 |
 |
|
 |
  |
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
 |
One of the enduring inventions of the Victorian era is the sleazy tabloid press, for although the newspapers remain traditional in appearance, the new journalism of the 1880s fills them with sex and scandal. King of the new breed of editors is William Thomas Stead (1849-1912), son of a Yorkshire Congregationalist minister. In 1883, W T Stead becomes editor of the Pall Mall Gazette and soon gives the public a mix of moral outrage and salacious titillation. At the start of June 1885, readers are warned not to buy the issue of 6 July because it will contain shocking matters. On that date, the issue is headlined 'The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon', and describes in detail the trade in child sex. It covers the purchase of young girls from their mothers, the procuring of virgins for upper-class gentlemen, the international trade in little girls and the 'unnatural vices' to which they are subjected. But when Stead claims to have actually witnessed a girl, Eliza Armstrong, being bought from her mother for £5, he goes too far. The story is a set-up and the girl's father, who did not know about it, brings a prosecution against Stead for abduction. The disgraced Stead is sent to jail for three months. After that, he carries on as a sensationalist journalist before dying on the Titanic. But over-zealous newspaper editors are not the only victims of sex scandals. In 1891, Charles Parnell – the charismatic leader of the Irish movement for self-rule in the British parliament – falls from power because of his long-standing affair with Kitty O'Shea, the wife of another Irish MP. This is a political catastrophe for Ireland, which remains under British rule until the war of independence in 1919-21. Other victims include Charles Dilke (1843-1911) – a Liberal MP whose hopes of being Gladstone's successor are dashed when he is cited as an adulterer in an infamous 1886 divorce case – and the homosexual Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), who spends two years in prison for homosexual offences. He writes about his experiences in the poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol and dies in exile in Paris. Women Victorian women are second-class citizens. They have fewer legal rights than men, and almost no political rights – in particular, they're not allowed to vote. By law, a married woman is the property of her husband, and her possessions – even her children – belong to him. Influenced by the Bible, many people believe that men and women are born to fulfil different roles: men to command, and women to obey men and bear and raise their children. But, in an age when contraception is still primitive, giving birth is hazardous – many women die in childbirth or soon after. On the pedestal Respectable Victorian women are heavily idealised. The main myth is the 'angel in the house', named after an 1854 poem by Coventry Patmore (1823-96). Those who subscribe to this myth see women as innocent creatures who need male protection – and the best form of protection is confinement in a solid, middle-class home. Along with this is the notion of 'separate spheres' – men deal with public business, women with private. Women's sphere of action is moral, while that of men is material. Women inhabit their own worlds where they nurture the nation's values. Women are not just homebodies, but embodiments of pure virtue, humble and submissive. They wear bodices that completely cover their bosoms and arms, and their skirts reach down to their ankles. However, novels such as Anne Brontë's Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) show that the myth of domestic heaven often conceals the reality of domestic hell. A third myth of Victorian womanhood is that of the 'fallen woman'. Based on traditional Christian notions of woman as the daughter of Eve, the idea of the 'fallen woman' says that women are innately prone to corruption. Victorian society makes a rigid separation between pure angels and immoral women. Hypocrisy and double standards Conceptions of women's passive sexual nature, added to ideas about possessive patriarchal individualism, equal male dominance. Any sexual transgression in polite society is severely policed. No matter how great the provocation, simply by leaving her husband a woman quits respectable society and becomes an outcast. Although she may have done nothing wrong, she is a 'fallen woman' … and fallen women are excluded from polite society. This system gives middle-class men plenty of opportunity to indulge in hypocrisy and double-standards. It is seen as natural for gentlemen to use prostitutes but unnatural for women to have affairs. But while many middle-class women accept the system, the priorities of working-class women are often different. Yet the factory and mines legislation of the 1840s is motivated more by a concern for women's morals rather than by a concern for their physical health. If working hours are limited, women