If someone tells you that you have a "really Victorian attitude" about something, you know they're not paying you a compliment (at least, not intentionally). By extension, they're not paying the Victorians a compliment either. Instead, such a statement implies criticism, if not outright condemnation, of the ways that Victorians were presumed to think. "Victorian" attitudes are, by popular definition, outmoded, old-fashioned, and repressive – whether they occurred over 125 years ago or last week. As I mentioned in the previous post, I rarely find references to positive Victorian attitudes. Instead, one comes across terms like rigid, repressive, prudish, hypocritical, and more. But what makes an attitude "Victorian" in the first place? Even assuming they were all of the above, surely they didn't invent such notions as rigid gender roles, hypocrisy, repressive attitudes toward sex, and so forth. We know what someone means when they say an attitude is "Victorian" – but is it, really? I hope I've already dispensed with the notion that there could be any "one size fits all" attitudes that would apply to all Victorians, throughout the era and across all demographics. Now let's see whether some of the attitudes generally ascribed to Victorians are really "Victorian" at all. Which brings us, once again, to some simple questions of logic... 1) Does the attitude predate the Victorian era? The first question to ask about an allegedly "Victorian" attitude is whether it actually originated in the Victorian era. Have you noticed that no one ever says, "My, you have such an Elizabethan attitude?" Yet a great many so-called Victorian attitudes have roots in much earlier eras. For example, Victorians certainly didn't invent "rigid gender roles" – few periods of British history were noted for their overwhelming degree of female emancipation. Rigid gender roles existed for centuries before the Victorian era – and also existed throughout the world. Strangely, no one ever accuses a person of having an Elizabethan attitude! Pictorial History of England, 1864 Take, for example, the statement that Victorians placed a high value on female purity and chastity. This is true, but again, hardly unique to the era. The importance of female purity (i.e., the notion that females should not have sex outside of marriage) goes as far back into the mists of history as one cares to travel. In the Western world, it was generally reinforced by Biblical injunctions written down over 3000 years ago – but it was hardly limited to the Western world. Female purity has been emphasized (and enforced) throughout the world, and remains so to this day. The reality is that female chastity is important in any patrilineal society, and the Victorians, like their predecessors, were intensely patrilineal, with strong legal restrictions as to who could inherit wealth, land, and titles. That legal system itself has roots going back to Roman law. Thus, Victorians can hardly be said to have invented this emphasis on female purity. Rather, as is true of so many so-called "Victorian" attitudes, this was an issue the Victorians inherited from their ancestors. Rather than describing it as a "Victorian" attitude, it would be far more accurate to state that it was an attitude Victorians retained from earlier eras. Which brings us to the next question... 2) Does the attitude postdate the Victorian era? A second question to ask is whether an attitude ended in the Victorian era. When we think of "Victorian" attitudes, we think of mindsets that, we'd like to assume, died a well-deserved death long before our more enlightened times. But did they? Let's go back to that issue of female purity. I'm old enough to remember the "sexual revolution" of the 1960s. Wikipedia describes this as "a social and cultural movement that resulted in liberalized attitudes toward sex and morality." More specifically, it was a time when women began to challenge the notion that they should be penalized for having sexual relationships outside of marriage, while men were not. Part of the problem throughout history was that sex outside of marriage could result in pregnancy, and again, throughout history, the blame and shame for this was placed squarely on the unwed mother. Even as last as the 1960s, "homes" existed for unwed mothers, where a young woman would literally reside for months until her child was born. Generally such infants were put up for adoption, and the young women returned to their communities with some tale of having visited a distant relative for several months. What changed all this wasn't simply a matter of more enlightened viewpoints. It was the development of "The Pill." This made it possible (most of the time) for women to engage in relationships without the risk (or as great a risk) of pregnancy – an option that had never been available before. It certainly wasn't available to Victorian women! It's also worth noting that patrilineal inheritance laws were far less stringent in America than in Britain. In America, the law of "entail" (which ensured that property remained in the male bloodline) vanished after the American Revolution, and America also had no titles or peerage to pass on. Thus, the implications of purity and chastity in America were based primarily on moral rather than legal concerns. The key point here, however, is that the idea that women should remain pure didn't die with the Victorians. It persisted for another 60 years – well into living memory for many of us. It's also worth noting that the sexual revolution wasn't greeted with a storm of approval and applause in our more liberal and enlightened times. Rather, just like many social revolutions of the Victorian era, it was greeted with an outcry of horror and disapproval, and predictions that a tide of immorality would sweep the land. Which, if you think about it, is a pretty Victorian attitude, right? Which brings us to the next question: 3) Does the attitude exist only in the context of modern sensibilities? Victorians didn't think highly of "prudes" either! Chatterbox, 1884 Victorians are often described as "prudes" or "prudish." A Google search tells us that the term prude "describes someone who is excessively proper, modest, or easily shocked, particularly regarding sexual matters." Merriam-Webster gives two synonyms for prudish - "Puritanical" and "Victorian." They even manage to work Victorians into their sample sentence: "by the prudish standards of the 19th century, any depiction of the nude was scandalous." (Whoever wrote that sentence had obviously never viewed any 19th century art or sculpture, which positively abounds with nudes!