Dictionary of London:

Textual: Richard Carlile, Every Woman’s Book (1838)

(http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm)

This excerpt made me think of the “life cycle of a woman” image that we looked at early on in the semester. As the author cites virgin, women becoming “old maids” at 25 years old, it made me think a lot about the importance Victorian society placed on marriage. The only real purpose of women was to get married and to have children, but if you were unmarried by a certain point, society would treat you as “peculiar” and “restless” (as Richard Carlile states). Within all of novels, excluding The Type Writer Girl, there is always a large emphasis on marriage and we see, particularly in Ruth, that being an unmarried woman was seen as a rejection of “modern” society.

Visual: Advert for Electrolysis (1893)

(http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm)

This advertisement is specifically geared towards women, primarily because the person who does the procedure is a woman (specifically the “Lady Electrician”, Miss Mostyn). The ad claims that electricity can permanently remove “superfluous” hair, vein-marks, moles, and warts. I was drawn to this for a similar reason stated in the textual example. This reminded me of the “life cycle of a woman” image that we examined at the beginning of the semester. It also makes me a little sad to see that women’s physical appearances and the pressure to eliminate natural features has always been around. Regardless, I thought of how we touched upon the themes of ownership and being “marked” during our unit on Mr. Meeson’s Will. Be it a mole or a tattoo, it seems like women were so fixated on being “physically acceptable” in order to be considered by a potential suitor.

QCQ:

Quotation:  “…  that women who had never had sexual commerce begin to droop when about twenty-five years of age, that they become pale and languid, that general weakness and irritation, a sort of restlessness, nervous fidgettyness takes possession of them, and an absorbing process goes on, their forms degenerate, their features sink, and the peculiar character of the old maid becomes apparent” (Carlile)

Comment: This quote concerns the sexuality of women and how they “degenerate” later in life. By our standards today, 25 years old isn’t considered to be old at all, and certainly does not mean that women start to “shrivel up”. In terms of connectedness to other works we’ve gone over this semester, I mentioned Mr. Meeson’s Will above. Similar to Augusta’s treatment, