The Place of Peace: 1

i've already been reading around the subject of Victorian society. The first one i'm 'studying' (so to speak)is Jenni Calder's The Victorian Home (The Anchor Press LTD, 1977)

i have found this book interesting and full of rather apt quotes! The first chapter is called 'The Place of Peace'.

'The picture of the victorian house... is essentially an environment maintained by women and controlled by men.'

This is one of the most distinctive features of the period, what i first associated with the Victorians in comparison to the world i lived in as a child. The victorian home was a world dominated by the husband/father, where the woman's role was strictly defined and controlled. A wife was expected to ensure that the home her husband returned to was well kept and run smoothly, and - most importantly - peaceful.

'Victorian attitudes to marriage reflect this understanding of the home as a place occupied by a woman who was, ideally, both decorative and useful...

The man aquired a licit sex life... in a situation where someone else was responsible for the provision of food and comforts, a decorative symbol of achievement and, perhaps most important, a solidity and status which society approved, indeed deemed almost a necessity for the pursuit of a conventionally acceptable career, or occupation, or simply existance.' (page 9)

A victorian wife was seen to fail if she could not or did not provide these things, especially if she had servants to help.

In 1865, John Ruskin said:

'This is the true nature of home - it is the place of peace; the shelter, not only from all injury, but from all terror, doubt and division. In so far as it is not this, it is not home; so far as the anxieties of the outer life penetrate into it, and the inconsistanly-minded, unknown, unloved, or hostile society of the outer world is allowed by either husband or wife to cross the threshold, it ceases to be home.' (page 10)

According to Ruskin, the primary function of the home is therefore a place of refuge. 'It cannot be separated from Ruskin's view of women... for he considers it woman's function to preside over this refuge. It is the woman who must ensure that the home remains 'a place of Peace'... Home was a refuge and women made it such... as guardians of comfort and replenishment.' (page 10)

This idea of the home as a refuge from the hostility of the world beyond its' doors, and the apparently catastrophic effects of this refuge ceasing to be is something that interests me and i would like to pursue as a theme in my writing.

That's all for now.

x-lm-x