*) Vocabulary.com also lists "Victorian" as a synonym, along with priggish, prim, prissy, puritanical, and proper. (Synonyms for prudishness are remarkably alliterative.) This site assures us that being called a prude is not a compliment. However, the Google definition also tells us that prudishness means "adhering to strict, old-fashioned standards of behavior." And there's the key: it's old-fashioned. Outdated, outmoded, conservative, behind the times. Specifically, behind our times. If a Victorian could time-travel to our era, he or she would probably be considered "prudish" by our standards, because the very term implies being an exception to the contemporary norm. However, in the 19th century that same Victorian is not an exception; he or she is the norm. To put this in perspective, think about some of the social rules and norms we possess today. Indecent exposure was illegal in Britain and America in the 19th century, and still is. Specifically, even in our modern era, a person is not only socially expected, but legally required, to wear a certain amount of clothing. It's not that difficult, however, to imagine a future in which such laws no longer exist – and people who consider themselves as simply adhering to a contemporary standard of decency today would be regarded, tomorrow, as old-fashioned prudes. However, such people would not be regarded as prudes in the context of their own society. By the same token, I submit that Victorians should not be regarded as prudes for adhering to the social standards of their day – regardless of how they would regard our standards. 4) Does the attitude exist outside the Victorian geographical sphere? For an attitude to be defined as "Victorian," it should be unique not only in time but also in space. With respect to time, it should be evident primarily within the Victorian era or, if preferred, the 19th century. With respect to space, it should occur primarily within those geographic regions that were considered, or considered themselves, to be "Victorian." That means it should be found almost exclusively within Britain and/or America. If it is found in coloniies, it should be found only amongst the Victorian colonists, not amongst the indigenous peoples. One need only look at the accusation that Victorians had "rigid gender roles" to see that this was hardly a "Victorian" issue. Victorians themselves noted that the gender roles they found in their own colonies - such as India - were far more repressive than anything within Victorian society itself. They were appalled by the harems of the East, the footbinding of China, the suttee of India. Many seek today to romanticize life in non-Western cultures, but in most cases, for women it was less than ideal. In many cases it is still less than ideal, at least by Western standards. This is not to say that Victorians did not have "rigid gender roles" - but rather, that such roles were not in any sense uniquely Victorian. In reality, the lives of Victorian women, though they may seem "restrictive" to us today, were less restricted than the lives of women in most other parts of the world. 5) Does the attitude exist universally? One final question to ask is whether an attitude defined as "Victorian" is limited to a specific point in time, or whether it is more or less universal (in time or space). Let's look, for example, at the allegation that the Victorian era was characterized by "hypocrisy." Google defines this as "the stark contrast between strict public morality – emphasizing propriety, chastity, and duty – and private behaviors that often ignored these rules, driven by social pressures for reputation." As an example, we're told that while Victorians preached strict moral standards, the Victorian world included a thriving prostitution business. This hardly seems to set the Victorians apart from the modern world; today, prostitution is illegal in every state except parts of Nevada**, yet, according to Google, in America alone the trade generates roughly $14 billion per year. This piece by Fred Miller is designed to cover the back of a pianoforte, which is fairly unsightly by any standards. Why not put the back to the wall? Because on a "musical evening," it's easier to gather around the piano if it's in the middle of the room! The Girl's Own Paper, 1897 This particular definition also cites the popular belief that Victorians were so sexually repressed, they actually covered the legs of their pianos.*** Now, here's the beauty of AI: if you actually search on the question, "Did Victorians cover piano legs?" you'll discover (correctly) that this was, indeed, a myth. Yes, Victorians put covers over pianos, and almost anything else they could find, including chairs, tables, mantels, beds, etc. – not from prudery but because they sought to decorate anything that didn't actually move. As for the charge of hypocrisy... wow. What unusual folks those Victorians must have been, to present a "respectable" face to the public while keeping their misdeeds and peccadillos private. We've never seen that in the modern era, right? If that were a common behavior today, why, the media would have a field day exposing the scandalous behind-the-scenes behavior of celebrities and politicians and... um... oh, wait... What strikes me as the ultimate form of hypocrisy is to gather together a collection of mindsets, beliefs, and values that may seem negative to us today, and attach them to a particular era or segment of society as if, somehow, they were distinct to that society. Were there Victorians who were prudes, embracing rigid gender roles, condemning unwed mothers, and overall leading "hypocritical" lives? Of course there were. This doesn't set the Victorians apart, however. It just means that, like the residents of every other era of history, including our own, they were flawed, which is simply another way of saying they were human. They neither invented, nor ended, the host of "attitudes" of which they were accused, most of which existed long before the 19th century and continue to persist well into our own. *Look 'em up on Wikipedia. I confess, I'm too much of a prude to post some of them on what I consider a "family-friendly" blog! **In Maine, selling sex isn't illegal, but buying it is. ***According to the HistoryMyths blog, this notion seems to have arisen from a satirical essay by Captain Frederick Marryat's diary of 1839, in which he described a boarding school in New York as having dressed the "limbs" of its piano with little frilled trousers. Find Out More: Sexual revolution in 1960s United States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_revolution_in_1960s_United_States HistoryMyths https://historymyths.wordpress.com/2014/08/23/revisited-myth-23-prudish-victorians-dressed-their-naked-furniture-legs-with-fabric/

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