Those other two rants I mentioned

[chocolatepot]

Our perception of historical morality today is incredibly affected by the Victorians. Some of this is due to a Victorian idea that societies progress in a straight line, and some is due to exaggeration by post-Victorians eager to distance themselves from the past. But the fact is that the Georgian period/Long Regency was very different from the late Victorian. Take, for example, Harriet Smith in Emma - there's no squeamishness anywhere, even though she's illegitimate. Mr. Knightley has no trouble reminding Emma of it. It seems like fairly common knowledge, in fact. George IV and all his brothers had dozens of bastards, and they were well-discussed at the time. Basically everything along those lines was well-discussed.

The very common strict, moral older female chaperones in Regency novels would have been born in the 1760s or 1770s. It is just not plausible to me that it would be so common for them to act like they grew up a century later. There had always been moralists, of course, deploring the terrible state of the world &c. &c., but they were getting more common as time went on, not less - the younger characters would be more likely, overall, to be prudish than them. You know what would be about a million times more interesting than the way it's always done? Chaperones that are there to observe the social niceties but are basically Mrs. Jenningses - loud and jokey and obnoxious (in a good way).



As usual, this is one of those "bad as a trend, believable and okay in specific situations with sufficient buildup". Certainly, women would have been more aware of the necessity of marriage as protection and security. Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, of course, are the archtypal examples that probably inspired the trope of the mother being all about marriage and the father being chill. But they're also a perfect example of the trope being done so that it feels organic to the characters and not because the author's decided that that's how it should be. Mr. Bennet is irresponsible. Most fathers would not be so absent from the process of finding matches for their children.

Off-handed mentions of matchmaking Mamas strike me as kind of sexist in two ways.
- They ignore the fathers who would have definitely been involved in the matchmaking, putting the focus on annoying women instead.
- They ignore the fact that even though the men are being harassed and annoyed, they're still the ones with all the power in the situation.

I just want to point out, however, that even though I am bringing sexism into it, it's not like I read something and go, "UGH, so fed up with sexism, how rotten." That's really more of an unfortunate implication. What I'm really fed up with is the unthinkingness of it, the way the cliché is just used so constantly.

Comments

[baranduyn.livejournal.com]

women would have been more aware of the necessity of marriage as protection and security. Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, of course, are the archtypal examples that probably inspired the trope of the mother being all about marriage and the father being chill. But they're also a perfect example of the trope being done so that it feels organic to the characters and not because the author's decided that that's how it should be. Mr. Bennet is irresponsible. Most fathers would not be so absent from the process of finding matches for their children.

Disputable.

Royalty and nobility; good matches were made by networking to an extent. However, fathers tended to be very removed and remote. Children were the responsibility of staff and mothers with mothers running a distant second. Fathers had final approval of potential sons or daughters in law.

Men did have power in that there were more women than men. Young men had none; they were in some cases told who they would marry. Both genders wanted parental consent to marry by law. Prince Albert (Queen Victoria's consort not the one in a can) was told he would marry her and had a hard time accepting his fate. That marriage was brokered by their mutual uncle.

Overwhelmingly, once you get past royalty and nobility and into the first stirrings of the upper class it was mothers (female relatives) who found potential mates. Fathers approved.

Very hard to explain how remote fathers of the era were. It likely helps to have been raised by people who were raised by Victorians. My oldest grandparent was born in 1873, the others were born in the early 1880s. The children were their mothers' jobs unless (paternal line) father wanted to get a few licks in. Other than this father's job was income, alpha to omega.

Marriage was essential. Without marriage women didn't legally exist. Thus Queen Victoria's v. practical question when it came to the Whitechapel murders; where did these women come from? Where were their fathers, brothers, husbands and sons. Even the best historians today don't get how essential her question was because the answer was that these women fell through the cracks by the hundreds.

[chocolatepot.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean that fathers would necessarily be just as involved as the mother in the same ways. But they would interact socially with the prospective husband to give their daughters an advantage - see Mr. Bennet and Sir William Lucas going over to call on Mr. Bingley ASAP so that they can introduce their wives and daughters. It's not so much that I'm looking for matchmaking papas (although that would be at least mildly amusing), but for fathers who do their part and are be aware that being agreeable to eligible bachelors helps their daughters' chances. Historical fiction is swamped with fathers who either a) don't seem to care about their daughters not getting married at all or b) are evil and force them to be engaged to old men &c &c.

Men did have power in that there were more women than men. Young men had none; they were in some cases told who they would marry. Both genders wanted parental consent to marry by law.

That's true, but not exactly the context I'm talking about, which is men (usually without fathers, and/or old enough to be relatively independent) going to parties and being harassed by mothers trying to snag them for their own daughters. There really isn't actual pressure on them, in the majority of the books. Though it's not out of the question at all for a character to find it irritating, part of my issue is that it's just so constant (and ties back into my earlier "they wanted to get married" point).

I'm not entirely sure how much late Victorian attitudes reflect late 18th-early 19th century views, to be honest, especially when it comes to gender relations. There was just such a shift in feeling round about the 1830s/40s as a backlash to feminists.

[baranduyn.livejournal.com]

That's true, but not exactly the context I'm talking about, which is men (usually without fathers, and/or old enough to be relatively independent) going to parties and being harassed by mothers trying to snag them for their own daughters. There really isn't actual pressure on them, in the majority of the books. Though it's not out of the question at all for a character to find it irritating, part of my issue is that it's just so constant (and ties back into my earlier "they wanted to get married" point).

"No decent man is unmarried."

Marriage was a status symbol. The unspoken joke in a lot of 19th cent. contemporary lit was that Mrs. whoever was likely a common law wife. I've wondered how many of Dickens' lower class characters had penny weddings (twenty people chip in a penny each to pay the vicar) if any at all. Men who did not marry at the proper age were suspect. Lack of a wife could affect business prospects as well as social prospects.

But what you describe is a pathetically overused device, I know. The problem is history. History even on the level of letters and journals do not describe fathers as terribly involved with their families on the level of actively involving themselves in their social lives. They vetted whoever was going to marry their daughters (unless they had a lot of daughters in which case it might go to 'he'll do') and they might reject a prospect but that was it.

Not so much in America, mind you. One wanted one's daughters married and out of the house so as to lessen the burden. There was however a lot of 'she's your problem now' once the marriage was done.

Deeply involved fathers were gossiped about, Barrett as an example. Something wrong there. Lizzie and Emma Borden's father was another of this type; his daughters had inheritances, if they married their husbands would be their next of kin and he wanted that money.

In general though a deeply involved father got a 'buhwah' look. I'm sure there were exceptions because that's just people. I'm sure there were mothers who didn't give a damn about betrothing their daughters, same thing.

The flock of gasping, shrieking mothers and guardians when A MANNN enters the room is too much of a cliche for me, to be honest. At least a few of them had to have had it together more than that.