Posted on 02/08/2022 10:56:43 AM PST by libh8er
If you think your folks give you a hard time for not marrying, try being a woman in the Victorian era. For single ladies of those times, public ridicule was the norm.
Luckily, many of them grew thick skin because of it and wouldn’t succumb to jokes about their relationship status. Instead, they fired back in a witty fashion.
While studying an 1889 edition of Tit-Bits Magazine, historian Dr. Bob Nicholson, who runs a blog called The Digital Victorianist, came across an interesting article — the publishers offered a prize to the spinster who could provide the best answer to the question why is she single, and got so many savage replies, they couldn’t pick just one.
Women in Victorian society had one main duty in life, which was to marry and serve their husband.. But as this old article shows, not all of them did.
We managed to get in touch with Dr. Nicholson and he was kind enough to have a little chat with us about his now-viral post was discovered.
“I’m a historian who specializes in the history of Victorian pop culture,” Dr. Nicholson told Bored Panda. “I was searching through old issues of Tit-Bits magazine in search of nineteenth-century jokes, and I happened across the ‘Why am I a Spinster?’ competition by accident. This is one of the best things about researching Victorian magazines — you never know what you might find on the next page!”
To understand the roles of women and men in Victorian England, we can take a look at what John Ruskin wrote in Sesame and Lilies (1865).
“The man’s power is active, progressive, defensive. He is eminently the doer, the creator, the discoverer, the defender. His intellect is for speculation, and invention; his energy for adventure war, and for conquest,” Ruskin said. “But the woman’s power is for rule, not for battle – and her intellect is not for invention or creation, but for sweet ordering, arrangement, and decision… she must be enduringly, incorruptibly good; instinctively, infallibly wise, wise not for self-development, but for self-renunciation: wise, not that she may set herself above her husband, but that she may never fail from his side.”
In this quote, the art critic and prominent social thinker highlights the strict gender ideals and stereotypes that were common back then; men and women were allocated specific roles which led men to hold more power over women, and therefore significantly disadvantaged them during this era.
Historians call this ‘separate spheres‘, and it rested on a definition of the ‘natural’ characteristics of women and men. Women were considered physically weaker (yet morally superior to men), which meant that they were best suited to the domestic sphere.
Furthermore, before 1870, any money made by a woman (either through a wage, from investment, by gift, or through inheritance) instantly became the property of her husband once she was married, with the exception of a dowry. The identity of the wife became legally absorbed into that of her husband, effectively making them one person under the law.
However, as we can see, there were exceptions. “I love finding evidence that challenges our assumptions about life in the nineteenth century,” Dr. Nicholson said.
“Some people imagine Victorian women to have been prudish, reserved, and submissive to men — but many of the ‘spinsters’ who entered that competition were anything but. They were witty, irreverent, and proudly independent. I thought that was worth sharing.”
“I’m not sure I’d go so far as to call the article progressive, but it does a good job of subverting the jokes that were usually told at women’s expense,” the historian explained, adding that classic Victorian ‘spinster’ jokes typically presented them as either desperate to find a man (any man, really), or spiteful because they had been left on the shelf.
“There are hints of these misogynistic stereotypes in the Tit-Bits’ article, but they also give a voice to women who comically assert their happiness at being single, and use the chance to mock men. This wasn’t unheard of in Victorian humor, but it does go against the grain.”
Founded in 1881, Tit-Bits From All The Most Interesting Books, Periodicals and Newspapers in The World, often referred to as just Tit-Bits, was a British weekly magazine that paved the way for popular journalism.
“Tit-Bits ran their competition at a time when the so-called ‘woman question’ was becoming increasingly debated in Victorian society,” Dr. Nicholson said. “Many women were beginning to push for more rights and opportunities, including the right to be defined by more than just their marriage. I think the responses Tit-Bits received — and the fact that they printed them — hints at these changing attitudes.”
Hell yeah
“‘Car’ originally meant a wheeled vehicle, and had been used in many ways before we had ‘auto cars’”
*****
So it’s a legitimate explanation, you’re saying.
