Articles/Sex Victorian

SEX AND MORALITY, VICTORIAN STYLE

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Obscenity, perversion, lust, and lasciviousness have been with human beings since the earliest records. But nowhere in history has such a gargantuan attempt to bottle up natural energies been made as in Victorian England, towards the end of the nineteenth century.

Today, however, in the post-"liberation" era, the amorality and immorality of the sixties appears gradually to be giving way to a new sense of morality which has some things in common with Victorianism. There is a resurrection of "family values," a nebulous phrase that has suffered from its politicization, but which nevertheless represents the need for a real value-system. Because so much in "family values" reflects Victorian morality, it is wise to study the latter in order to get a historical perspective.

Victorian values included character, conduct, and social systems of positive interaction. Although Victorian and Christian values are often interchanged, they are not quite the same. For one thing, Victorianism saw the physical body and sex as intrinsically undesirable and unclean, so that they could never, as real Christianity does, reflect a system of universal values.

The entire mangled complex of rules and morality might be traced to King George 3, who in 1787 issued a decree calling for the cultivation of "virtue" and the punishment of "vice." To show just how ludicrously the system evolved, in time, editions of Shakespeare and even of the Bible were produced that stripped them of all "sexual indelicacies."

But there were also positive aspects; reformers helped to design programs to help the poor, and to aid the physically challenged, leading directly to the Progressive Era of American history in the early twentieth century. Orphanages, hospitals, and charity-schools were established. Even among the very poor, the latter led to a relatively high degree of literacy, which in turn led to attempts to better their condition. This reform-spirit also led to the kinder treatment of animals, and to the prohibition of ghastly atrocities such as the cock-fight, bull-baiting, and bear-baiting. It also did away with public shipping, the pillory, and the slave-trade. Religious and secular authorities collaborated, and humanitarian programs blossomed.

The "classes" of society were motivated, in fact, largely by religion. Evangelicism motivated the middle classes, and Methodism the lower, working classes. Nor was this moral reformation simply a repeat of the older philosophic systems. Aristotle, for example, celebrated the "cardinal virtues" of courage, wisdom, justice, and temperance. These gave rise to prudence, generosity, liberality, and gentleness. Plato modified the virtues and set them in a social mileau; in his "perfect" communism, property, women, and children were shared in common by all-- something of which the Victorians would hardly have approved!

Victorians, although they clearly went too far, truly did try to construct a value-system that partially reflected the Christian values of faith, hope, and love. Thomas Aquinas saw these virtues as complementary to the Greek classical ones. Philosophers ever since have accepted the notion of "virtue." In ancient Chinese texts, such as "The Way of Virtue," virtue is seen even as a kind of power.

It was only in modern times that virtues became "values." This was a revolutionary transformation, for values exist in a relativistic system, not as absolutes. This change can be traced to the insane atheist Nietzsche. His "death of God" represented also the death of morality and the understanding of truth. For in his system, there existed no good or evil, but only relativistic values. This shift made morality also a victim of the "slippery slide" of relativism. Here, morals do not represent a better way of life, but are simply utilitarian. In fact, they can be reduced fully to simple beliefs, attitudes, or conventions.

By contrast, the Victorians were largely moralists, as represented by Carlisle. They celebrated the virtues of work, thrift, discipline, self-help, cleanliness, self-reliance, honesty, sexual fidelity, truth, honor, and justice. Still, they were not as repressed or inhibited as is popularly assumed. The idea that they were might represent only a superimposition of the values of the historian.

This moral absolutism, however, far too often indicated a coercive morality. This was no doubt due in part to the fear that relativism would slide into nihilism-- the belief that nothing was worth anything intrinsically.

MORALITY AND MANNERS were virtually synonymous in the fourteenth century. This is how John Milton used them in the seventeenth century. So did Thomas Hobbes. However, many Victorians exhibited good "manners" even when behaving immorally. For to them, "manners" came to mean only superficial forms of propriety. For example, some led lives of sexual carelessness, as prostitutes; but when they married, they insisted on a traditional wedding, with all the "trappings."

This practice leads to the following question: Is being stripped of all conventionality true "freedom"? Sexual "irregularities" led many to think so, as they attempted to normalize and "regularize" fornication. Often, the result was that they tormented themselves much more than they enjoyed themselves, for they struggled with law, society, and conscience. Paradoxically, they were fastidious immoralists, as illustrated by the sexual excesses of the statesman Gladstone, who was obsessed with masturbation, pornography, and prostitution. He called his lifestyle the "filthiness of evil," and tormented himself with literal flagellation (self-whipping).

At about this time, it was believed widely that the theory of evolution would inevitably undermine all religion and morality. And in many cases, it actually did so. What generally happened, however, was that morality became a substitute for organized religion. For the English were obsessed with morality, and its standards, its work-ethic, later became the origin of capitalism.

