The Victorians: Sex, Gender, Ettiquette and Morality

[Lissa]

In this thread we discussed homophobia and the topic sort of hijacked into a discussion of Victorian sexuality and social norms. My last post on the subject was this, (with some new additions sprinkled in.)

Male and femal “spheres” were much more seperated in the Victorian era. Actually, chairs were sex-segregated. A “ladies’” chair was lower to the ground than the men’s, and had low or no arm rests at all. The back of a ladies’ chair also sloped backwards more than a man’s because when a lady sat in a chair, her back was never supposed to rest against the back of the chair. Men’s chairs were more “throne-like” and comfy. (The concept was along the lines of “king of the castle.”)

From the book * There’s A Bed in the Piano: The Inside Story of the American Home: * “Chairs are not gender neutral. . . The gentleman’s chair, always an armchair, was the most like a throne. . . . How did people read the gender of chairs? By breadth and arms. Wider seats were for men; status, not physique ruled. To delete the arms or make them very low was to specify the distaff.” (This book also discusses the myth of covering the table legs out of modesty.)

Another reason a lady’s back never touched that of the chair’s was because of her rigid corset. It kept her from being able to slouch back comfortably.

Men and women did not socialize freely as they do today. A man could not “call” on a married woman; he could only officially visit with her husband. Nor could a lady call on a man. In social situations, ladies and gentlemen met for dinner or dancing, but then seperated according to gender. The ladies would go into the parlor for tea and gossip, and the men would go into the den for cigars and brandy. Courtship rituals also dictated that the couple not be completely alone with one another until the ring was safely on the bride’s finger.

This site adresses the etiquette of calling.

This explains calling as a courtship ritual.

The rules of “proper” courtship from this site.

Victorian dates were almost always supervised in some way. A woman was never to go anywhere alone with a gentleman without her mother’s permission.

A woman was never to go out with a gentleman late at night. In fact, it was considered extremely impolite for a gentleman to stay late at a woman’s home.

A single woman never addressed a gentleman without an introduction.

A single woman never walked alone. Her chaperone was older and preferably married.

If she had progressed to the stage of courtship in which she walked out with a gentleman, they always walked apart. A gentleman could offer his hand over rough spots, the only contact he was allowed with a woman who was not his fiancée.

Proper women never rode alone in a closed carriage with a man who wasn’t a relative.

She would never call upon an unmarried gentleman at his place of residence.

She couldn’t receive a man at home if she was alone. Another family member had to be present in the room.

“Lastly, a lady never calls on a gentleman, unless professionally or officially. It is not only ill bred, but positively improper to do so. At the same time, there is a certain privilege in age, which makes it possible for an old bachelor like myself to receive a visit from any married lady whom I know very intimately, but such a call would certainly not be one of ceremony, and always presupposes a desire to consult me on some point or other. I should be guilty of shameful treachery, however, if I told any one that I had received such a visit, while I should certainly expect that my fair caller would let her husband know of it.” * --The Habits of Good Society: A Handbook of Etiquette for Ladies and Gentlemen, *James Hogg & Sons, London 1859

The Victorians were prudish, but not quite as bad as we sometimes think. The British teased us a bit for our straight-laced manners at the time. (Some scholars have speculated that America’s youth as a nation led to behavior becoming “super-refined” to prove that we were indeed civilized.) The antecdote about the lady making pantalettes for her table legs actually originated in a book written by a Bristish lady tourist who was making fun of American manners. (The Victorian Americans really just loved lacy fabric and covered every inch of furniture with it.)

I deeply apologize for an error in the above post. The author of the covered-table-legs rumor was not a lady, but a man named Captian Frederick Marryat who wrote a book in 1839 called * A Diary from America. *

Of course, some terms did become taboo, such as “leg” and “breast” even when referring to chicken parts. (Which is where we get the terms “white meat” and “dark meat” when referring to poultry.) There was actually a “Family Bible” published which deleted all of the juicy parts and substituted “naughty” words for more appropriate ones, like “leg” into “limb.”

