Victorian+Prostitution

At the beginning of the Victorian era, prostitution was increasingly opposed by a morally religious society. Society rejected the prostitute as a fallen woman and encouraged the idea that she should amend her sins (Adams 263). The act of prostitution itself was not a felony, but was considered a contamination that threatened the purity and security of the middle-class benevolent family (Adams 262). As the prostitutes were considered as threats to society, they could be arrested for soliciting on the streets during the 1800s. Around 1841, there were almost one thousand brothels in London, with the prostitutes openly solicited theatres and public areas including the Covent Garden (Corey 361). In 1864, Parliament passed the first of three Contagious Diseases Acts, which enforced sanitary inspections of prostitutes in fear of sexually transmitted diseases contaminating others. The inspections controversially allowed the police to apprehend women merely suspected of carrying a venereal disease. If women failed to oblige with the inspections, they could be charged and put in court, where they would have to prove their virtue. The acts were repealed between 1870 and 1886 after much public disapproval.

The term “fallen woman” was applied to prostitutes and women who were not married and engaged in sexual relations with men, including victims of seduction and mistresses (Anderson 2). The fallen women were also known as “painted” women, “public women”, and women who “lose their character”. Women were at a disadvantage during the Victorian Era as they were classified in terms of the separate spheres of gender ideology, lowering the status of prostitutes even more as transgressive figures. A large amount of prostitutes that were working full-time on the streets were orphans or working-class young girls, as most prostitutes started off young, usually at the age of sixteen (Corey 361). Women had less freedom in this period compared to men, especially when they were children. Often, for example, girls were taken out of school to take care of the family at home while the mothers had to leave for work, and as they grew up, working- and middle-class women had limited choice about their occupation. As recounted by critic Amanda Anderson, women commonly were seen in the era to be attracted to prostitution because of: "sexual desire, love of finery, irritability of temper, indolence, dishonesty and desire of property, intemperance, ignorance, men’s aggressive sexuality, seduction, bad examples of parents, neglect of parents, lack of proper surveillance of servants, inadequate remuneration of women’s work, marriage customs, education and early habits, (and sometimes women’s education more specifically), over-crowded urban housing, intermingling of the sexes in factories, poverty and destitution, immoral publications, socialism, women’s attire, the theatre, society’s countenancing of vice, and the appearance of prostitutes in public" (Anderson 51).

A major factor that decided the fate of the fallen women was the economy. Many women faced major economic issues that resulted in their decisions to become prostitutes because they were poor. Whether it was because of their lack of skills or their work in domestic service (over 50 percent of women worked as servants [Walkowitz 15]), women are limited to the work they are able to do, having limited opportunity to move up in social class. According to //The Encyclopedia of the Victorian Era//, those that were initially servants were often seduced by their masters into performing sexual favours for them, which led to their life as a prostitute (Adams 262). An example from Victorian literature that exemplifies the master and his desire for the maid is the poem “The Serving Maid” (1865) by Arthur Munby where the maid is sexualized. As a servant, the women were either getting paid little to nothing or not getting paid at all even though they were provided board and lodging. Prostitution, as a gendered occupation, allowed the women to exchange sexual favours for a price, which would be seen as an “honest job paid work in the sex industry, but by most as sexual domination or oppression of women by men who take temporary control of their bodies” (Adams 263). Most of the prostitutes were either locals of the city or those who had recently moved from the neighbouring countryside as they shared many of the same cultural values as those of the same class. The large amount of prostitution that was occurring created a situation for the public, resulting in the creation of social purity leagues at around 1873, labelling prostitutes as ethical outcasts. Age, education and occupation also played a role in the increase of social rejection of prostitution as it changed the composition to prostitution gradually throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 reflected the shift in ethical approach, and the legal age of consent rose from thirteen to sixteen (Corey 362).

The women turned to prostitution due to desperation and the fear of being a social outcast did not stop them. The fallen women became the moral and social castaways of the Victorian Era, as given a voice in Augusta Webster’s dramatic monologue “A Castaway” (1870).

SW/Engl386/UVic/ Fall2012

Adams, James Eli. “Prostitution”. //The Encyclopedia of the Victorian Era//. 4 vols. Connecticut: Scholastic Library Publishing, 2004. Vol. 3, 262-266. Print. Anderson, Amanda. //Tainted Souls and Painted Faces.// Ithaca: Cornell University, 1993. Print. Corey, Melinda and George Ochoa. “Prostitution”. //The Encyclopedia of the Victorian World//. Henry Holt, 1996: 361-362. Print. Walkowitz, Judith R. //Prostitution and Victorian Society//. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. Web. Oct 24, 2012.
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