Weddings In The Victorian Era History Essay

In the Victorian Era, there were nuptialss like any other epoch. Except these were different, you may be stating “ Well are n’t they ever? “ , but I am here to explicate why. Weddings were less luxuriant, because people did n’t like pretentious ornaments and they were much more concluding than now a twenty-four hours ‘s.

Clothing in the Victorian Age was really different from dressing around this clip. The Wedding Dress ranged from really luxuriant to some what inexpensive looking, early, mid, and late Victorian frock. Normally around this clip period, adult females wore a gown designed by Worth ( interior decorator from Paris ) and if they could n’t afford they would copy one of the masters. They wore long head coverings, two bodices, but most of the adult females wore full trains and elegant inside informations.

Womans wore a fitted bodice accompanied with a little waist and a full skirt. The frock was normally made out of organdie, tulle, lacing, silk, linen, or cashmere. The head covering was constructed from all right gauze, cotton ( sheer ) and sometimes lacing. Around this clip period most frocks cost $ 500 and the head covering cost normally about $ 125. “ The maid of honors should be younger than the bride, their frocks should be conformed to hers ; they should non be any more expensive, though they are permitted more flowery ( hypertext transfer protocol: //www.burrows.com/booknotes/wedding.html. )

They are by and large chosen of visible radiation, graceful stuff ; flowers are the chief decoration.A The bride ‘s frock is marked by simpleness. But few gems or decorations should be worn, and those should be the gift of the bridegroom or parents. A head covering and Garland are the separating characteristics of the dress.A The maid of honors assist in dressing the bride, having the company, etc. ; and, at the clip of the ceremonial, base at her left side, the first maid of honor keeping the corsage and baseball mitts. “ ( hypertext transfer protocol: //www.burrows.com/booknotes/wedding.html. ) The girdle was worn sometimes two and three at a clip underneath the nuptials frock depending on what was peculiarly in manner at the clip that your nuptials took place.A

Work force wore really fancy or out-of-date dinner jacket. Boutonnieres were really big and made of lilies, A gardenia or a piece ofA stephanotis. I think that back in the clip of the great Queen Victoria manner was seen as a different sort of civilization that was desired by every adult females that genuinely believed that they could look beautiful.

There were many of import traditions. Back in the epoch of Victorian England, it was tradition for the bride to have on an hair garland with fresh or dried lowers on a wire construction. Some of the flowers that were used for these garlands were roses, A chrysanthemums, and illumination clove pinks. The drying of the flowers and garlands was a really common tradition back in the Victorian epoch. The twosome would seek and continue the flowers or garland by hanging them upside down. You can besides utilize a wire mesh or vase but these are more modern ways of the art.

The Wedding Ceremony and Reception were critical elements for the construct of nuptialss in the Victorian Era. You normally had our marrying held in the church. “ When the ceremonial is performed in a church, the bride enters at the left, with her male parent, female parent, and maid of honors ; or, at all events, with a maid of honor. The groom enters at the right, followed by hisA attenders. The parents stand behind, theA attendantsA at the either side. The bride should be certain that her baseball mitt is readily removable ; the groom, that the ring is where he can happen it, to avoid hold andA embarrassment. “ ( hypertext transfer protocol: //www.burrows.com/booknotes/wedding.html. ) In England if you were traveling to be married by a curate or sermonizer there were different books that the denominations studied to better understand how the ceremonial would be held. The Methodists they studied the “ Book of Discipline ” . The Episcopalians studied their “ Book of Common Prayer ” , and the Catholics studied their ritual. You know how now a yearss when you get married you have fiting nuptials rings with luxuriant designs and such. Well back in the Victorian age, they wore apparent sets made of gold with their initials and sometimes the day of the month they got married engraved on the interior of their rings. In England, a state bride and her nuptials party walked to church on a rug of flowers to guarantee a happy way through life. For the wealthier, a gray Equus caballus drawing the nuptials passenger car was considered good fortune. Church bells pealed Forth as the twosome entered the church, non merely to do the public aware of the ceremonial taking topographic point, but besides to frighten away any evil forces skulking nearby. In the clip of Queen Victoria, there were three different marrying bars. The groom ‘s bar was dark and the bride ‘s bar was white accompanied with luxuriant designs and the 3rd bar was merely a bar that was chiefly for the visitants and invitees. “ The ring for matrimony within a twelvemonth ; the penny for wealth, my beloved ; the thimble for an old amah or unmarried man born ; the button for sweeties all forlorn. “ ( hypertext transfer protocol: //www.literary-liaisons.com/article004.html. )

