Log in

View Full Version : Late Victorian values


William Foster
12-31-2014, 06:41 AM
Hello ...I am a newcomer to this site . Being for many years a lover of literature ..I would like to share a thought ..How is it that any late Victorian couples became married ?..I ask this following my usual reading of a Victorian novel by Thomas Hardy . It seems to me that his stories are totally obsessed with the male view of a woman's " purity ". It seems that if a man meets a lady ...and she seems to have met , spoke , or even been with another man , then the supposed suitor soon loses interest . Men of that era see to have such a such a strange view of women, thinking they are not "good enough "..if they have known another man !..It seems a quite bizarre thought to me . !
It looks to me, having read all Hardy's books ..this seems to be a recurring theme to his books , so can we , from this , think it was the general , middle and upper class view . It is only the working class people who do not seem to have been obsessed with such thoughts . !
YesNo
12-31-2014, 07:59 AM
After reading Larry Young's "The chemistry between us", I think of male-female pair-bonding interactions as influenced more by biology than the behavior of different classes in society. If someone flirted with a working class man's girlfriend or wife, trouble would start as well.
Ecurb
12-31-2014, 11:40 AM
After reading Larry Young's "The chemistry between us", I think of male-female pair-bonding interactions as influenced more by biology than the behavior of different classes in society. If someone flirted with a working class man's girlfriend or wife, trouble would start as well.

And yet different cultures have a variety of different marriage and mating customs. Some are prudish when it comes to sex; others (including our own) are promiscuous. Some are monogamous, others are polygamous. I haven't read Young's book, but it doesn't seem like human biology can effectively explain these variations. How could it?
Carousel
12-31-2014, 04:44 PM
Hardy was merely reflecting mans value in the chastity of a woman, the prize of a female’s virginity is both widespread and ageless. It is as much to do with sole ownership as any sexual preference i.e. untouched goods.
In many cultures today it is still very relevant, ask a Muslim for example.