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Queen Victoria
Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India

Victorian morality is a distillation of the moral views of people living at the time of Queen Victoria (reigned 1837 - 1901) in particular, and to the moral climate of Great Britain throughout the 19th century in general that were in stark contrast to the morality of the previous Georgian period. It is not tied to this historical period and can describe any set of values that espouses sexual restraint, low tolerance of crime, and a strong social ethic. Due to the prominence of the British Empire, many of these values were spread across the world.

The term "Victorian" was first used in 1851 during the Great Exposition where Victorian inventions and morals were shown to the world.^[1]Victorian values were developed in all facets of Victorian living. The morality and values of the Victorians can be classed under Religion, Morality, Elitism, Industrialism and Improvement. These values take root in Victorian morality creating an overall change in the British Empire.

Historians now regard the Victorian era as a time of many contradictions. A plethora of social movements concerned with morals co-existed with a class system that permitted harsh living conditions for many. The apparent contradiction between the widespread cultivation of an outward appearance of dignity and restraint and the prevalence of social phenomena that included prostitution and child labour were two sides of the same coin: various social reform movements and high principles arose from attempts to improve the harsh conditions.

[edit] Historical background

Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Consort

The term Victorian has acquired a range of connotations, including that of a particularly strict set of moral standards, which are often applied hypocritically. This stems from the image of Queen Victoria—and her husband, Prince Albert,^[2]. Victoria did not enjoy sexual relations with her husband and informs her daughter that a bride was "like a lamb led to the slaughter" ^[3] However much she did not enjoy her husband's "baser passions", she did love him and mourned his death from typhoid for years. ^[4]

Two hundred years earlier, the Puritan movement, which led to the installment of Oliver Cromwell, had temporarily overthrown the British monarchy. During England’s years under Cromwell, the law imposed a strict moral code on the people (such as abolishing Christmas as too indulgent of the sensual pleasures).

When the monarchy was restored, a period of loose living and debauchery appeared to be a reaction to the earlier repression. (See: Charles II of England) The two social forces of Puritanism and libertinism continued to motivate the collective psyche of Great Britain from the restoration onward. This was particularly significant in the public perceptions of the later Hanoverian monarchs who immediately preceded Queen Victoria. For instance, her uncle George IV was commonly perceived as a pleasure-seeking playboy, whose conduct in office was the cause of much scandal.

A German anatomical illustration of a woman from the Victorian era.

[edit] Description

Victorian prudery sometimes went so far as to deem it improper to say "leg" in mixed company; instead, the preferred euphemism “limb” was used. Those going for a swim in the sea at the beach would use a bathing machine. However, historians Peter Gay and Michael Mason both point out that we often confuse Victorian etiquette for a lack of knowledge. For example, despite the use of the bathing machine, it was also possible to see people bathing nude. Another example of the gap between our preconceptions of Victorian sexuality and the facts is that contrary to what we might expect, Queen Victoria liked to draw and collect male nude figure drawings and even gave her husband one as a present^[5].

Verbal or written communication of emotion or sexual feelings was also often proscribed so people instead used the language of flowers. However they also wrote explicit erotica, perhaps the most famous being the racy tell-all My Secret Life by the pseudonym Walter (allegedly Henry Spencer Ashbee), and the magazine The Pearl, which was published for several years and reprinted as a paperback book in the 1960s. Victorian erotica also survives in private letters archived in museums and even in a study of women's orgasms. Some current historians now believe that the myth of Victorian repression can be traced back to early twentieth-century views, such as those of Lytton Strachey, a member of the Bloomsbury Group, who wrote Eminent Victorians.

Victoria ascended to the throne in 1837, only four years after the Abolition of slavery in the British Empire. The anti-slavery movement had campaigned for years to achieve the ban, succeeding with a partial abolition in 1807 and the full ban on slave trade, but not slave ownership, in 1833. It took so long because the anti-slavery morality was pitted against a powerful capitalist element in the empire, which claimed their businesses would be destroyed if they were not permitted to exploit slave labour. Eventually, plantation owners in the Caribbean received £20 million in compensation.

In Victoria's time, the Royal Navy patrolled the Atlantic Ocean, stopping any ships that it suspected of trading African slaves to the Americas and freeing any slaves found. The British had set up a Crown Colony in West Africa—Sierra Leone—and transported freed slaves there. Freed slaves from Nova Scotia founded and named the capital of Sierra Leone "Freetown". Many people living at that time argued that the living conditions of workers in English factories seemed worse than those endured by some slaves.

Throughout the whole Victorian Era, homosexuals were regarded as abominations and homosexuality was illegal. Homosexual acts were a capital offence until 1861. However, many famous men from the British Isles, such as Oscar Wilde, were notorious homosexuals. Toward the end of the century, many large trials were held on the subject.

In the same way, throughout the Victorian Era, movements for justice, freedom, and other strong moral values opposed greed, exploitation, and cynicism. The writings of Charles Dickens, in particular, observed and recorded these conditions. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels carried out much of their analysis of capitalism in and as a reaction to Victorian Britain.