Very Rarely people had their nuptialss at their house. My parents got married in the same church that they now attend, that is a tradition that has been carried out since theA VictorianA age. You were expected to return to the church that you said your vows in it was merely one guess polite but non forced.

Peoples unlike presents would n’t state everyone where they were traveling on their honeymoon, but the parties everyone was invited to. Basically, the newly-wed hubby and married woman would go forth after the response like in modern times, but they would n’t state anyone where they were traveling it was about like an escapade. He would taker out to a far off topographic point where cipher could happen her. In modern times, we have the response right after the nuptials but in the Victorian epoch they had the response a few yearss after the nuptials like three or so yearss and it would either be at their house or the church and if it was to be held at the church than their were regulations. There were many nuptials imposts that were supposed to be followed, along with many regulations and ordinances.

There were many regulations and ordinances. Nowadays we do n’t acquire to hit our married woman on the caput with her shoe to demo our authorization, but we do assure to protect her and ticker over her for the remainder of our lives.A These are fundamentally the generalA mandatoryA regulations that had to be followed. The bride was older than her maid of honors. Her frock was less flamboyant than the maid of honors frocks were and the brides frock was given to her or paid for her by her fiance ‘s parents. Some of the Torahs were more seen more of import than others but most were merely minor inside informations that had to be done and seen after. Basically, the bride enters on the left side, the groom enters on the right, and each of them has an attendant attach toing them. The parents stand behind their boy or girl. The bride has her glove ready and the groom has the ring. A batch of the things that the Victorians did are still carried out in modern times.

Their were a batch of limitations and things looked down upon. It was considered a fraud to be divorced in the age of Queen Victoria it was seen as absurd and frowned upon. So when it occurred, really seldom one might add, so he conserve ( I conjecture ) still had to pay for and back up his married woman. It was considered a fraud to be divorced in the age of Queen Victoria it was seen as absurd and frowned upon. So when it occurred, really seldom one might add, so he conserve ( I conjecture ) still had to pay for and back up his married woman. Evil liquors were said to hold been skulking around nuptialss and so the hubby and wifeA didn’tA get to imbibe their bubbly after they were toasted because they felt as if they did the immorality liquors would stalk them or something. “ Etiquette says that, except for the bubbly toast that accompanies cake cutting, the bride and groom should non sip from their spectacless when they are toasted. Clinking spectacless together after a toast was originally intended to bring forth a bell-like sound to guard off evil liquors. “ ( Cerier, Allison Brown, ed.A Handcrafted References. )

About everything included in the nuptials shows some act of symbolism. Colorss represented certain things. The colour of the frock showed a batch about the bride an how successful she expected her marrying twenty-four hours and matrimony to turn out and in the long tally how in love they would be and such. “ White — chosen right, Blue — love will be true, Yellow — ashamed of her chap, Red — wish herself dead, Black — wish herself back, Grey — travel far off, Pink — of you he ‘ll ever believe, Green-ashamed to be seen “ Marry on Monday for wellness, Tuesday for wealth, Wednesday the best twenty-four hours of all, Thursday for crosses, Friday for losingss, and Saturday for no fortune at all. “ ( hypertext transfer protocol: //www.literary-liaisons.com/article003.html. )

Weddings were less luxuriant, because people did n’t like pretentious ornaments and they were much more concluding than now a twenty-four hours ‘s. As I said early in my paper, divorce was extremely looked down upon and really rare. There were three different ages with in the Victorian Era, which leads me to state that their were three different manners, one for each age.

