THE PURITAN CODE
In 1837 the English Parliament
proposed a bill, tent to forbid every form of Entertainment during the sundays. Dickens criticized this bill, because he recognize
the hypocrisy in it. The bill did not passed, but the traditi 424e46e on of sobert sunday become a moral
custom spread among people as a law. This puritan ascetism
was only apparent: in fact in 1850 in London there were 3000 prostitutes known
by the police. For example in Leeds there were 2 churches and 98 brothels where
puritan and respectable victorian men went to satisfy
their pleasure. All this false morality was possible because of female
ignorance, hidden in the necessary innocence of them. We can easily understand
that this moral behaviour was only an external convention, because under the
mask of respectability, purity and ascetism, victorian people hid the spread of prostitution and
pornography. All these moral laws were
derived from the Old Testament and it is, once again, a demonstration of victorian hypocrisy, because of the developing of the
phenomenon called "Mrs Grundyism", which defines the external conformity.
VICTORIAN PHILANTROPY
In the victorian
period philantrophy became very important. It consisted in helping poor and miserable people
with charitable deeds. Later philantropy was no more
directed to poor people in an economical way, but to poor people in the
moralistic code, such as the dissolute and the "fallen women". The victorian family ideal was a bourgeos
one, in which the position of the husband was dominant, for the fact that he
brought money and wealthy. The woman, instead, had the function of educating
her children and managing her home. Consequently a woman who lost her chastity without being
married was condamned with the term " fallen woman"
and she was ostracized and emarginated by the society.