will have more time to spend at home caring for their families. Changing the law Women are active in campaigns for the removal of laws that force them into subservience. In 1855, Caroline Norton (1808-77) campaigns successfully for an amendment to the Divorce Bill that allows married women, when separating from their husbands, to keep whatever property they had before the marriage. She also secures the right for married women to be allowed to sue and be sued, and to make contracts in their own names. (Oddly enough, however, Norton does not want the vote to be given to women.) Other women, such as Barbara Leigh Smith (1827-91), also campaign for female equality – and not only women: in 1869, John Stuart Mill publishes his Subjugation of Women. In 1857, the divorce law is reformed but still favours the husband. Not until 1882 does the Married Women's Property Act give women the full right to own property in their own names and to keep their own earnings. Other laws in 1873 and 1886 made it easier for mothers to get custody of their children and appoint guardians. In 1895, violence becomes grounds for a judicial separation with the payment of maintenance by the husband. Prostitution Prostitution is not illegal. Estimates of the number of prostitutes in Victorian London differ depending on who is doing the estimating. The police claim there are 7,000, while the Society for the Suppression of Vice says 80,000. A 19th-century city commonly has 1 prostitute per 36 inhabitants, or 1 per 12 adult males, which means 55,000 prostitutes for London, often called 'the whoreshop of the world'. Off limits London has relatively few brothels but does have many rooming houses that tolerate prostitution. In the 1870s, Mary Jeffries runs an exclusive brothel, catering to the aristocracy. One of her rooms is fitted like a torture chamber for sado-masochistic sex. Many prostitutes are independent, working women. They are primarily young, single and aged between 18 and 22. Most have previously had low-wage jobs, primarily working as domestic maids; a few support illegitimate children. They visit pubs, which are off limits to respectable woman. Many prostitutes only work temporarily and often begin when they move from one town to another or from the countryside to London. Most prostitutes soon settle down, many marrying former clients. Enlightened view The lower classes are more tolerant of the sorts of sexual behaviour that the middle class finds immoral. According to Dr William Acton, whose book Prostitution (1857) gives a relatively enlightened view of the phenomenon, prostitution is a transitory stage often adopted by women forced to earn a living. Like other Victorians, Acton believes women feel no sexual desire. As late as the opening years of the 20th century, some people still believe that venereal disease can be cured by having sex with children. Virgins are especially prized and become a highly marketable commodity, fetching anywhere between £5 and £25. In the 1850s, the age of consent is 13. Redeemability The growth of printing and photography stimulates the production of pornography, which can be bought on London streets. A typical example is My Secret Life, written by 'Walter', which documents his alleged encounters with some 1,000 'willing' women. Other Victorian porn shows a taste among young men for girl-on-girl sex. The Liberal politician William Gladstone is well known for walking the streets at night and encouraging prostitutes to come home with him … where he and his wife give them food and shelter and try to help them change their way of life. Charles Dickens helps set up Urania Cottage as an asylum for prostitutes, in order to reclaim them to a life of virtue. Although in his charitable work he believes in their redeemability, his writings reflect Victorian ideas about the rapid decline and death of fallen women – once fallen, forever lost. Infection and violence Working-class prostitutes have certain advantages over their 'respectable' sisters – for one thing, being able to afford more comfortable accommodation and better food, they are less prone to tuberculosis. But there are obvious disadvantages – for instance, they are liable to catch one of the often fatal sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and are at an increased risk of violence. It is typical of Victorian double standards that, although there is no attempt to penalise men for having sex with prostitutes, women who sell sex are seen as sinful. In the 1860s, they are attacked by the law. Sexual diseases With the rise in prostitution, there's an increase in gonorrhoea and syphilis. Specialised asylums for treating STIs – called 'lock hospitals' – serve to punish and separate sufferers from the general public. Medical treatments are quite primitive and also extremely painful. In the 1850s, about half the outpatients in the main London hospitals are suffering from STIs, mainly the killer syphilis. To deal with the problem, Parliament passes the first of several