Meanwhile, manners supported repression. This concept evolved into the idea of "respectability," seen as a function of "character." Originally, the latter word applied to a written reference made by an employer.

Cleanliness always marked respectability. In those days, this required Herculean efforts. Foreign writers said that, to the English, "soap was civilization."

Another mark of respectability was work. "Work is worship," they said. For it was essential to self-respect, and the working classes were repelled by dependency. Thus, independence was another mark of respectability.

It is in the work-ethic, however, that family values merge with Victorian morality. Cleanliness, orderliness, thrift, and obedience were emphasized as virtues.

The very zenith of respectability, however, was the temperance movement. It had as many as six million members, and by the end of the century, both crime and alcoholism decreased significantly. By then, the illegitimacy rate declined to half of what it had been at the mid-century. Even in these cases, people followed the moral law by marrying, and divorce rates were negligible. Respectability, further, was a virtue that connected all classes.

Besides moral improvement, some reformers went even further. The eugenicists, including the Fabian socialists, thought to improve the human race by selective genetic reproduction. However, the problems of poor physical conditions that they sought to eradicate had been highly exaggerated.

In every area, this was a time of rising standards, and as they rose, deviations seemed more intolerable. The idea of the "gentleman" arose, to describe character, not class, as a bearer of higher standards. Burke observed that while a king can make a nobleman, he cannot make a gentleman. For he was a man of integrity, independence, conscientiousness, generosity, right thinking, and good principles. He might be of any class. His qualities always included courage, grace, politeness, and consideration.

This mental, moral definition "democratized" the formerly inherited title of "gentleman." It depended not on a person's possessions, but upon quality and morality. (Modern people abuse the word when they describe a criminal as a "gentleman.") (See Samuel Smiles in his Victorian classic Self-help.) The feminine counterpart was the "lady," a word that originally meant "bread-giver."

This distinction was available to all; it made morality a personal responsibility. For each was recognized as the "master" of his fate. Liberal societies, they said, required moral citizens. Even so, the Victorians were not Utopians; they did create sanctions, but made them as painless as possible. Burke even said that society could not exist without control of appetites, and that the less this control was internalized, the more external authority would be needed. That is why, in fact, the police were created.
This also explains his statement, "Manners are more important than laws." For manners, like morality, are imposed from within, by the mind, but laws are artificially imposed by external force.

WOMAN AS "HOME GODDESS." The family was revered, and never reduced to a mere economic system. For many, it was a haven of retreat from the harsh world. The seventeenth century jurist Sir Edward Cooke coined the phrase, "A man's home is his castle." Wesleyanism, and its offshoot, evangelicism, were powerful promoters of family values, which made the home not only a castle, but a sacred place. Servants and family gathered for Bible-reading and prayer. Families were united not only by Scripture, but by many journals of this time, whose theme was the family/home. Disraeli said, "Here the home is revered, and the hearth is sacred." John Ruskin said, "Our God is a household God, as well as a heavenly one. He has an altar in every man's dwelling." The sacredness of the home constituted almost a civic religion of the time. For, according to Edmund Burke, the love of mankind began with the love of family. And Frederick Harrison said that the home was the source of religion.

He spoke of "the home, where we learn to restrain appetite," thus connecting good home faith with the question of morality. At home, we were "to pass out of our lower selves, to live for humanity." In fact, the home was said to have more to do with religious training than all the teachers and schools and books. It was the place where "masks" and titles could be laid aside. And it was ruled by the father.

It was this patriarchal ethos that was objectionable to many women. However, most Victorians believed that women occupied a "separate sphere" of life and influence than did men, and this was largely the area of the home. It was really believed that a woman's place was in the home. This implied her place in the development of tender emotions. Of woman, it was said, "Love is her special crown." Many considered love and gentleness to be "unmanly." Even the poet-laureate Alfred Tennyson took a quasi-feminist view in his poetry. If she were more like a man, he said, then that would represent the death of love. Yet he also spoke of an ideal state in which "the man be more of woman, and she of man," so that each would thus have the qualities of the other.

For some, morality itself was the purview of women, while men ruled in matters of intellect. Frederick Harrison and the Positivists took the moral superiority of women for granted. They said that all of literature attested to this reality. In time, the view of women as exalted, superior, almost divine, beings acquired the name of "woman-worship." Indeed, some began to speak of a "Goddess" rather than the traditional God. The evolutionist T. H. Huxley ranted and raved against "philogynists," or lovers of women.

Nevertheless, most Victorians adopted the conservative tradition that stated that women were morally and intellectually inferior. They presented them as servants. There was also a counter-ideal, in which men were encouraged to cultivate the moral qualities associated with women. In the classic "Idylls of the King," the knights of King Arthur were encouraged to develop the following qualities: love, sweetness, gentleness, faithfulness, and chastity.

