Queen Victoria's Ascension to the Throne
Queen Victoria’s ascension to the throne (June 20, 1837) marked the beginning of the Victorian Era, where women’s sexuality remained a taboo topic, but women were gradually deemed more and more capable of performing the same tasks that men could. At this time, women were seen as completely at the will of their husbands, and their main function in life was to please their husbands by taking care of all things domestic. Victoria took the throne, unmarried, at 18, and became the most powerful and superior being in the United Kingdom. Upon marrying Albert, her duties changed—it was her duty to be subservient to her husband, but by law, he was required to listen to her. Pregnant women in this era were often looked down upon for being sexual in the first place, and Victoria had to maintain the respect of the people she ruled and those she worked with over the course of her nine pregnancies (Arildsen, 2018). Victoria’s success in both the domestic and political spheres lead to a question of women’s rights and the nature of their sexuality. As prostitution became more of a prominent issue towards the 1860s, women started to hold men accountable for their “sinful” actions—though women were forced to be monogamous to their husbands and only were sexual out of necessity, it was common practice for men to sleep with whoever they wanted, whenever they wanted to (Marsh, n.d.). Women also began to argue that they were capable of working since the Queen herself was able to have and raise nine children all while ruling the nation. Strangely enough, one of the biggest opponents of the women’s liberation movements was Queen Elizabeth herself, who actively spoke out against them by saying that women should not want more rights because they were proven inferior. Regardless, Victoria’s success made her one of the key figures in proving that women could work and have families. By the end of the Victorian Era, women were still widely perceived as inferior to men, but they had been deemed competent enough to do work and many of their “wifely duties” had diminished greatly—most notably in the emergence of a much smaller familial unit (Marsh, n.d.).
More Information:
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/s/sex-and-sexuality-19th-century/
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/g/gender-ideology-and-separate-spheres-19th-century/