I introduction II. Chapter 1

2.2. The Victorian Ideal of Women in Society and Fiction

While Victorian women held an inferior position because they were regarded as the weaker sex, Hardy affirmed equality between the sexes.^[26] Because they lived in a male-dominated, patriarchal society that was defined by men, they suffered from sexual inequality, repression, and exploitation.^[27] Likewise, the Victorian age can be characterized by moral strictness, particularly in terms of female sexuality. Hence, many admonitions were written on virtues like industry and temperance (cf. Newsome 10). While Victorian morality coined passion and sexuality as a taboo, and the social reputation was measured by marriage, Hardy supported the women’s struggle to obtain sexual recognition.^[28] In fact, ideal Victorian women had to be pure because their reputation depended on their sexual status that was indicated by virginity and chastity, whereas the term “prudery” most likely describes the desired state.^[29] Actually, Victorian women grew up in ignorance of sexuality because of the belief that sensuality would cause moral degeneration (cf. Morgan, introduction). Thus, they were meant to be selfless, maternal, submissive, obedient, moral, and domestic (cf. Ingham 130). Conversely, Hardy increasingly disagreed with the traditional image of Victorian women as the “angel-in-the-house” and realized the necessity of liberalising women from the doll image.^[30]
Moreover, Victorian sexuality can be characterized by restraint because sexual moderation became the dominant ideal and restricted sexual activity to marriage for reproductive interests rather than passion, whereby women were subject to sexual control. Accordingly, Crow ascribes the following characteristics to the Victorian woman: “[…] a doll-like, bread-and-butter miss swooning on a sofa, or a sickly mother dying under the strain of a dozen births […]” (13). Consequently, the symbol of women as guardians of sexual constraint dominated Victorian culture.^[31] Therefore, the claim that female sexuality presents a threat to Victorian culture, which refuses to grant women the opportunities granted to men, became an increasingly important theme for Hardy (cf. Morgan, introduction). However, sexual repression was decreasing toward the beginning of the twentieth century because of the achievement of greater sexual permissiveness and more freedom for women. Reasons for this were the manifestation of the new morality and the break with Victorian conventions, which promoted sexual recognition of women and the liberation from a repressive past.^[32] Although Victorian women were not allowed to vote and their access to education was restricted, the enfranchisement of women as well as the development of women from non-persons to half-persons, by the 1880s, and the Married Woman’s Property Act of 1870 contributed to the emancipation of women.^[33]
Similarly, Victorian fiction stresses the inferiority of women and reflects feminine stereotypes that are prevalent in Victorian society and, therefore, matches their traditional ideal (cf. Ingham 129; Jekel 219). Hence, Victorian fiction defines women by male desire like Bathsheba, in Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd, and depicts “[…] the unfeminine fallen woman who has sinned sexually, […] as full of guilt, selfhatred, and remorse” like Hardy’s Fanny Robin, in Far from the Madding Crowd, whereupon the fallen woman had a terrifying effect on contemporaries in order to deter readers (cf. Ingham 134, 136, 151). Conversely, the “New Woman”, that appears in Hardy’s fiction, is described as middle class and makes use both of her improved status and the new opportunities for education and thus accepts social change. Because this sort of woman expressed new attitudes toward marriage and sexuality in fiction, she was in favour of rejecting marriage and pursuing non-sexual love as well as non-marital sexuality in order to obtain entire independence and, therefore, indicated emancipation (cf. Ingham 139, 150). Similarly, the “New Man” of the twentieth century shares traditionally female values like domestic ambition (cf. 139).