A new age The Victorian marriage Social ostracism The shadow side of marriage text only version		The marriage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert was regarded as the ideal to which all Victorian families should aspire. It was a genuinely happy marriage, but the standard it set and the Victorian values it established were a carefully planned public relations exercise. A new age Victoria came to the throne in the wake of the notorious debauchery of the Regency period. The fact that she inherited the Crown was due to the fact that her many rakish uncles, including the king, George IV, had no legitimate offspring to succeed them. Now there was a backlash, and a new religious movement, evangelical Christianity, was sweeping the country. Her advisers decided that Victoria would embody this new morality. The Victorian marriage Victoria was lucky. She had a passionate nature and loved her husband. Maintaining a respectable marriage was no hardship. Others were not so fortunate. Victoria's obviously happy marriage and ever-growing family set a standard that was not always easy to live up to. For an unhappily married woman at that time, there was no escape. Until the passing of The Married Women's Property Act in 1884 and The Divorce Act in 1857, a woman was trapped in marriage until she or her husband died. Social ostracism A woman's reputation was her most precious asset. If a woman were rumoured to be misbehaving sexually, even if she was innocent, the consequences were disastrous. She would lose her good name, she would be barred from society, she would be decried as a 'fallen woman'. This led to tragedy, such as the case of Lady Flora Hastings, an unmarried lady-in-waiting who was rumoured to be pregnant. Some women, such as Marian Evans (better known as the novelist George Eliot) deliberately chose to live outside society's boundaries. Others, like Caroline Norton were forced to flee violent marriages. Caroline went on to become a powerful campaigner for women's rights. The shadow side of marriage Victoria was not overjoyed by her growing family. She disliked childbearing, which she called the 'shadow side' of marriage, and resented the fact that it interrupted her sex life. However in those days there were no legal means of birth control available to respectable women.
resources credits