three acts in 1864, 1866 and 1869 that allowed police officers to stop women whom they believed to be prostitutes and force them to be examined.[26] If the suspected woman was found with a venereal disease, they placed the woman into a lock hospital. Arguments made against the Acts claimed that the regulations were unconstitutional and that they only targeted women.[28] In 1869, a National Association in opposition of the Acts was created. Because women were excluded from the first National Association, the Ladies National Association was formed. The leader of that organization was Josephine Butler.[26] Butler was an outspoken feminist during this time who fought for many social reforms. Her book Personal Reminiscences of a Great Crusade describes her oppositions to the Contagious Diseases Acts.[29] Along with the publication of her book, she also went on tours condemning the Acts throughout the 1870s.[30] Other supporters of reforming the Acts included Quakers, Methodists and many doctors.[28] Eventually the Acts were fully repealed in 1886.[28]
Prostitutes were often presented as victims in
This emphasis on female purity was allied to the stress on the homemaking role of women, who helped to create a space free from the pollution and corruption of the city. In this respect, the prostitute came to have symbolic significance as the embodiment of the violation of that divide. The double standard remained in force. The Matrimonial Causes Act 1857 allowed for a man to divorce his wife for adultery, but a woman could only divorce for adultery combined with other offences such as incest, cruelty, bigamy, desertion, etc., or based on cruelty alone.[32]
The anonymity of the city led to a large increase in prostitution and unsanctioned sexual relationships. Dickens and other writers associated prostitution with the mechanisation and industrialisation of modern life, portraying prostitutes as human commodities consumed and thrown away like refuse when they were used up. Moral reform movements attempted to close down brothels, something that has sometimes been argued to have been a factor in the concentration of street-prostitution.[33]
The extent of prostitution in London in the 1880s gained national and global prominence through the highly publicised murders attributed to Whitechapel-based serial killer
Crime and police
After 1815, there was widespread fear of growing crimes, burglaries, mob action, and threats of large-scale disorder. Crime had been handled on an ad-hoc basis by poorly organized local parish constables and private watchmen, supported by very stiff penalties, including hundreds of causes for execution or deportation to Australia. London, with 1.5 million people—more than the next 15 cities combined—over the decades had worked out informal arrangements to develop a uniform policing system in its many boroughs. The
By the Victorian era, penal transportation to Australia was falling out of use since it did not reduce crime rates.[39] The British penal system underwent a transition from harsh punishment to reform, education, and training for post-prison livelihoods. The reforms were controversial and contested. In 1877–1914 era a series of major legislative reforms enabled significant improvement in the penal system. In 1877, the previously localized prisons were nationalized in the Home Office under a Prison Commission. The Prison Act of 1898 enabled the Home Secretary to impose multiple reforms on his own initiative, without going through the politicized process of Parliament. The Probation of Offenders Act of 1907 introduced a new probation system that drastically cut down the prison population, while providing a mechanism for transition back to normal life. The Criminal Justice Administration Act of 1914 required courts to allow a reasonable time before imprisonment was ordered for people who did not pay their fines. Previously tens of thousands of prisoners had been sentenced solely for that reason. The Borstal system after 1908 was organized to reclaim young offenders, and the Children Act of 1908 prohibited imprisonment under age 14, and strictly limited that of ages 14 to 16. The principal reformer was Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, the chair of the Prison Commission.[40][41]
Causation
Intellectual historians searching for causes of the new morality often point to the ideas by
Victorian era movements for justice, freedom, and other strong moral values made greed, and exploitation into public evils. The writings of Charles Dickens, in particular, observed and recorded these conditions.[43] Peter Shapely examined 100 charity leaders in Victorian Manchester. They brought significant cultural capital, such as wealth, education and social standing. Besides the actual reforms for the city they achieved for themselves a form of symbolic capital, a legitimate form of social domination and civic leadership. The utility of charity as a means of boosting one's social leadership was socially determined and would take a person only so far.[44]
The
See also
- The New Life (2022 historical fiction) by Tom Crewe
References
- ^ Harold Perkin, The Origins of Modern English Society (1969) p. 280.
- ^ Asa Briggs, The Age of Improvement: 1783–1867 (1959), pp. 66–74, 286–87, 436
- ^ Ian C. Bradley, The Call to Seriousness: The Evangelical Impact on the Victorians (1976) pp. 106–109
- ^ Rebecca Probert, "Living in Sin", BBC History Magazine (September 2012); G. Frost, Living in Sin: Cohabiting as Husband and Wife in Nineteenth-Century England (Manchester U.P. 2008)
- ^ Seymour Drescher, Abolition: A History of Slavery and Antislavery (2009) pp 205–44.
- ^ Howard Temperley, British antislavery, 1833–1870 (1972).
- Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 29 May 2018.
- ^ James C. Turner, Reckoning with the Beast: Animals, Pain, and Humanity in the Victorian Mind (2000) p 39.
- ^ "London Police Act 1839, Great Britain Parliament. Section XXXI, XXXIV, XXXV, XLII". Archived from the original on 24 April 2011. Retrieved 23 January 2011.
