Concetti Chiave
- Victorian society emphasized personal duty, hard work, and respectability, often linked to strict moral codes.
- The term 'Victorian' became synonymous with repression, extending even to concealing furniture legs to avoid suggestiveness.
- There was a strong middle-class focus on gentility and decorum, with private lives dominated by authoritarian family structures.
- John Stuart Mill advocated for legislation that supported personal development and social reforms, including women's emancipation.
- Jeremy Bentham's utilitarianism prioritized reason and happiness while downplaying human and cultural values.
• The Victorians were great moralizers
they supported: personal duty, hard work, decorum, respectability, chastity, charity.
• ‘Victorian’, synonymous with prude, stood for extreme repression; even furniture legs had to be concealed under heavy cloth not to be ‘suggestive’.
• New ideas were discussed and debated by a large part of society.
• The powerful middle-class was obsessed with gentility, decorum.
a. Victorian private lives were dominated by an authoritarian father.
b. Women were subject to male authority; they were expected to marry and make home a ‘refuge’ for their husbands.
Currents of thoughts.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), philosopher.
Empiricism
• legislation should try to help men develop their natural talents
• progress came from mental energy
• supported popular education, trade union organisation, extension of representation to all citizens, and the emancipation of women
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), theorist.
Utilitarianism
• neglected human and cultural values
• any problem could be overcome by reason
• usefulness, happiness, avoidance of pain
John Wesley (1703-1791), the founder of Methodism.
Evangelicalism
• strict code of behaviour
• dedication to humanitarian causes and social reforms
• base of Victorian emphasis upon moral conduct
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