Everything You NEED To Know About the Victorian Era

If the culture, art, and literature produced in the Victorian Era in Britain fascinate you as much as it fascinates me, here’s everything you need to know about it.

The Social Classes

Although it was a peaceful and prosperous time, there were still issues within the social structure. The social classes of this era included the Upper class, Middle class, and lower class. Those who were fortunate enough to be in the Upper class did not usually perform manual labor. Instead, they were landowners and hired lower class workers to work for them, or made investments to create a profit. This class was divided into three subcategories: Royal, those who came from a royal family, Middle-Upper, important officers and lords, and Lower Upper, wealthy men and business owners.

The expansion of the Middle class during this time was due to the rapid growth of cities and the economy. It was also referred to as the Bourgeoisie, and consisted of those who had skilled jobs to support themselves and their families. Merchants and shopkeepers became popular occupations as trade, both domestic and overseas, flourished. Moreover, the Middle class was also divided into two categories, higher level and lower level. People from the lower middle class typically worked for those at the higher level.

The Working-class consisted of unskilled laborers who worked in brutal and unsanitary conditions. They did not have access to clean water and food, education for their children, or proper clothing. Often, they lived on the streets and were far from the work they could get, so they would have to walk to where they needed to get to. Unfortunately, many workers resorted to the use of drugs like opium and alcohol to cope with their hardships.

Child-related Issues

The progression of England as a society led to a greater demand for labor from both adults and children. Children took on hard-working jobs as coal miners, chimney sweepers, farm workers and domestic servants. Some children were even forced to take on the role of a railroad worker due to the invention of The Railway brought by the Industrial Revolution. The most brutal form of child labor took place in coal mines. Children were required to work 12 to 18 hours a day in mines that were infested with rats and disease, and had poor ventilation. Such harsh working conditions led to the development respiratory problems and an increase in mine disasters/casualties.

Bastardy/Childcare

It was also common for individuals to have children out of wedlock. A child was considered a “bastard” in a case where the male would leave all support and care of the child to the female. As the poor women could not afford to support their children, most chose to work as servants and lived in their employers’ homes without their children. Their wages would pay these other women, called Baby Farmers, to raise their children.

Women

Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria reigned over the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from May 24th, 1819 until her death on January 22nd. 1901. She came to represent femininity that was revolved around the family, motherhood, and respectability, the idea that the woman’s responsibilities were to love and respect her husband before anything, and perform all of the duties and chores for the household. Herself, her husband Albert, and their many children became an icon of late-19th-century middle class femininity and domesticity.

“Separate Spheres”

During this period, the roles of men and women became more sharply defined than they had ever been in history. Rather than women working alongside the men in family businesses, the 19th century saw an increase in men commuting away to their places of work, leaving the women home all day to oversee the household. This ideology of men and women occupying “Separate Spheres” was supported by the idea that there were “natural” characteristics of men and women that suited each for different roles. Women, considered physically weaker yet morally superior, best suiting them for the domestic sphere.

Marriage and Sexuality

Women could not seem too focused on finding a husband, lest it appeared they had a worrying amount of sexual desire. Women were meant to only desire marriage in that it allowed them to become mothers rather than for any sexual or emotional satisfaction. Women had no choice but to stay pure until marriage, usually not even being allowed to speak to a man unless there was a married woman chaperoning.

Girls typically married in their early to mid 20’s to a groom around 5 years older than them in order to reinforce the “natural” hierarchy between the sexes.

After a woman married, her rights and property ceased to remain her own. Everything that she owned now belonged to her husband, including her body, property, and money.

Roles of Upper-Class Women

The responsibilities of upper-class and aristocratic women were limited because of the common opinion that they were weak. These women had a range of servants to perform the domestic chores for them, so they usually just had to oversee them. An everyday task of upper-class women was accepting and paying visits and organizing dinner parties for their friends and family. These were occasions where women could prove their homemaking skills and good taste, and to serve as symbols to others about their social status.

Roles of Working/Lower Class Women

These women were distinguished from the upper class by having less education and fewer opportunities. Most women worked in domestic service, either as a cook, maid, or laundress to a wealthier woman. Other women were employed as barmaids, waitresses, chambermaids, and washerwomen. To be able to go to work, mothers would often pay other women, usually very elderly or very young, to watch their children. Working women could not afford to pay for servants, so besides their actual jobs, they had to do all of the household chores themselves. This was used as evidence to support that women should not belong in the workplace, because their families were not being properly taken care of.

Read about the Modernist Period in English Literature here.

The Victorian Social Conventions

Calling Cards and Coming on call

It’s actually a calling card and equivalent to a business card. People would spend time coming and going to each other’s houses.

Aristocracy and Servants

Servants were supposed to be seen and not heard. They were supposed to be loyal and would know the ongoings of your life. They would know exactly who came and went, how much money were you spending and would know what you had for lunch or dinner, would help you get dressed in the morning, and would certainly be there to hear all of your secrets.

