Knowra Victorian morality Victorian morality Victorian morality was a set of nineteenth-century British ideals emphasizing sexual restraint, respectability, self-discipline, and domestic propriety.
Separate spheres : The belief that men and women belonged in distinct social domains, with men in public life and women in the home. It cast domestic femininity as a foundation of respectable conduct.
Sexual revolution : A broad change in sexual attitudes and practices, especially associated with the mid-twentieth century. It marks a later challenge to restrictive sexual norms.
Evangelicalism : A Protestant movement emphasizing personal conversion, biblical authority, moral reform, and salvation through faith. Its emphasis on self-discipline and moral reform fed Victorian ideals.
Contagious Diseases Acts : British laws of 1864, 1866, and 1869 enabling compulsory examination of suspected sex workers near military bases. They imposed sexual surveillance on women while leaving men largely unexamined.
The Angel in the House : Coventry Patmore’s poem, published in parts from 1854 to 1862, celebrating an idealized domestic wife. The poem helped popularize the ideal of self-effacing feminine virtue.
Respectability : A social status associated with respectable conduct, reputation, self-control, and conformity to prevailing norms. Victorian morality made public reputation evidence of personal virtue.
Free love : A movement advocating sexual relationships outside state or religious marriage. Its advocates directly rejected Victorian restrictions on intimacy.
Industrial Revolution : The transition to mechanized production and factory economies that began in Britain in the eighteenth century. Industrial society sharpened distinctions between public work and private domestic life.
Ladies' National Association : A British organization formed in 1869 to campaign against the Contagious Diseases Acts. Its opposition challenged the unequal enforcement of sexual morality.
The Woman in White : Wilkie Collins’s 1859 sensation novel about identity, marriage, and women’s legal vulnerability. Its plot exposes the dangers hidden beneath respectable marriage.
Show all 25