[edit] Religion Morality

Religion morality changed drastically during the Victorian Era. When Victoria took the throne the Anglican Church was very powerful -- running schools and universities, and with high ranking churchmen holding offices in the House of Lords.^[6] The church's power continued to rule in rural areas throughout the Victorian Era, however that was not the case in Industrialized cities.^[7] In the cities those against the church were many and dissent was rampant.^[8] The dissenting sects were against what the Anglican church was using its power for^[9] The church demanded obedience to God, submissiveness and resignation with the goal of making people more malleable to the will of the Church.^[10] The Church aimed to appease the will of the elite and cared little if at all about the needs and wants of the lower, peasant class.^[11] Thus emerged Methodism, Congregationalism, The Society of Friends (Quakers) and Presbyterianism.^[12] The Methodists in particular stressed individual salvation through reading and studying the Bible.^[13] This stress on individualism is seen throughout the Victorian Era and becomes even more developed in Middle Class life.

The "Crisis of Faith" would hit religion and the citizens' Faith like a brick. The Crisis of Faith was brought about in 1859 with Charles Darwin's work On the Origin of Species; his theory was (in the basic form) that the Natural World had become what it was through gradual change over eons.^[14] He told that natural selection and survival of the fittest was the reason man had survived so long.^[15] His theory of evolution based on empirical evidence would call into question Christian beliefs, and the Victorian Values.^[16] People's lives became totally uprooted and there was a need to find a new system to base their values and morality on.^[17] Unable to completely lose Faith they combined both their Religious beliefs with individual Duty -- ^[18] duty to one's God, fellow man, social class, neighbour, to the poor and the ill.^[19]

[edit] The Elite and Middle Class Values

The Victorian Era began with the Elite in total control of society and its politics.^[20] The Elite class was made up of 300 families in particular and they were firmly established as the traditional ruling class.^[21] However, with the development of new types of values such as individualism this changed throughout the Victorian Era. The idea of the Self Made Man ^[22] would become dominant in the Middle Class. Similar to the American Dream, this idea states that that if they work hard enough all men can become wealthy and landed.

Upper Class Values

The Upper Class (the Elite) valued history, heritage, lineage and the continuity of their family line. ^[23] The Elite believed that they were born to rule, a type of divine right, and they wanted this right to continue. ^[24] The Elite had a paternalistic view of society; seeing themselves as the father of the family of society.^[25] Noblesse Oblige was their belief that it was the Elite's duty to take care of society.^[26] The Elite hoped to continue tradition and the status quo, the law of primogeniture (first born son inherits everything) would help this continue.^[27] The Elite intended to stay on top and wealthy.^[28] However, when a financial crisis threatened to end that they adapted and opened up their ranks to the wealthiest of the middle class; allowing them to buy a place within the ranks of the Elite ^[29]The Elite were landed gentry and so did not have to work, they had a life valuing luxury and leisure.^[30]While the Elite continued enjoying their tradition values Victorian Values changed and began to recognize the middle class.

Middle Class Values

The Victorian Era was the time where the Middle Class truly became important. The Middle Class valued: progress, laissez-faire politics, competition, piety, hope, honesty, decency, charity, cozy domesticity (family), materialism, class (conscious), and conformity. ^[31] The Middle Class came to dominate life because of the pure energy found within it.^[32] The Middle Class would also become stratified based on earnings. The Upper Middle Class were businessmen who had become self-made men, these would be the men who would buy into the Elite ^[33] The Middle Class would become Materialistic as a means of showing off their wealth, they were proud of their hard work and showing this through houses filled with furniture, walls covered in paintings etc. ^[34] Competition would become a facet of life not just reserved for business but in society as well; the winner would be the person who could keep up with the Jones. ^[35] The attitude of the Middle Class would lead to different results one of which the idea of Self Help; Self Help books would become the craze and were eaten up by all those who were literate.

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^ Merriman 2004,p. 749.
2. ^ Merriman 2004, p. 747.
3. ^ Merriman 2004, p. 748.
4. ^ Merriman 2004,p. 747.
5. ^ Peter Gay, The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud
6. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 108
7. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 108
8. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 108
9. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 109
10. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 109
11. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 109
12. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 109
13. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 109
14. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 112
15. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 112
16. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 113
17. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 113
18. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 113
19. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 113
20. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 146
21. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 147
22. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 200
23. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 154
24. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 154
25. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 154
26. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 154
27. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 154
28. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 154
29. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 154
30. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 154
31. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 200-201
32. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 200
33. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 200
34. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 201-202
35. ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 202

[edit] References

• Peter Gay, The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud
• Merriman, J (2004). A History of Modern Europe; From the French Revolution to the Present New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company.
• Bayley, S (2008). Victorian Values: An Introduction Montreal: Dawson College.

[edit] See also

• Neo-Victorian
• Sexual norm
• Victorianism