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Literary Anlysis of Jane Eyre – Victorian Era

Many themes, styles, genres, and modes of Victorian Literature are reflected in the works of the Bronte Sisters’, especially that of Jane Eyre. Common themes of victorian literature are shared with Jane Eyre. Food was a reoccurring theme of throughout many Victorian novels because of the hunger that many people faced in this time period. This theme is reflected in the vivid description of under nourishment at Lowood School in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Another common theme was women’s morality and sensuality.

Before the publication of Jane Eyre, women were simple and genuine under the expectations of society, the “wife and mother from whom all morality sprang” (Lowes). After this novel was published, the “new woman” became predominant who was based off the main character, Jane, who was independent, strong, forward, and radical in the sense of marriage and contraception opinions. The theme of sex scandal goes along with women’s morality and sensuality because it, also, went against the prior conservative social expectations and beliefs for women. This theme started to become common in victorian literature.

An example of sex scandal is in Jane Eyre when Jane got involved with Rochester, her wealthy boss, and ended up marrying him. Jane Eyre is written in first-person from the point of view of Jane. The genre of Jane Eyre can be classified as many different types; Romance, Mystery, and Gothic Fiction. It can be considered a classic romantic novel because of the passionate relationship that Jane and Rochester form. It is a mystery in the sense that throughout the book, Jane suspects something about Rochester and his past based on the incident of Grace Pool accidently setting his bed on fire in a drunken state and not getting fired for it.

She then discovers the secret of his past that he has a wife, Bertha, who has one mad and was the one who set his bed on fire. It is considered Gothic Fiction because of the supernatural and fantasy elements that Charlotte Bronte includes (http://www. shmoop. com/jane-eyre/literary-devices. html) Through Charlotte’s unique writing style, she incorporates “fantasy elements in Jane Eyre through references to fairy tales, prophetic dreams, mythic imagery, and extraordinary plot twists,” (Shwingen).

An example of the mythic imagery is shown through Charlotte’s emphasis on the image of passion. Jane was always a passionate and emotional character since she was a child. Charlotte writes about Jane after her cousin hits her with the book, “my blood was still warm; the mood of the revolted slave was still bracing me with its bitter vigor. ” The image of her warm blood and her intense anger compared to that of a revolted slave shows Jane’s great emotion even as a child.

This image is emphasized through imagery when Charlotte writes of Jane’s feelings for Rochester as “fiery iron” and “blackness and burning”. These figurative images of a fire portray to the reader the intense passion that Jane has for Rochester. Fire is another image that Charlotte writes about throughout the novel; “in the bedroom blaze which Jane saved Rochester from, in the language that both Rochester and Jane use in describing their emotions towards each other, and in the final fire that destroyed Thornfield Hall, crippled Rochester, and killed Bertha,” (Vaughon).

In Vaughon’s opinion, this imagery of fire and passion was Charlotte’s way of emphasizing the unethical and sinful love that Jane and Rochester shared with each other based on the fire of hell. As said before, in Victorian times, this relationship would be considered scandalous not only based on the difference in their classes, but also because they believed in purity. Charlotte goes against the traditional beliefs with her imagery of passion and lust between Jane and Rochester. Charlotte’s writing style is generally educated, complex, and emotion filled.

Most of her sentences are contain numerous adjectives and sensual images. Her unique style may be overwhelming for some readers, but it’s powerful and strong. The reader is able to identify with Jane Eyre as a character through the complex sentence structure that is filled with emotion and imagery. (http://reviewmaterials. tripod. com/english/jane_eyre. html) According to George P. Landow, Jane Eyre is divided into five distinct settings. The story starts off when Jane is a child living in her relative’s, the Reed’s, house in Gateshead Hall.

Then she is sent to Lowood school and has many experiences there with Miss. Temple, Helen Burns, and Mr. Brocklehurst. After eight years in boarding school, she lives at Thornfield as a governess to Adele. This is where she falls in love with her boss, Rochester. Then she moves out after he discovery of Bertha, Rochester’s mad wife. She is then taken into the Moor House by her cousins, the Rivers. In the end, she is reunited with Rochester at the Ferndean Manor. Each setting of the book has it’s own unique mood in strong relation to the characters present at each place. For example,Robert B.