Coming for Tea

People would also come for tea. Tea was an exceedingly formalized event. Tea would be served with lemonades and some other kinds of beverages and even alcoholic drinks. It would be served with other delicacies such as sandwiches and scones and biscuits, often served with jam and cream. Tea was a very formal occasion with a lot of rituals attached to it.

Formal Dinner Parties

Hostesses would plan elaborate formal dinner parties where dinner was served, of course, but a lot of it was about having a good conversation and to whom you were seated next to. It was always arranged with men and women arranged in order; female with male, female with male. It was considered very bad manners to put a husband and wife together because they get to talk to each other all the time. The hostess and the host would sit on one end of the table. Very often, amidst the dinner, the hostess would do something like turning the tablet halfway through the dinner, the hostess would talk to the guests sitting on the left side of the table but later on, turns to the right side of the table. This was a signal for everybody at the table to turn and talk to the other people.

Musical Evenings

All young women were expected to learn some sort of musical talent. They might play an instrument or might learn to sing. People would invite them over to their salons (their fancy, formal living rooms) and sit around in the evening and be entertained by the talents of their various guests.

Country Homes and City Homes

Every Victorian, generally, would have two houses. One would be their country home which was sort of their family estate that they had inherited for very long, down through the generations. This would be far away from the city and would have lots of lands attached to it. It’s where they would spend most of the year. The rest of the year, which was their high season, they would go to their city home, which was often a townhouse in the heart of the city and would be several storey’s high. The address of this house was very important. Having a city house in the right (fancier) part of town could make a huge difference in your social life.

The Season

Now you would know that it was time to leave your country home and head into the city when the season got started. Now the season ran, the height of it was from about April to June. But it could start from as early as February to January. This is when the parliament would come back into session and when the military would arrange these massive parties. This season was an ideafor introducing the debutantes and introducing eligible, young men to young, eligible women. It was actually considered that if you had been out in society for two seasons and were not yet married, then you’re going to be a hopeless spinster and that something was desperately wrong with you.

Debuts and Debutantes

For most families, the most important season would be their daughter’s first season. This was considered when the young woman was considered ready to make her debut and she’d be called a debutante. If you’re of the highest social class, you would be presented to the queen herself. Otherwise, you would be presented to the other family and friends of your parents. A girl was considered ready for her debut when she had finished her education and when the parents felt that she was socially and emotionally ready to be out in public; basically when you were ready to get married. The whole idea was presented in the way that an eligible man was introduced to you that your family selected and you go ahead and marry that guy

Engagements and Proposals

Marriage had some things that we recognize today but marriages were still a matter of convenience in a lot of families, particularly with this level of wealth. The parents would often arrange the marriage. The young man and woman may or may not know about it until the father and mother had figured this out. The young man would the traditional act of proposal on his knee. There’s a moment of the young couple being earnest when the young couple gets engaged and the mother comes in and tells the daughter, “You are not engaged. When you are engaged, I will tell you that you are engaged.” So the couple is waiting to hear their parents’ point of view and now for the couple to arrange things on their own, is not allowed.

Gentlemen’s Leisure Time

Young men from wealthy families, when they weren’t going to parties in the evening, would spend their time in very private, posh clubs where they would gamble, play cards and drink. They might take strolls through the city or in the countryside, spend a lot of their time hunting on a horseback.

Chaperones

Young girls, unlike the guys, weren’t allowed to do very much in their leisure time. Instead, they would be accompanied by chaperones anytime they were out in public, especially when they had to go see their dates. Usually, the chaperone was an elderly woman who was employed by the household, specifically for the purpose of going around with the young women so that they couldn’t be seen alone with the young man. Just being seen with a young man could be grounds for the parents to insist on marriage just because the young woman’s reputation would have been so heavily compromised with being seen without her chaperone.

Young Women’s Behaviour

Young women were expected to be quiet and serene. They were expected to manage the household and know how to entertain guests to be an excellent hostess. For information, they would speak several languages and expected to be good conversationalists and keep everyone entertained. However, on the downside, they really didn’t have a lot of opportunities to do much else besides domesticated tasks. They were supposed to not lose their temper, to not have too many opinions, and just be pretty and smile a lot.

Private Tutor

If you were from a very wealthy family, you wouldn’t attend public school. You would rather have a private tutor. Girls would have private tutors for music and learning languages and for simple household mathematics because a woman was expected to be able to manage her household which often could include a number of servants planning the meals. So they had to have an education but they didn’t go to public schools. Boys would also have private tutors until they went onto pursue their higher education from top-notch universities.

Grief and Mourning

Victorians would take grief and death very seriously. So if someone close to you died, there were very specific etiquette rules that you had to follow. If you were a widow, the period of mourning would last up to two years. If it was your parents or someone close to you, it would be usually for a year. In that time you would wear all black for the first several months and then gradually move onto lighter colors. You wouldn’t be seen in parties and dancing since it would be seen as disrespectful.