Defining the Victorian Woman Essay -- Expository Definition Essays

Defining the straitlaced cleaning lady In the niminy-piminy Age, there existed a certain ideology of what constituted the staring(a) Victorian woman. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, young girls began attending schools that offered introductory skills such as reading, writing, and math. Manuals of etiquette and conduct instructed young girls in manners of caller and the home (Basch 3). All of this prepared a young woman for marriage, which, in the nineteenth century, was put forward as being the culminating point of a womans life (Basch 16). Thus, the perfect woman was also the perfect wife, an active firearm of the family, with specific regard to the children (Vicinus ix). Yet, although the perfect woman was a matrimonial woman, non all marriages were perfect. Victorian society set strict standards for the roles of women, specifically kernel class women, as wives and mothers. Women often did not benefit from being unite in many respects, such as their personal rights. In addition, the numerate of 1850 revealed a significant imbalance between the sexes, creating a surplus of one women (Lerner 176). Many of these single women joined the ranks of spinsters and old maids due to this imbalance in the population. However, society did not give unmarried women the same roles as married women. Society challenged these women because it believed that a woman without a husband was worthless. Society did not respect the position of these unmarried women, often making them outcasts. Yet, there esd a small sect of unmarried women that did not allow societys rules to interfere with their stem of what life should be like. Th... ...or said. Instead, old maids flung themselves at life, unattached and uninhibited, in the best possible way so as to get as much out of it as possible. Supported historically by the likes of owing(p) Victorian female authors, these old maids laughed at life, and themselves, showi ng the perfect Victorian wives there could be more to life than fitting societys mold. Works Cited Auerbach, Nina. Woman and the Demon The Life of a Victorian Myth. London Harvard UP, 1982. Basch, Francoise. Relative Creatures Victorian Women in Society and the Novel. New York Schocken, 1974. Lerner, Laurence. The Victorians. New York Homes and Meier, 1978. Vicinus, Martha. Introduction.The Perfect Victorian Lady. Bloomington indium UP, 1972. Vii - xv.