Martin points out that the setting of Thornfield is much more personal than the two preceding settings at Gateshead and Lowood because of the connection Jane makes to Rochester and the connection Rochester has to Thornfield (George P. Landow). In chapter 11, Mrs. Fairfax first makes mention to Rochester when she says, “Great houses and fine grounds require the presence of the proprietor”. Because Mrs. Fairfax said this, Jane felt as though it was not alive unless Rochester was present which is strongly connected to how Jane felt lonely and down because when he was not there.

This connection between character and setting reflects the complex mood of Thornfield depending on whether Rochester is there or not. When he is away on a trip, the mood is somber and desolate because the reader can understand and feel the longing that Jane has for Rochester and the loneliness she feels in the huge, empty house. When he is there, the mood changes to exciting and intimate because of the strong feelings that Jane has toward him and the liveliness that she associates with the house. Charlotte Bronte does a great job with reflecting the characters in Jane Eyre to the reader through her writing.

One very unique and interesting character is Bertha, Rochester’s insane wife. The Victorians during the nineteenth century had a fascination with health, sometimes greater than that of politics, religion, and Darwinism. They believed “an interdependent mind-body connection gained strength, and many people saw physical and mental health as being interrelated rather than separate entities,” (Sonja Mayer). According to Mayer, these attitudes of the time are reflected in Bertha’s character through her mental illness and the physical threat she puts on Rochester.

Compared to Jane, Bertha is her opposite and portrayed to the reader as a monster. Rochester “describes her as having ‘red balls’ for eyes, a ‘mask’ instead of a face, and ‘bulk’ instead of an attractive form like Jane,” (Sonja Mayer). Jane is strong in body and mind. She endured the unhealthy conditions at Lowood where many students had died and survived through cold and hunger when she had ran away from Thornfield and lived outside. Her mental strength is shown through her courage as a child with her evil aunt, bullying cousin, and hypocritical head master.

She stayed true to herself and motivated to be successful as a woman in this time despite the difficult situations these people had created for her. In contrast, Bertha is portrayed by Rochester as having “gone mad”. The Victorians would view this as a lack of mental strength. She, also, poses a threat to Rochester physically by her acts such as setting his bed on fire while he was sleeping, lunging at him and Jane in the room, and actually succeeding in burning down the house at the the end of the book. Rochester is depicted as the ideal hero of the Victorian times.

He is very romantic and charming which adds to the gothic style of this novel (Lowes). Despite his charm, there was much controversy over Rochester’s character in Victorian times. English law at the time said that a man whose wife became insane could not get a divorce. To deal with his problem, he put his wife into confinement, locked in a room with a servant to care for her. He then proceeded to almost partake in bigamy by marrying Jane. Many Victorians of the time questioned why Jane would ever go back to such a man. (http://reviewmaterials. tripod. om/english/jane_eyre. html) The character of Jane isn’t the traditional heroine of the time. In many romantic novels of the Victorian era, the heroine was beautiful. Jane is described by Charlotte as “simple and plain”. She also differs from the traditional heroine in her strength as a woman. Charlotte created a woman character that was equal to the male character. Jane is not equal in status or class, but in emotional strength and maturity. This went against society’s beliefs of the time because Victorians traditionally believed that women were not capable of strong.

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Briefly Outline a Selection of Victorian Values

This essay is going to briefly outline a section of Victoria values such as separate spheres, religion and family. Outside the family sphere, one had to strive for self-improvement and industry in ones working life, and developed nations. The main focus of this essay is going to be on fallen woman. In the Victorian era women were seen as pure and clean because of this view, their bodies were seen as temples which should not be adorned with jewellery. A woman should be reminded that marrying she gives up many advantages.

A few artists such as William Holman Hunt and Augustus Leopold Egg and many more portrayed these Victorian values through narrative artwork and this essay is going to discuss a few of these artist’s paintings such as The Awakening Conscience and Past and Present. The role of women was to have children and tend to the house in contrast to men, according to the concept of Victorian masculinity. If they didn’t achieve this the their husbands would have mistresses outside their marriage. Decorating the home and wearing fine dresses became a way for women to express themselves.