The author of the censored Bible was Noah Webster, who considered it the most important work of his life. “His version retained every incident but changed words ad lib, offering thousands of alterations, every one dedicated to euphemisms and absolute decency. Typical is the story of the self-abusive Onan who, rather than “spill his seed” “frustrates his purpose.” Testicles become “peculiar members” and female genitals, and even wombs, are conspicuous only by their absence.”

Bodily functions and sex were also forbidden subjects. The Victorians felt that sexual innocence should also include sexual ignorance (which probably led to a lot of surprised brides on their wedding nights.) There was complete denial in some sectors that women even had sexual urges. One prominant doctor wrote a book that most women are “thankfully unbothered by sexual desires.” A proper lady was instructed by books on marriage that she should just submit passively. Passion was for tramps and whores. I have actually seen letters which women wrote expressing concern and panic about enjoying sex with their husbands. Were they hussies? they wondered.

Most often quoted in the literature of the time was English restrictionist adviser, William Acton, who claimed that “the majority of women (happily for society) are not very much troubled with sexual feelings of any kind.” Acton claimed that men recieved the wrong kind of ideas about women’s sexuality from visiting prostitues who pretended enthusiasm which they would then expect from their wives. “The best mothers, wives, and managers of households know little or nothing of sexual indulgences. Love of home, children, and domestic duties, are the only passions they feel…She submits to her husband, but only to please him; and, but for the desire for maternity, would far rather be relieved from his attentions,” he wrote.

Sylvester Graham, for whom the graham cracker is named, thought that frequent marital sex was weakening, and recommended bland food to keep the desires down. His ideas were appealing to many advice manual authors.

But there was also a movement toward shared sexual pleasure in marriage. Some manuals for men suggested ways of pleasing their wives in bed. In the past, it had been believed that women had to orgasm in order to concieve, and in some minds the idea still lingered. (Which probably made some ladies very happy indeed.) Not all wives subscribed to the idea of “proper” frigidity. Some letters between husbands and wives reveal much passion, but others reveal confusion and fear at their sexual feelings. Women were receiving many mixed messages about sexuality. Some “experts” denied that true ladies enjoyed sex, while others lauded it. Mothers were generally silent on the subject leaving some young brides feeling guilty and confused.

(Of course, prudishness and ettiquette mainly applied to the well-off. The poor couldn’t afford the “manners” of the rich.)

Nor could the pioneers stick to the letter of proper etiquette. Think of Laura Ingalls Wilder, for example. In Eastern American society, her unchaperoned carriage rides with Almonzo would have been almost unthinkable.

The “lower” classes also winked at pre-marital sex as long as the couple intended to marry and did so before any children arrived. The working class did not have the time to chaperone their children the way that the rich did, nor could they shelter them from the realities of the world. (When a family shares one room, it’s difficult to keep kids from catching their parents copulating at some point.) Farm children saw animals mating, and usually daughters helped their mothers to give birth.

In response to my OP, ** TGWATY ** wrote:

Lissa that was a very interesting post, but I find it pretty hard to swallow. Not that I can’t get it down, but only with effort and a big glass of water. What time period are we talking about? Concord of the 1860s as seen in Little Women – although innocent enough – doesn’t exhibit the extremes you describe.

And I answered that Alcott didn’t mention some etiquette norms because she was writing for a contempoary audience who would already be deeply familiar with them, not necessarily for an audience in the future.

Alcott was also given a lot more freedom and independence than many girls would have been. Her parents held beliefs that were not necessarily the most common.

**TGWATY **continued:

My great-grandmother was born c 1890. My mother tells me that in the late 60’s when she was having some physical difficulty, my mother suggested she wear pants. Her proud reply: “I have never had a pair of pants on in my life!”

The Victorian era ended in 1901. Your great-grandmother grew up in the Edwardian era, one of rapid technological and social changes. Life altered greatly in that era. A lot of the taboos and social etiquette rules fell into disuse.

[Mandelstam]

What exactly are you hoping to debate here, Lissa?

Off the top of my head I have two minor points to add, neither of which might be very interesting to you!

First, the reign of Queen Victoria did indeed end in 1901: but it was a very long reign (1837-1901). Historians of this period have come up with three brilliant terms to break the reign up into manageable chunks: early-Victorian, mid-Victorian, and late-Victorian ;). Gender and sexuality were not uniform throughout this long period. This was not just a simple question of etiquette which is probably of greater interest to us (for its novelty value) than it was to the Victorians. Victorian women made important legal and economic strides including the right to own their own property, the ability to get a divorce, and greater access to traditionally male educational institutions and professions.

