Victorian Values and Fallen Women

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