Religion went through it’s changes as Victorian’s lost interest in God. [Patterson 2007 online] However, Great Revivals would sweep across the countries of the world changing the lives of many. The separate spheres framework holds that men possessed the capacity for reason, action, aggression, independence, and self-interest thus belonging to the public sphere. Women inhabited a separate, private sphere, one suitable for the so called inherent qualities of femininity: emotion, passivity, submission, dependence, and selflessness, all derived, it was claimed insistently, form women’s sexual and reproductive organization. Patterson 2007 online]In reality women held an important position as wives since they took care of the household, any servants, helped with their husband’s work, and managed the finances, however from the male’s point of view, women were nothing more than overly emotional and mindless creatures ruled by their sexuality Mary Wollstonecraft penned her anger at the unfair and unjust inequality that where imposed upon women by a vocal male majority in an attempt to redress this balance.

A women’s role in life in the nineteenth century was decidedly placed within a male context; both sexes were to be seen acting within different realms with the men occupying what was to be known as the public sphere whilst the women were to be found in the domestic sphere [Gordon Marsden 1955]. Perhaps this splitting of realms, within the working and lower middling classes at least, into their respective roles was by-product of increasing industrialisation and its resultant hazards such as long working hours and poor working conditions imposed upon the family unit.

The majority of women did not have the option not to marry: it was simply a necessity for survival. Because society prevented women from making their own living, there was an inescapable dependence upon men’s income; Barred by law and custom from entering trades and professions by which they could support themselves, and restricted in the possession of property, woman had only one means of livelihood, that of marriage her [Gordon Marsden 1955].

Therefore, no matter what the women desired, most were predestined to become wives due to their economic reliance on men. Secondly, to be even considered as a potential wife, women had to be not only virgins, but were expected to remain innocent and “free from any thought of love or sexuality” until after they had received a proposal The fallen woman was quite a theme for the Pre-Raphaelites. In this painting, The Awakening Conscience, we see a mistress rising from the seat of her lover, seemingly stricken with the realization of what her life has become.

The Awakening Conscience, painted by William Holman Hunt, is filled with symbolism: a cat crouches under the table devouring a dead bird, the woman’s hands are adorned with rings on every finger except where a wedding ring would be, and on the floor we see unraveling wool. The model in this painting is Annie Miller, who Holman Hunt “rescued from obscurity”. He was engaged to her and launched a campaign to better her [Gordon Marsden 1955]. As a women, then ,the first thing of importance is to be content, to be inferior to men, inferior in mental power, in the same proportion that you are inferior in bodily strength.

Ruskin’s defence of the Awakening Conscience in his letter to the Times helps to subvert the idea of women being dependent upon men; he refers to the model repeatedly as the ‘poor’ ‘lost’ girl. He victimises her and renders her as virtually helpless as she ‘starts up with agony’, her ‘eyes filled with tears of ancient days’. Ruskin attempts to address the composition’s power and immediacy from which ‘there is not a single object in all the room–… but it becomes tragically if rightly read’[Hollis,P 1979]. He concludes that Hunt’s work challenges its contemporaries and that ‘there will not be found one powerful as this to meet … he moral evil of the age… to waken the mercy the cruel thoughtlessness of youth, and to subdue the severalties of judgement into the sanctity of compassion[Rutherford online n. d]. Hunt’s the Awakening Conscience, in this context may be seen as a form of morality text. The work was a direct outgrowth of mid-Victorian society which believed that prostitution posed an inherent threat to the stability of the middle-classes as prostitution encompassed and symbolised the worries of a newly industrialised society which could lead to social instability and perhaps even to a complete social breakdown.