Second, I don’t recommend using the world Victorian to describe nineteenth-century American culture (though people do it all the time). It’s not just that it’s technically incorrect, it’s also that there were interesting cultural differences between the two countries. For Americans the big event of the nineteenth century was the Civil War. For the British there wasn’t any single event of quite of that magnitude but one important set of markers was the introduction of the vote for all adult males which happened gradually over the course of the century.

[Lissa]

*Originally posted by Mandelstam *
What exactly are you hoping to debate here, Lissa?

In the earlier thread, ** TGWATY ** had trouble believeing some of what I had posted. Instead of taking the homophobia thread off on a wild tangent, I suggested we discuss it in another thread. I considered MPSIMS, but that seemed even more inappropriate than GD.

I guess what we debate will be up to ** TGWATY, ** or anyone else who finds fault.

BTW, I was aware of the points you mentioned, but in interests of brevity (and possible lack of interest by potential readers )I decided to use the generic term “Victorian” that everyone is familiar with.

A lot of the economic and social strides made by women, in my opinion, came * because * of the stereotypical fragility of women, and not in spite of it. For example, much of the debate over property rights focused on women chained to horrible husbands who squandered their money. Victorian (there’s that term again!) women were seen almost as “angels of the home” and somewhat elevated above “base” manhood. The Wife and Mother were somewhat glorified, saintly beings. (Which is actually somewhat tied with the denial of sexual appetites in women. Reading between the lines, many of the “experts” who denied women’s sexuality seem to have almost a disgust of the sex act itself. These glorious, frail creatures would have nothing to do with something as crass as sex, now would they?) To have women subject to the whims of these beasts who could starve them and leave them homeless was an anathema.

It also had a lot to do with the perception of the sanctity of the home and the emergence of childhood. In the Victorian era, privacy began to be valued, as did children-- not as tiny adults, but as actual * children. * A man who squandered money and disposed of property foolishly was violating that sanctity.

[Mandelstam]

“I guess what we debate will be up to TGWATY, or anyone else who finds fault.”

Well it seems to me unlikely that anyone can find serious fault with what you’ve posted in terms of fact. And you are right that the “Angel in the House” ideology became a source of empowerment for early feminists (albeit a double-edged sword).

But I would say that focusing on etiquette may give a misleading impression of Victorian sexuality which had the capacity to be a lot more erotic than the taboos suggest. And that may be why TGWATY, based on her (his?) reading of Alcott, was dubious. I’m not sure if you also like reading Victorian literature, but you don’t get the sense from reading Charlotte Bronte, or George Eliot, or Elizabeth Barrett Browning that the Victorians had no experience of erotic life. I guess what I’m saying is best summed up by the way that A.S. Byatt contrasted today’s sexuality to Victorian in Possession. And she really knows her stuff.

[Apos]

No, you’re doing a good job. Victorian mores are both more strict AND less strict than people imagine. The weird extremes of sexual prudishness were matched by the extremes of laviciousness and society talks given by Twain praising masturbation. Sex manuals were extremely popular and sexual innuendo was a constant naughty undercurrent in popular writers.

Victorian times were also one of the great peaks of prostitution.
In 1870, it was estimated that New York had about 10,000 whores. In 1890, the estimate was 40,000. By WWI, it was back down to 15,000. Guidebooks instructed men where to find the best whores. They often had amusing excuses for their real purpose. My favorite, from “The Gentleman’s Directory” goes thusly: “… when we describe their [the whores’] houses, and give their location, we supply the stranger with information of which he stands in need(sic), we supply a void that otherwise must remain unfilled(sic). Not that we imagine the reader will ever desire to visit these houses. Cetainly not; he is, we do not doubt, a member of the Bible Society, a bright and shining light. like the Newful Gardner of John Allen. But we point out the location of these places in order that the reader may know how to avoid them.”

