News & Articles - Features
Perfect Marriage
Monday 22 June 2009
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.
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Sex and the Empire
Monday 22 June 2009
In June 1883 a scandal broke out that rocked British India. An English woman, Alice Hume, accused her Indian servant of breaking into her house, beating her and attempting to rape her. The whole thing was a cover-up. It showed a whole new attitude of England towards her colonies.
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The Wages of Sin
Monday 22 June 2009
For a man in Victorian times there were two kinds of women: 'nice' women of your own class, whom you married; and prostitutes or women of easy virtue, whom you went to bed with. Victorian society looked indulgently on men who sowed their wild oats. For respectable women it was a different story: they were expected to be virgins when they married. This meant that, to gain sexual experience, men would resort to prostitutes. Unfortunately, with prostitutes came the threat of a sexually transmitted or venereal disease, such as syphilis or gonorrhoea.
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The Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885
Monday 22 June 2009
When Victoria came to the throne, the age of consent for a girl was just 12. In 1875 this was raised to 13. In 1881, the anti-vice campaigner and chamberlain of the city of London, Benjamin Scott, instigated a Criminal Law Amendment Bill to protect young English girls from being transported to the continent for 'immoral purposes'. It took another four years before the Bill became law.
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The Reformers
Monday 22 June 2009
The Victorian age was a turbulent time for women. Within the space of a few years their place in society changed: from being helpless victims, the property and playthings of men, they became, at least potentially, strong and independent beings in their own right. Victoria's reign brought the reform of the laws governing prostitution, the introduction of more equitable divorce and the growing strength of the campaign to give women the vote. These reforms transformed women's lives.
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Virgin Trade
Monday 22 June 2009
The wages of sin For a man in Victorian times there were two kinds of women: 'nice' women of your own class, whom you married; and prostitutes or women of easy virtue, whom you went to bed with. Victorian society looked indulgently on men who sowed their wild oats. For respectable women it was a different story: they were expected to be virgins when they married. This meant that, to gain sexual experience, men would resort to prostitutes. Unfortunately, with prostitutes came the threat of a sexually transmitted or venereal disease, such as syphilis or gonorrhoea.
