Conveniently Married

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Recommended: Women in marriage in the Victorian era

Conveniently Married

Life in the Victorian Era was centered on marriage. Among the nobility, marriage was typically sought to increase status or wealth with a partner of their same social class. This also holds true for the middle class, along with using marriage to gain political or business alliances. The working class of the Victorian Era had more practical reasons for marrying. The marriages of the working class centered more on finding a companion that would be able to contribute to the household. Many men sought a strong woman whose talents would complement their particular trade, and increase the amount of money that was made. Marriage rarely occurred for love, although the marriage of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert was an exception to this rule. About one matter Victoria felt certain: she would marry only for love. The example of their marriage set the standard for the ideal marriage in all classes, which is still sought after to this day.

Queen Victoria broke the standard mold of marriage by marrying for love. There were, of course, political reasons that she must marry.

Indirectly, the ‘bedchamber crisis’ also raised anew the question of when and how Victoria might appropriately find a husband. As she herself sometimes conceded, to live among people most of whom were much older than herself was unnatural. Tories hoped that a husband might cause the ‘Whig Queen’ to become less partisan. Whigs were aware that, without a husband, Victoria could not continue the royal succession.

Victoria also had to find a husband of her own social class of royalty. Yet the future Czar Alexander II was obviously an inappropriate choice; so was a mere English subject. Here we see the distinction of class in the choice of a partner. ...

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...tance to marry outside of a particular class. These two novels, despite going outside the norm, show how much of an influence Queen Victoria had in that they portray marriage for love and the model of domesticity. In the working class, marriage was mainly a source of supplementing the family income. In any case, one can see how people of the Victorian Era were conveniently married.

Works Cited

Arnstein, Walter. Queen Victoria. New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2003.

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 2003.

Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 2005.

Browning, Elizabeth. Aurora Leigh. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1996.

Clark, Anna. The Struggle for the Breeches Gender and the Making of the British Working Class. Berkley and Los Angeles: University of Californian Press, 1995.

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