Free love also began in this era, spearheaded by figures like Victoria Woodhull. “If I want sexual intercourse with one or one hundred men I shall have it… and this sexual intercourse business may as well be discussed now, and discussed until you are so familiar with your sexual organs that a reference to them will no longer make the blush mount to your face any more than a reference to any other part of your body.”

[summerbreeze]

Oh my goodness! All this happened overnight? Yesterday I painted my dining room & this AM early I had to email United Way of America & ask when they intend to condemn UWay of Tampa Bay for attempting to deny Susan Sarandon’s First Amendment rights. So now I get to Lissa’s much-anticipated new thread & find all this! Don’t know what to say. I think I will now lie down and think of England.

[Fretful_Porpentine]

But I would say that focusing on etiquette may give a misleading impression of Victorian sexuality which had the capacity to be a lot more erotic than the taboos suggest.

I’m no expert on the period, but I’m inclined to agree. After all, if the authors of etiquette books felt the need to forbid a particular behavior, that implies that some people were engaging in this behavior, no?

I’m especially curious about something Lissa mentioned in the other thread:

Courtship rituals also dictated that the couple not be completely alone with one another until the ring was safely on the bride’s finger.

I’m hard pressed to think of a proposal scene in a Victorian novel where the couple is not left alone together, if only briefly. (Often after the girl’s mother does a great deal of maneuvering to make sure the prospective groom has the opportunity.) Of course, Lissa is talking about America and most of the nineteenth-century novels I’ve read are set in England, so that could be a cultural difference.

[Captain_Amazing]

*Originally posted by Lissa *
** Wider seats were for men; status, not physique ruled. To delete the arms or make them very low was to specify the distaff." **

Could part of that have to do with the clothing issue? During a portion of Victorian England, wasn’t women’s fashion really into…how do I put it…poofy dresses that stick out all over the place, with hoops and bustles and all that. I’d imagine sitting in a chair with big arms would be pretty difficult. The dress would start to bunch up.

[Mandelstam]

Fretful: “Of course, Lissa is talking about America and most of the nineteenth-century novels I’ve read are set in England, so that could be a cultural difference.”

Maybe. But there’s also a big difference–then as now–between what an etiquette manual tells you to do, and what people actually do. Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters offers an interesting literary example of a stepmother who is a bit too prone to do what what fashionable people do, and a stepdaughter who is more natural and uses common sense. Lots of Victorian authors, in other words, were resisting snobbish codes, most of which were more to do with guarding class lines than with gender lines per se. (Turning your daughter into a proper lady was a way of claiming status for yourself.)

Novels do give the very strong impression that in England engaged couples and even on-their-way-to-being-engaged-couples, spent a lot of time on their own. That doesn’t mean they took weekend trips together, but they were left to themselves in the drawing room, and they took walks together. No author I can think of shows otherwise including the very refined Austen.

Two of my favorites (sorry if this is a bit of a literary hijack, Lissa):

Lydgate and Dorothea alone in (I think) Casaubon’s library near the end of Middlemarch.

Knightly and Emma: when things are almost going bad for the proposal we know is coming, and she asks him to take another turn in the park (a lady’s prerogative).

Bear in mind too that English novels (and American too I think) were very upright in comparison with French and Russian novels, where married ladies often had affairs and without dropping dead on the spot. Yet there were no shortage of English ladies, especially in the upper classes, who had lovers. Just a cultural difference about what you could write about and still keep your publisher and your “respectable” audience. A lot of stuff had to be in between the lines.

[Lissa]

*Originally posted by Captain Amazing *
**Could part of that [chair width] have to do with the clothing issue? During a portion of Victorian England, wasn’t women’s fashion really into…how do I put it…poofy dresses that stick out all over the place, with hoops and bustles and all that. I’d imagine sitting in a chair with big arms would be pretty difficult. The dress would start to bunch up. **

Actually, the book from which I quoted adresses this, saying that chair-gendering pre-dated poofy dresses.

