Victorian Women - Angels or Whore
Why were women in the Victorian Era viewed either as the Angel or the Whore?The Victorian Age is dominantly known as a time of perpetual change. It is defined as a time of new industrialization, increased urbanization, and new technology. However, one of the strongest undercurrents of this time was the position of women. Before women were able to band together and counter their subordination in society, they could easily be defined in two broad descriptions: the angel or the whore. While most women could not easily be categorized in one label, people categorized them as such as a result of the existing paradigms in the patriarchal society. Although Victorian society contained several classes, women were interestingly categorized in only two labels. Therefore, the description between the Angel and the Whore was very generalized. An Angel could have been any women from the lower middle classes to the aristocracy. A whore, meanwhile, could be literally a prostitute to any working class woman. The fact that there was no gray area for women to be labeled emphasized the thin line that existed between the two categories. It was extremely simple for an Angel to become a "fallen women," or a whore. Any woman who committed adultery coul
This highlights another double standard in Victorian society; a man could carry many faces: that of the virtuous, yet adulterous, husband, while a woman could only be an "Angel" or a "Whore. " It is also important to consider that working class women were often times stronger and more courageous than middle class "Angels" of the home. This reveals yet another double standard of the Victorian era. Queen Victoria, however, introduced a contradiction in the "Angel in the House" image as she was not just an idle housewife-she also had public management on her shoulders (Langland, 1995: 63). " While he attempted to build some sympathy for prostitutes by allowing women of other classes a glimpse into their lives, he simultaneously widened the gap between the two types of women. Spinsters were represented as "unnatural, barren and selfish," and some prominent physicians described the "harm supposedly arising from celibacy" (Gleadle, 2001: 183). It was also common for young women from rural areas or emigrants to have more than one lover, display sexual behavior, and drink in public as a result of no parental supervision (122). They would be juxtaposed against a "heavenly" employer to emphasize their "lowness" in society, so it became difficult for the working class woman to detach herself from the idea of being unequal to the "higher" women. " In turn, to fight this association working class women strived to ascend to "Angelic" status but were often limited. A "fallen" woman was someone who had either committed adultery or had a pre-marital sexual experience and was commonly seen as the predecessor to ruin and prostitution. Queen Victoria represented the archetype of a woman in the 19th century. While "social ideology inscribed the lower classes as inherently less moral, less delicate, more physical, and more capable of strenuous physical work," the middle and upper classes were "immune" and far above these characteristics (Langland, 1995: 41). In the first part, she is cast down on the floor, below her husband, after he learns of her adultery. The 1851 census displayed that 40% of working class women were domestic servants (Gleadle, 2001: 12). Although many were pragmatic about their situation, most fell into it out of desperation to make ends meet or from being forced into it (Gleadle, 2001: 100).
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