Contagious Diseases Acts in 1864. These are intended to regulate prostitution in six garrison towns and ports, where it is assumed that soldiers and sailors need prostitutes. Any women found within a certain radius of garrison areas can be arrested and physically examined to see if she has an STI. It soon becomes obvious that these laws are unjust, as middle-class women are arrested and prostitutes brutally examined. The campaign against the Contagious Diseases Acts, led by Josephine Butler (1826-1906), gives the nascent feminist movement a powerful stimulus. In an age when polite society is afraid to think, much less talk, about sex, it takes immense courage for pioneers such as Butler to campaign against the acts. At the Colchester by-election in 1870, when she speaks against Sir Henry Storks, a keen supporter of the legislation, the hotel where she is staying is attacked by a mob and its windows smashed. But Storks loses the election, and the acts are eventually repealed in 1886. Education and careers Before compulsory education is introduced in 1870, many working-class women are poorly educated. In 1871, 27% of brides in England and Wales are unable even to sign their names. In the later part of Victoria's reign, many middle-class women seek activities and careers outside the home. But while it's easy enough to work in local charities, churches and the arts, especially music, it's harder for them to receive higher education and break into the professions. Opposition and scorn In the latter part of the 19th century, London University is unique in allowing women to take degrees (since 1878). At Oxford and Cambridge, new colleges for women are founded – Girton (1873), Lady Margaret Hall (1878) and Somerville (1879) – but even though women can attend lectures and sit exams, they aren't allowed to receive degrees. When Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836-1917) decides to become a doctor, she has to fight male student opposition and the public scorn of the medical profession to attend lectures at Middlesex Hospital in London. Even then, she has to go to Paris to complete her degree. She becomes the first British licensed female doctor, and the first female member of the British Medical Association. Other women become doctors by getting degrees in the United States. In 1871, there are only eight female doctors in Britain. Three years later, the London School of Medicine for Women is founded by Sophia Jex-Blake (1840-1912) and numbers increase: by 1902, there are 212 female doctors. In 1895, the first women qualify as dentists. Rich families Most of the women who make great strides in Victorian times are middle class, often daughters of rich families. Bessie Parkes (1829-1925), who works on behalf of women's education before her conversion to Catholicism, is the daughter of a rich Birmingham solicitor. Her friend and colleague Barbara Bodichon (née Leigh Smith), who also campaigned for the Married Women's Property Act, is a cousin of Florence Nightingale and the daughter of an MP. However, Bodichon is also illegitimate, her mother having been a milliner's apprentice who, despite bearing him five children, Benjamin Leigh Smith refused to marry. Not all of the women involved in reform are thorough feminists. For instance, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson refuses to support the campaign against the Contagious Diseases Acts, believing that the health problems associated with prostitution are so great that all suspect women should be forcibly examined. Women's work The most common work for women is domestic service. In 1851, there are 752,000 female servants; in 1890, well over a million. In London, one person in 15 is in service. Many women find the lifestyle, with its accommodation, food and regular wages, preferable to the grind of factory work. Factory workers But where great industries are located, there are more jobs for factory workers than for domestic servants. The largest sector is textiles. In 1851, more than 600,000 women are employed in textile factories. By 1901, there are 40% more women working in them than men. Other industries requiring female labour include the manufacture of metal (polishing cutlery in Sheffield and Birmingham), chemicals, stationery and books. In heavy engineering centres and mining towns, women's paid work is less common. Many women work part-time, doing sewing and washing and hawking goods in the streets. Other women work in nursing and run hotels – the professions remain dominated by men. The presence of mill girls affects a variety of unexpected aspects of life. For example, they are the first to buy convenience foods, such as fish and chips and mass-produced bread. Offices and sweatshops By the end of the century, an increasing number of women work in offices. The invention of the typewriter and telephone help women because both machines are easier for them to operate than men. The proportion of clerks who are female is 3% in 1881; 20 years later, it has risen to 25%. New