And doing pretty much * everything * in one of those dresses was difficult! You couldn’t see your feet, and if you weren’t careful, your dress could knock over brick-a-brack, or catch fire if you got too near the fireplace. Unfortunately, many houses had narrow doorways (you had to smoosh in your hoops or risk showing more petticoat than proper) or, scarier, narrow stairs. (When I’ve worn a hoopskirt, I pressed it against my legs and let it bell out in back when going down stairs so I could see.) When sitting, you had to grab the top hoop and hold it up just a bit, and then sit in the area it created so that the skirt wouldn’t swing upwards. When wearing a bustle, you had to sit more towards the edge of the chair.

Clothing was not comfortable, nor was it necessarily expected to be. In the summer, fabrics were lighter, but you were still wearing around six layers: three petticoats, pantalets, chemise, corset, etc. Ladies must have baked in the heat. The corset was arguably the most uncomfortable. You couldn’t draw a full breath, nor bend over easily.

Worse was when fashion dictated a certian unnatural shape, such as in the early 1900s when the S-bend shape was in style. The corset pushed your chest forward and your rump backwards. The corset also meant that you couldn’t pull your pantalets down, so they were usually slit in the middle to facilitate nature’s calls.

However, just try to imagine using chamber pot while dressed like that. This is one of the reasons why ladies reportedly had so many bladder infections.

Doctors argued bitterly against the use of corsets and “tight lacing.” They warned of rib deformities and miscarriages, but ladies stubbornly clung to their corsets. Some people believed that a corset was needed to mold a weak woman’s body into a healthy, natural shape and to give strength to her back. (Some people put little girls as young as eight years old into “training corsets.”

[side note] In my museum we have a large collection of corsets. Some are labled “Health Corsets” but differ little from other corsets. My favorite is the “Electric Corset.” (Electricity was almost magic in those days and many products were labeled “electric,” such as electric hairbrushes, that had nothing at all electric about them. The hairbrush was supposed to cure migraine.) The Electric Corset had actually had electricity passed through the metal stays at the factory, and people who didn’t understand electricity must have thought that it retained some of that magical power.

[/side note]

[Lamia]

*Originally posted by Mandelstam *
**
Novels do give the very strong impression that in England engaged couples and even on-their-way-to-being-engaged-couples, spent a lot of time on their own. That doesn’t mean they took weekend trips together, but they were left to themselves in the drawing room, and they took walks together. No author I can think of shows otherwise including the very refined Austen.
**

Jane Austen was not a Victorian novelist. She lived during the Regency period, which was considerably less restrictive. During the Regency a gentleman could call upon a lady at her home (although it would be unacceptable for her to do the same), and young unmarried people could spend some time alone together if the circumstances seemed proper.

[Mandelstam]

Yes, Lamia, I’m aware that Jane Austen was not a Victorian. But while it’s true that the Regency period was less restrictive, I don’t think you’ll find that Jane Austen was less restrictive. She was, in certain ways, helping to shape the morality that Victorians (of a certain class) came to accept as their own. Hence, the contrast between Elinor and Marianne in Sense and Sensibility; hence Fanny Price’s restraining role over the goings-ons in Mansfield Park the most proto-Victorian of Austen’s novels.

I feel very confident in saying that engaged couples and even on-their-way-to-being-engaged-couples were, by and large, able to spend time on their own (within reason) in the Victorian period. I can’t think of a single major novelist, or a diarist in which that appears to have not been the case, and the novelists in question were–much more even than the conduct manuals–involved in constructing the reigning sense of what was appropriate. If anything there was probably more hanky panky going on behind the scenes than novels would lead us to believe–not less.

Anyone interested in getting a glimpse of a truly interesting illicit couple might want to check out the Hannah Cullwick’s diaries (I may be mangling the spelling of that last name as I have no time to check). This was a longstanding secretive relationship between a single male employer and his working-class housekeeper. Lots of sexual roleplay going on and other interestingly, um, non-vanilla stuff. Swinburne’s poetry is another interesting (and also quite beautiful) entree into the world of Victorian kinkiness.

[Duke]

Originially posted by Lissa:
The author of the censored Bible was Noah Webster, who considered it the most important work of his life. “His version retained every incident but changed words ad lib, offering thousands of alterations, every one dedicated to euphemisms and absolute decency. Typical is the story of the self-abusive Onan who, rather than “spill his seed” “frustrates his purpose.” Testicles become “peculiar members” and female genitals, and even wombs, are conspicuous only by their absence.”