- ^ M. B. McMullan, "The Day the Dogs Died in London" The London Journal: A Review of Metropolitan Society Past and Present (1998) 23#1 pp 32–40 https://doi.org/10.1179/ldn.1998.23.1.32
- ISBN 978-0-253-34154-9. Chapter: 'A Left-handed Blow: Writing the History of Animals' by Erica Fudge
- ^ "igg.org.uk". Archived from the original on 31 July 2010. Retrieved 23 January 2011.
- ^ Harold Perkin, The Origins of Modern English Society (1969) p 280.
- ^ Georgina Battiscombe, Shaftesbury: A Biography of the Seventh Earl 1801–1885 (1988) pp. 88–91.
- ISBN 9781317935124.
- ISBN 978-0-7425-3735-4.
- ^ Amberyl Malkovich, Charles Dickens and the Victorian Child: Romanticizing and Socializing the Imperfect Child (2011)
- ISBN 978-0-313-31399-8.
- ^ Goodman, Ruth (27 June 2013). "Chapter 15: Behind the bedroom door". How to be a Victorian. Penguin.
- ^ Sean Brady, Masculinity and Male Homosexuality in Britain, 1861–1913 (2005).
- ^ Crozier, Ivan (2008). "Nineteenth-century British psychiatric writing about homosexuality before Havelock Ellis: The missing story". Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. 63 (1): 65–102.
- JSTOR 27793672.
- ^ Smith, F. Barry (1976). "Labouchere's amendment to the Criminal Law Amendment bill". Australian Historical Studies. 17 (67): 165–173.
- ^ Adut, Ari (2005). "A theory of scandal: Victorians, homosexuality, and the fall of Oscar Wilde". American Journal of Sociology. 111 (1): 213–248.
- ISBN 0-7146-2414-4.
- ^ a b c d e Walkowitz, Judith (1980). Prostitution and Victorian Society. Cambridge University Press.
- ^ Flanders, Judith (2014). "Prostitution". British Library. Archived from the original on 7 March 2016.
- ^ JSTOR 4048453.
- ISBN 0-88355-257-4.
- ISBN 0576532517.
- ^ George Watt, The fallen woman in the nineteenth-century English novel (1984)
- ISBN 9785877307049.
- ^ Judith R. Walkowitz, "Male vice and feminist virtue: feminism and the politics of prostitution in nineteenth-century Britain." History Workshop (1982) 13:79–93. in JSTOR
- ^ "Jack the Ripper | English Murderer". Britannica. Retrieved 27 August 2018.
- ISBN 978-7-230-01232-4.
- ^ Lyman, J. L. (1964). "The Metropolitan Police Act of 1829: An Analysis of Certain Events Influencing the Passage and Character of the Metropolitan Police Act in England". Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science. 55 (1): 141–154.
- ^ Clive Emsley, "Police" in James Eli Adams, ed., Encyclopedia of the Victorian Era (2004) 3:221–24.
- ^ Clive Emsley, Crime and Society in England, 1750–1900 (5th ed. 2018) pp 216-61.
- ^ Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, "Transportation from Britain and Ireland 1615–1870", History Compass 8#11 (2010): 1221–42.
- ^ R.C.K. Ensor. England 1870–1914 (1937) pp 520–21.
- ^ J. W. Fox, "The Modern English Prison" (1934).
- ^ Perkin, The Origins of Modern English Society, pp 280–81.
- ^ Daniel Bivona, "Poverty, pity, and community: Urban poverty and the threat to social bonds in the victorian age." Nineteenth-Century Studies 21 (2007): 67–83.
- JSTOR 3789597.
- ^ Walter Benjamin, The Halles Project.
Further reading
- Adams, James Eli, ed. Encyclopedia of the Victorian Era (4 vol. 2004). articles by scholars
- Bartley, Paula. Prostitution: Prevention and reform in England, 1860–1914 (Routledge, 2012)
- Boddice, Rob. The Science of Sympathy: Morality, Evolution, and Victorian Civilization (2016)
- Briggs, Asa. The Age of Improvement, 1783–1867 (1959).
- Churchill, David. Crime control and everyday life in the Victorian city: the police and the public (2017).
- Churchill, David C. (2014). "Rethinking the state monopolisation thesis: the historiography of policing and criminal justice in nineteenth-century England". Crime, Histoire & Sociétés/Crime, History & Societies. 18 (1): 131–152.
- Emsley, Clive.Crime and Society in England, 1750–1900 (5th ed. 2018)
- Fraser, Derek. The evolution of the British welfare state: a history of social policy since the Industrial Revolution (Springer, 1973).
- Gay, Peter. The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud
- Harrison, Brian (1955). "Philanthropy and the Victorians". Victorian Studies. 9 (4): 353–374. JSTOR 3825816.
- Merriman, J (2004). A History of Modern Europe; From the French Revolution to the Present New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company.
- ISBN 0-7100-4567-0.
- Searle, G. R. Morality and the Market in Victorian Britain (1998)
- Woodward, E. L. The Age of Reform, 1815–1870 (1938); 692 pages; wide-ranging scholarly survey