It makes sense if you’re talking about a railway coach and car.
Elsa turning out to be quite the run around. Yep, a 5 minute tornado and no rain either.
Actually, women AND men were more reserved, lending in the Victorian Era to a seeming prudishness.
And for good reason.
TUBERCULOSIS.
High quality studies have taken place by PhD candidates in Nursing over the past few decades investigating life before penicillin. The purpose was compelled by a concern that bacterial mutations were advancing faster than antibiotic drug development to combat them.
Hence, how did people cope before antibiotics? And studies pursued a review of the Victorian Era which was much more readily available to researchers.
The findings made sense of Victorian habits. Here are a few examples:
1. Gloves, long soft, tightly woven.
2. Handkerchiefs and veils.
3. Long dresses.
4. Close collars.
5. Coughing away and into a napkin.
6. Distancing; no close encounters.
7. Long table cloths This custom mimicked human clothing habits and provided backup to human incidents of wearing less than appropriate clothing.
8. Hygiene in general, cleanliness and sharpness of clothing.
9. Table manners.
There were dozens more findings traced to concern for pneumonia and tuberculosis.
It reminds some of Covid today but much much more dangerous in pre-penicillin times. Covid is nothing compared to what these people experienced. Covid is 99% survivable. Tuberculosis was a death sentence like cancer.
Tits Bits? Was it the Victorian Playboy Magazine? 🤓
. . . Or you could draw a slightly different conclusion based on actual observation, such as, "which encouraged men to exercise actual responsibility from a young age. Therefore, women today--especially young women--find themselves at a catastrophic disadvantage in life, compared to women of earlier times, including the Victorian era."
They’re great. I love number 3.
NONSENSE WE ARE STILL HERE
In humor, there is truth.
/vice versa
I walked through the living room to see a moment of this tornado kiss. Then my wife told me the guy was an Indian.
I immediately had to look it up, and sure enough our native Americans did not kiss. As most indigenous tribes around kissing was considered to be a disgusting act. On the question discussion on Quora a Comanche wrote that their old timers of his tribe born in the 19th century said that kissing was not practiced until its gradual acceptance into the 20th century.
I told my wife and she jumped on my case for always putting down her shows and trying to ruin her entertainment.
For full disclosure it is a fact that my wife has a verified very small amount of Cherokee blood from long past. That was what contributed to her devastating beauty.
+1.
“Quoting John Ruskin on the topic of women is not a good idea.”
No kidding!
By 1883 the Commanche had been on the reservation for years.
Looks like it was more like “Reader’s Digest”.
I think people realized that it wasn't working but worse, it added the problems that come with deception. They hid their ill behaviors behind closed doors which denied others the warnings about who they were really dealing with.
I don't want it to be there but if it is, I need to know right up front.
Masking over deviant behavior in particular causes horrific problem down the road. How many closeted homosexuals screwed up the lives of their families while attempting to keep their secret? How many children of alcoholics suffered because no one would just call it out that mommy or daddy was a drunk?
Well said!
There were plenty of renegades I imagine and as well, the writers kind of backtracked to try and portray Elsa’s new boyfriend as a scout under the employ of the guy who rides in to save the men of the wagon train from being killed by the horse thieves.
It’s hard to believe this show is done by the same guy who made “Hell or High Water” with Jeff Bridges, Ben Foster and Chris Pine.
I’ve done quite a bit of research to try and understand why this show is so poorly written, produced and directed and about the only thing I can make of it is the phenomenon of “target audience” It’s a woman’s story told through the eyes of a young, idealistic woman who is supposed to make us always think of the Beth Dutton character in Yellowstone. The target audience demographic is women between the ages of 20-60.
I was expecting a sweeping John Ford style epic in kind of a Lonesome Dove way but that’s not what 1883 is. The men are sensitive, weak, depressing and immoral - except Thomas, the former Buffalo Soldier- he’s brave, compassionate and incorruptible so I predict he will lead the pioneers to safety in Oregon and Montana.
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