Childhood And Family Life

Question 1

Why was the concept of family so important to Victorian society?

Answer 1

Legal entity - Used as a legitimising agent to ensure inheritance
Defined the order of responsibility - removed the father, responsibility fell to the sons - removed the mother, father would likely remarry
Way to be like Queen Victoria/the royal family - built the idea of family and motherly identity

Question 2

What did Lord Shaftesbury have to say about family?

Answer 2

“The strength of the people rests upon the purity and firmness of the domestic system”

Question 3

Described the Victorian idea of childhood?

Answer 3

Upper class romanticised childhood
Children weren’t just small adults and it was now acknowledged they should be treated differently
Should live in a state of happiness - many parents couldn’t provide this and some didn’t want to
Reality of childhood, particularly in lower classes, was different - lower class children were often sent to work and were without childhood

Question 4

What was the difference between men and omen in Victorian society?

Answer 4

Separate spheres - public vs private
Stereotypes led to different genders being more suited to different roles/unfit for others
Darwin - women were naturally weaker so men should dominate
Freud - builds on Darwin’s theory saying that women wanted it that way
Sexual double standard - discouraged promiscuity as it threatened legitimacy - women supposed to be chaste but men more free
Pushed by the middle class who had become more influential since their enfranchisement in 1832 and had powerful jobs (lawyers, factory owners etc.)

Question 5

What historian pushed the idea of separate spheres and who challenged him?

Answer 5

Davidoff and Hall pushed the idea

Amanda Vickery - challenges the idea - “separate spheres were an ancient trope of western thinking”

Question 6

What was Victorian girlhood like?

Answer 6

Middle class were educated to become accomplished and therefore ready for marriage - if they didn't marry the stayed under the control of their fathers or brothers - they would become governesses
Couldn't upset men's natural intellectual superiority so education was limited
Working class were educated in the 3 R's - would learn domestic science to equip them for work as a domestic servant and for marriage

Question 7

What was Victorian boyhood like?

Answer 7

Immediately born superior to their mothers and sisters
Have to live up to expectations, be successful and provide
Aim was to set them up to get married and have children to leave his inheritance to
Middle class - sent to competitive boarding schools told instil character as well as provide education - youth organisations to teach self reliance, Christian manliness and physical fitness
Working class - taught the 3Rs but the same morals of middle class - often sent to apprentices and learn a trade - guarantees the a job later allowing them to provide for their family in later life

Question 8

What did George Orwell have to say about education?

Answer 8

“I doubt whether classical education ever has been or can be successfully carried out without corporal punishment”

Question 9

When were marriage laws changed?

Answer 9

Matrimonial Clauses Act 1837 - allowed divorce but had different criteria for men and women
Married Women’s Property Acts 1870 and 1882 - began to equalise marriage (overturning coverture)

Question 10

What did Haydn Brown say about marriage?

Answer 10

“The advice may be given to every reader, marry well if you can, but satisfactory at least”

Question 11

What did Harriet Beecher Stowe say about marriage?

Answer 11

“In the English common law a married women is nothing at all”

When she gets married she “passes out of legal existence”

Question 12

What did coverture mean?

Answer 12

Married women’s rights were equivalent to those of a child

Father held the rights to children

Question 13

What happened in the case of Caroline Norton?

Answer 13

Husband too children and demanded she pay him her future earnings
Gets accused of adultery with Prime Minister Melbourne and the husband sues him for ‘damage to his property’

Question 14

Who came up with the the idea of 3 types of fathers and what were they?

Answer 14

John Tosh
Absent father (a modern phenomenon)
Unsmiling domestic tyrant
Nursing father (more present in the working class)

Question 15

What are some typical characteristics of fathers/husbands?

Answer 15

In charge of discipline
Makes financial decisions
Needs to have respect of his children
Must PROVIDE

Question 16

What are some characteristics of mothers/wives?

Answer 16

Ran the household day to day
Lacked citizenship
Essentially the property of you husband once you’re married (Coverture)

Question 17

What did the Angel in the House poem say about wives?

Answer 17

“Man must be pleased; but him to please is women’s pleasure”

Question 18

How were working class families looked at by the middle class?

Answer 18

Concern
Social ills of the working class are blamed on laziness and irregularities in family life 
Categorised them as working men/labourers, intelligent artisan, educated working men

Question 19

What are the characteristics of working class families?

Answer 19

Women more likely to work
Only way too escape poverty was to be a skilled worker
Challenged the idea of separate spheres
Middle class model was largely unachievable for the working class
Man got treated well when he came home from work
Extended family lived in the same house
Typically church going, clean and tidy - respectability was still key
Women often worked (unequal/double burden) - more pressure on women as they were expected to work and look after the home - stigma towards men whose wives worked - this is why children were sent to earn money so it didn’t look as bad

Question 20

What changes did the 20th century bring to the idea of family?

Answer 20

Family dynamics changed
Welfare state
Government was reluctant to interfere in the lives of people despite women playing more of a role and the working class starting to represent more of the electorate 
Labour Party were against welfare - Keir Hardie said it was "middle class mongering"
1870 - compulsory schooling was controversial as it told parents what to do with their children

Question 21

What did Eleanor Rathbone campaign for and why was it controversial?

Answer 21

Family Allowances Bill
Undermined the dignity of the working man because the thought their wage would be undermined and they’d look like they couldn’t provide
She also suggested it be paid to women which would change the dynamic of families and was disliked by all parties