The idea of morality was not, of course, English. But while the English derived morality from the sense of duty, the French derived it from honor.

The English views were thus often carried to extremes. It was largely believed, by most in England, that women had, or should have, no sexual desire. Carried to a "logical" extremity, this concept gave rise to the idea that women were either "madonnas" of sexless virtue, or "whores," who knew and wanted nothing but sex. Thus sexual prudery and denial combined to produce a portrayal of women as oddly sexless, but child-bearing, "machines." However, the stereotype of the frigid, repressed, sexless woman of Victorian times was not really as common as it is usually inferred. Both the letters and literature of respectable women of the time testify without doubt to the existence of a very powerful and recurrent sexual drive among women. In fact, England's first female doctor, Elizabeth Blackwell, stated bluntly that female sexuality was every bit as strong as that of males. And sex-manuals appeared as early as 1782, read by both sexes. The current prevailing view of all Victorians as hopelessly repressed sexually is surely a distorted one.

Still, most people, no matter what their class, subscribed to a common moral code. And most women seemed quite content and satisfied with their roles of wives and mothers. They did not feel exploited. This was seen as the "natural" or even "divine" arrangement. They saw marriage as emotionally satisfying, and even emancipating-- although increased freedom was rare. Home-life seemed to grow even more stable as economics became increasingly uncertain. In this matter, it was considered normal for a man to turn his entire pay-check over to his wife, one of whose jobs it was to determine spending for the family. Since the main goal of the average family was to live without debt, this could be challenging. But marriage was seen as a life-long working partnership, not an experiment. It was a sacred bond, a holy mutual commitment, in which women served often as matriarchs. Thus, the stereotype of the tyrannical and abusive man was very much the exception rather than the rule. For one thing, strong community disapproval made this kind of man rare, for it was "most disreputable." Even courts generally found in favor of women.

And the women preferred, whenever possible, not to work outside the home. They almost never sought "self-fulfillment" at the expense of the family. Instead, they saw any family-success as a kind of personal success. These women are worthy of respect.
Samuel Smiles wrote, "One good mother is worth a hundred school-masters." They were appreciated even by the community. So, working class families were not nearly as patriarchal as they are often presented.

At this time, social conditions, and the standard of living, were rising. Things were becoming better and more pleasant.
THE RISE OF FEMINISM. Reform was a crucially important factor of the Victorian social scene. The word "feminism" first appeared at the end of the century. The feminist belonged to no one party, but rather, to the causes of women, called then "the woman's question." Oddly, most historians argue that the most influential of the feminists was a man-- Stewart Mill (who wrote The Subjection of Women in 1869). He strongly argued for women's rights to vote and to participate publicly. The Act of 1832 had attempted to make the voting right an exclusively male right. And while early feminist arguments might now seem banal and ordinary, in their time, they sounded radical. They said that much talk about the "moral superiority" of women was simply a smoke-screen to keep them in their place. Mill used the strategy of arguing that to give women rights was as much in men's as in women's best interests. Equality did not require simple equal education, but the right to public life. Some, indeed, supported women's education because they actually saw women as inferior, thus doing the right thing for the wrong reason. Charles Kingsley was one of these. However, the very arguments of Mill and others suggest that women of the time were generally less passive and inactive than is often supposed. In fact, one of the common parodies that originated from this time was that of the "hen-pecked" husband.

Paradoxically, many liberals, suspecting that women would vote conservatively, opposed women's rights. Union leaders often resisted them too, fearing that women would enter the work-force and lower wages. Some women did not fight for the right to vote, because they felt that other issues were far more important. (Florence Nightingale was an example.)
In fact, many women emerged as anti-suffragists. Beatrice Webb, the socialist, was one of these. She felt that political activism would harden women to the point where they would give up their cherished roles as wives and mothers. They would lose their tenderness and mercy, compassion and kindness, which she saw as special gifts of women. (The housing reformer Octavia Hill was also opposed to women's rights.)

As these women indicate, the era was not nearly so repressive as it is often portrayed. It witnessed the first serious, concerted effort for women's rights. And while women became more assertive, men had two reactions. They became either more repressive or more permissive.

Many women worked in volunteer jobs, a kind of borderline between home and work place. They also played a crucial role in the anti-slave movement. Many were also writers; in fact, during the century, more novels were published by women than by men.

But it was economic necessity rather than equality that drove women to demand the right to work. Chivalry and tradition had convinced people that the man should work for the woman, but all that old dogma was dying. Women rebelled, not because they wanted the work, but because they wanted the power that it represented. By the end of the century, because of economic and technological factors, there was a rapid rise in opportunities. Women worked as accountants, secretaries, postal workers, photographers, typists, clerks, waitresses, and maids. By 1901, twelve universities granted degrees to women. The 1857 Divorce Act removed divorce from the regulation of the church and made it a civil action, and half the divorce-actions of the working classes came from women. This Act also made it possible for women to own property.