businesses, such as the Post Office, become major employers of women. For working-class women, life is tougher. They rarely work from choice and some look forward to marriage as a release from wage slavery. The cheap sewing machine provides a new source of employment for women in sweatshops where they work long hours for low piece-rate pay. Because men earn more than women for the same work, the trade unions are slow to organise female workers. Gays and lesbians Lesbian activity is not illegal, but male homosexual activity is. In the Victorian age, most same-sex unions are tolerated if discreet and secret. For example, the relationships between painters Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon, and between Lord Gower and his valet, are accepted. But overt gay behaviour is treated more harshly than anywhere else in Europe. Despite this, in London there is an underground gay scene, with its own vocabulary, codes, pick-up places and rent boys. Criminal offence In 1885, the Liberal MP Henry Labouchère successfully amends a bill that is intended to replace the legislation on contagious diseases (see above) and raise the age of consent for girls to 16. However, Labouchère also introduces a clause that, for the first time, makes 'gross indecency' between men a criminal offence, punishable by up to two years' hard labour. As a result, not only is sodomy illegal but so are all other homosexual acts, a situation unique in Europe. The law is soon dubbed the 'blackmailer's charter'. It is under this legislation that Oscar Wilde is prosecuted in 1895. In 1890, another scandal involving a male brothel in Cleveland Street, London, shows how gays are at risk from the new atmosphere of social panic. Establishment doctors are claiming that homosexuality is a degenerative illness that will make the English race weak. In the media, the final decade of the century is dubbed 'the naughty nineties' and seen as 'decadent'. Radical prophet Despite these attacks, some Victorian homosexuals are cultural pioneers. Edward Carpenter (1844-1929), poet and radical prophet of a new age of communal fellowship, is overtly homosexual. His 'mystic socialism' leads him to campaign against air pollution and vivisection, and for vegetarianism and 'rational dress', including sandals. But his sexuality gets him into trouble with more conventional left-wingers. At university, he had a close friendship with Andrew Beck (later master of Trinity Hall). Later years see a series of close friendships with men, usually with an undercurrent of sexual longing. On occasion, Carpenter resorts to visiting male prostitutes in Paris. The study of sex A key figure in both aestheticism and Oxford hellenism is John Addington Symonds (1840-93). The author of A Problem in Greek Ethics (1883) and A Problem in Modern Ethics (1891), he is also one of the most important Victorian homosexual apologists. Meanwhile, Henry Havelock Ellis (1859-1939), psychologist and pioneer in the scientific approach to the study of sex, finds it difficult to find a publisher for his austere study of Sexual Inversion (on which Symonds had collaborated before his death). When the book finally appears in Britain in 1897, George Bedborough, the bookseller who stocks it, is prosecuted and a British judge declares it obscene. In it, Ellis presents some 80 case studies of homosexual males, concluding that gay behaviour is not a disease or a crime and maintains that it is inborn and unmodifiable. Ellis's magnum opus is Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897-1928). It is legally available only to the medical profession until 1935. Ellis becomes known as a champion of women's rights and of sex education, but his autobiography My Life (1939) reveals his marital problems (his wife Edith Lees is a lesbian) and his unhappiness with his own sexual life. The new woman By the 1890s, popular journals and magazines are publishing stories and articles about the 'new woman'. Often caricatured as a formidable virago, who wears her hair down, has a job, rides a bicycle, smokes and looks down on men, this image nevertheless reflects the changing role of women as more and more of them find new roles. The 'new woman' no longer needs a chaperone every time she goes out, and she can speak up for herself. Independent-minded, she is usually single and prefers a white-collar job to keeping house for a domineering male. But being a female reformer remains dangerous. Many women want smaller families so they can do things other than breeding children. But when Annie Besant (1847-1933) publishes (with her lover Charles Bradlaugh) a pamphlet advocating birth control, she is arrested and just manages to escape imprisonment. While traditional men – and there are plenty of them – scoff and snigger at the new woman, the future belongs to her. In the 20th century, with the growth of the suffragette movement and the success of modern feminism, she will become a most significant social and political force. See also Votes for women |
|