That’s as may be, but Noah Webster wasn’t really a Victorian author either. His American Bible dates from 1833, a few years before Victoria came to the throne. The bulk of Webster’s lexicographical work dates from before 1833 regardless.

What’s more, far from “offering thousands of alterations”: (from linked article)

Webster’s Bible is a light revision in that for the most part it reads like the KJB; indeed, it is probably too light. Webster did not always revise where he probably should have.

Yes, Webster did revise the King James Bible for “purposes of decency”–from his introduction to the text:

There are also some quaint and vulgar phrases which are not relished by those who love a pure style, and which are not in accordance with the general tenor of the language. To these may be added many words and phrases, very offensive to delicacy and even to decency.

But a lot of this concern resulted from the changes in what was considered “decent language” between 1611 and 1833, not Webster’s personal concerns about language. It was perfectly acceptable, during the 16th and 17th centuries, to put what we would even today consider inappropriate language in a religious text. (I’ve read “serious” religious tracts from the early 16th century where the word “shit” was used more than once!) I don’t think one should be too hard on Webster.

[Duke]

Sorry, that first link should be here.

[Guinastasia]

An interesting book to read is Inventing the Victorians: What We Think We Know About Them and Why We Are Wrong.

I forget the name of the author.

In it, another reason for covering furniture legs is given, besides asthetics-preservation. Think about it. It won’t get as dusty, it will provide some protection against scratches, fading, etc.

[Lissa]

*Originally posted by Guinastasia *
**An interesting book to read is Inventing the Victorians: What We Think We Know About Them and Why We Are Wrong.

I forget the name of the author.

In it, another reason for covering furniture legs is given, besides asthetics-preservation. Think about it. It won’t get as dusty, it will provide some protection against scratches, fading, etc. **

The author is Matthew Sweet. This book is where I got the name of Captain Frederick Marryat.

Another good book on the attitudes toward sex throughout the ages is * Rereading Sex * by Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz. It has a lot of good information on Victorian porn.

• Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, class and the state * is an excellent source on how these “loose women” were percieved, and the debate over regulation.

I also suggest * For Her Own Good: 150 Years of the Experts’ Advice to Women * by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deidre English. * There’s an interesting part in there about the movement of surgery to remove the ovaries which was designed to turn rebellious or unhappy women into “models of refinement.” One doctor wrote in 1893 that removal of the offending organ resulted in women whose “moral sense” was improved, and they became more “tractable.”

[Guinastasia]

What about the invention of vibrators to relieve women of “hysteria?”

[Lissa]

From this site:

Physicians employed vibrating devices in the treatment of “hysteria,” which they viewed as the most common health complaint among women of the day. Hysteria was a medical term developed to describe a woman’s display of mental or emotional distress, behavior then considered a disease in need of treatment. Though the existence of hysteria as a disease was debunked by the American Psychiatric Association in 1952, medical experts from the time of Hippocrates up to the 20th century believed that hysteria expressed the womb’s revolt against sexual deprivation. Genital massage was a standard treatment for hysteria; its objective was to induce “hysterical paroxysm” (better known as orgasm) in the patient. Such treatment demanded both manual dexterity and a fair amount of time, so turn-of-the-century physicians were delighted with the efficiency, convenience and reliability of portable vibrators. In light of hysteria’s historical legacy, we can see that classifying hysteria as a disease was a refusal to acknowledge female sexuality as a human trait on par with male sexual functioning, as well as a refusal to recognize orgasm as a normal function of female sexuality.

[foolsguinea]

One quote from the period that I particularly like is from a letter written from Samuel Clemens’s new wife; as I recall, to her mother, & a week or so after their wedding. Just sort of telling how things were going as a newlywed. Things had calmed down after the first few days of married life, and the new Mrs. Clemens summed it up as, “We eat & sleep now.”

[Lissa]

Oops! Forgot to add:

There’s a book on this very subject: The Technology of Orgasm: “Hysteria,” the Vibrator, and Women’s Sexual Satisfaction (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology)

On another subject, I also suggest: Devices and Desires: A History of Contraceptives in America which is a social history of contraceptive devices. (A very interesting read, if only for the chapters on Comstock!)