Sexual taboos also began to relax. In the Contagious Diseases Act of 1864-69, prostitutes were ordered to undergo periodic physical exams, and to be hospitalized if necessary. Feminists violently opposed the Act, saying that it punitively blamed women. Since prostitution was seen as inevitable, society dared not ignore or deny it. So, it sought to regulate. After two decades, and a wildfire of controversy, the Acts were repealed.

Stricture on other behaviors were also being relaxed. A writer/speaker named Josephine Butler was criticized because of her "vulgar" talk; before long, the idyllic illusion of the fair, untouched, lily-white maiden had to be replaced by more realistic portrayals. Reformers began speaking openly against incest, and the very use of that word stirred another storm of controversy. Yellow journalism was quick to pick up on such stories and to sensationalize them. Soon, another legal Act was passed, that raised the legal age of sexual consent to sixteen.

This all served as a launch-pad for the "boomerang effect" in the creation of the Social Purity movement. They wanted to rescue prostitutes and to promote sexual morality. It enjoyed wide success among feminists. It also campaigned against the publication of unapproved books, and opposed birth-control. Oddly, birth-control was popular among most women, but not among feminists.

In the 1820's a writer named Malthus wrote about the horrible projected dangers of over-population, and sparked a campaign for artificial birth-control, although ironically he himself was against it. This was the beginning of a group called the Malthusian League. Feminists opposed it because they said that it degraded women, making them mere vehicles for male sexual pleasure. Early feminists believed, in fact, that "liberation" should never be purchased at the cost of "womanly virtues."

THE QUESTION OF POVERTY. In Victorian England, one-sixth of the people were on Welfare. To some, this seemed degrading, as a public dependency. In 1795, new wage-laws had sought to bring wages to a subsistence-level. Soon, many farmers were subsidized. In 1798, Malthus published his famous "Essay on Population." In it, he predicted dire consequences of increasing population. In 1834, new laws made the reception of welfare a right of every citizen. Those who could work, however, were urged to get out of the system. When the government tried to set up laws forcing the able-bodied to work from "workhouses," Disraeli opposed them because he said that they made poverty a crime. In practical terms, the workhouse was not as bad as it was made out to be in Dickens' Oliver Twist. In fact, the major complaint of those living there was a loss of liberty and subsequent humiliation. But for all practical purposes, the workhouse became a poorhouse, housing those unable to work. Voluntary charity was a major aid to the poor.

GIVING AND RECEIVING. The first factory Act for working children was passed in 1833. During the next few decades, a number of other laws regulated factory-work-conditions. In fact, new reform laws affected health, sanitation, education, transportation, holiday, the water-supply, sewage, street-lighting, parks, and libraries. It was obvious that the standard of living was rising rapidly.

John Wesley's philosophy of Methodism became the guiding principle, and it stated, "Gain all you can, save all you can, and give all you can." This also led to hospital- and prison--reform, and to the founding of schools and orphanages. Full-time philanthropists arose, and so this age has been called the "age of benevolence." Many good ideas arose: the advancement of science, the protection of animals, suppression of vice, the abolition of tithes, helping working people to own their own homes, good housing, funds to provide workers with savings banks, the growth of economic/social knowledge, actions against intrusive alcoholism, and training for girls in schools. The period saw a real explosion of social concerns and activities.

In fact, it might be said that the Victorians formed a kind of secular religion, a "religion of humanity." It established a fine set of goals and moral principles. This was a great synthesis of religion and rationality. Some conservative Christians claimed that this tended to "dilute" religion, but it helped more people than the churches did. These social activists, further, were daily and directly involved with the lives of those whom they helped. They showed great nobility in the volunteering of time, money, and effort.
Toynbee Hall, founded in 1844, became the prototype for the "settlement house," a kind of "mission" established in a very poor neighborhood to help. Toynbee, the famous historian, had encouraged people to "keep to the love of your fellow man," and this project reflected that high ideal. It offered both culture and education to the poor. It was an experiment, a microcosm, founded on the principle that the "best self" can be realized only by helping others to realize their "best selves."

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CONCLUSION. Behind charity, there are two motives: 1) to aid others, and 2) to aid the self in spiritual growth. The Victorians set an example in many ways, and completely restructured society, setting the good example to be followed by the Progressive Era in America in the twenties. For behind it all, despite its extremisms and imperfections, lay a true spirit of compassion and love. If we can imitate this spirit of social awareness, goodness, and idealistic kindness, and leave out the Victorian over-judgmentalism, we will have found a model for our own lives.

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For more information, see the book, The Demoralization of Society: from Victorian Virtues to Modern Values, by Gertrude Himmelfarb (New York; Knopf, 1994

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