I researched the lives of Victorian women because I wanted to further understand their lifestyle and think about what it would have been like to be them. I used books from the library to gather my research and i found 'Victorian Women' by Joan Perkin particularly useful. I got the picture above from 'Victorian Values' edited by Gordon Marsden, the painting is named 'The Children's Holiday' by Holman Hunt, I thought it was an interesting painting because it seems to show the role of a middle-class Victorian woman almost perfectly looking after her children and dog (on her own, without her husband) whilst keeping up appearances, the name of the painting is also interesting because its not the woman's holiday or the family's holiday but the children's holiday, even though she is clearly there too..
Childhood
The first thing I found out was that girls were seen as less important "Had it been a male the matter would be more acceptable" Karl Marx to Engels on the birth of his daughter in 1855.. HOW RUDE!! (sorry the girl power part of my brain had an outbreak!) I guess it just goes to show how different things are these days fortunately. Providing a son was top priority for women to please her husband so their family name could continue, many women had to endure lots of pregnancy's in hope of having a boy. Daughters were appreciated in aristocratic families because they could comfort and look after their parents in old age, this though contributed in the fact that the high amount of disease and illness around was spread to the women looking after their family members when they were ill.
Many parents handed over their children (both part-time and full-time) to wealthy governesses to nanny, nurse and help out in general. In the large houses of the wealthy, children were restricted to certain areas of the house until they had reached a certain age and girls didn't go to school, instead they were taught at home by tutors.
Marriage
Girls needed permission from their parents to marry until they were 21, this gave the girls parents a chance to make sure they had a suitable partner etc, when the women were often paired up and mostly preferred to be with men of similar social class. Marriage and children were the life plan, often marriage was after pregnancy or the birth of the couples first child, sex was also seen as a marital duty.
Lifestyle
For the poor the living conditions were often dirty, busy, crowded and polluted. The women were expected to make sure their houses were well kept and they had to put their families needs before their own. A mans view of a woman/his wife was that she should be decoratively idle, sexually passive, pure of heart, religious and self sacrificing. Unmarried women were very much independent and married women were very much dependent on their husbands, this would often lead to utter meltdown when their husbands died leaving them with no support with money, their children or their emotions (a lot of women were widowed quite young too). There was a very clear divide between social classes and the upper class often set the tone for fashions, manners, habits and hobbies. Victorian women viewed growing old as a 'calamity' because they were valued when they were young, beautiful and capable of baring children, whereas in old age they became old, ugly and baron.
I thought I knew more about the Victorians than I did so this has been a very helpful, the women had it very tough and their lives were heavily molded by society and social statuses. My research should help me to design my looks better now that I know more about what Estella and Miss Havisham would have been living in/through.