It was believed that he slide into prostitution was the end of a more general moral breakdown in one’s life which was believed to stem from the act of seduction, in 1840. William Tait in Magdalism, defined a woman’s seduction as an ‘act of corrupting tempting, or enticing females from a life of chastity, by money of false promises’. The 1850 Westminster Review wrote that ‘women’s desires scarcely ever lead to their fall; for the desire scarcely exists in a definite form until they have fallen; it may therefore be seen that the ideal women becomes de-sexed in her search for moral virtue [Rutherford online n. ]. William Holman Hunt’s The Awakening Conscience represents not only a contemporary life subject of a fallen Magdalene but can be loosely interpreted as an example of portraiture by Pointon’s definition in which we can see that the woman became as symbolically objectified as her image. In contrast Augustus Leopold Egg’s painting, known as Past and Present Nos. 1–3, (1858), is a triptych in the genre of narrative painting. The subject is the ‘fallen woman’ and together the three paintings depict an entire scenario from discovery and outcast to the moments before the woman’s final demise.

One picture shows the children alone in the home; the other picture shows their mother living under the Adelphi Terrace arches in London. The paintings “illustrate the tensions in Victorian culture between morality and sexuality”. Egg’s “moral narrative on social issues”[ Patterson 2007 online ] was successful in drawing public attention to the need to address gender roles and their consequences such as divorce. The sad woman in the third picture, most likely contemplating suicide, is a result of legislation that allows a man to divorce his wife without compensation for adultery [Patterson 2007 online].

Prostitution, was legal during the Victorian era, seemed to embody the second of the two categories of women present in Victorian society: the first was the pure wife and mother, the angel in the house; the other was the depraved and sexually-crazed prostitute. “Prostitution was a product of middle-class society and only socialism, it was claimed ,could put an end to the evil”[Nead L 1988]. However because wives and mothers were not truly respected, my belief is that prostitution reflected what men really considered all women to be: whores for the gratification of their sexual desires.

And indeed in Victorian England a large number of women were prostitutes: “In a society that forced women into a position of economic dependence upon men. In conclusion men’s and society’s consistent definition of women’s roles according to their separate spheres and the reproductive system can also be seen through what today we would consider the ‘weird’ sexual values of Victorians. The issue of adultery was also skewed to favour men. While a wife’s adultery was sufficient cause to end a marriage, a woman could divorce her husband only if his adultery had been compounded by another matrimonial offence, such as cruelty or desertion.

Referencing List: Branes Lucy. (2007). Narrative Painting? Egg’s Triptych And The Art of Persuasion. Available: http://www. victorianweb. org/painting/egg/paintings/barnes2. html Last accessed 29 May 2012. Hollis P ( 1979). The women’s movement. London: George Allen & Unwin. 6-15. John A (1986). Unequal Opportunities Women’s Employment in England. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 45-261. Lewis J (1986). Women’s Experience of Home and Family. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 123-249. Lynda Nead,1988,The Prostitution and Social Chaos,Blackwell Myths of sexuality Marsden,G (1995).

Personalities and Perspectives in the Nineteenth Century Society. London: Longman. 3-11. Rutherford. A,A Dramatic Reading of Augustus Leopold Egg Untitled Triptych Available online http://www. tate. org. uk/research/tateresearch/tatepapers/07spring/rutherford. htm [accesses 22 March 2012] Sigsworth M,E (1988). In search of Victorian Values. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 89-100. Patterson,C. (2007). Men, Divorce And Custody. Available: http://menstuff. org/issues/byissue/divorcecustodygeneral. html Last accessed 29.

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Victorian Era Consciousness

How would you describe the consciousness of the Victorian Age? Think about their perception of their place in the world. The consciousness of society in the Victorian age is an interesting factor that greatly changed and evolved during the time period. The era’s beginning and end is marked by the birth and death of the […]

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Victorian Era

The Victorian Era During the Victorian Era, social classes of England were newly reforming, and fomenting. There was a churning upheaval of the old hierarchical order, and the middle classes were steadily growing. Added to that, the upper classes’ composition was changing from simply hereditary aristocracy to a combination of nobility and an emerging wealthy […]

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Weddings In The Victorian Era History Essay

In the Victorian Era, there were nuptialss like any other epoch. Except these were different, you may be stating “ Well are n’t they ever? “ , but I am here to explicate why. Weddings were less luxuriant, because people did n’t like pretentious ornaments and they were much more concluding than now a twenty-four […]

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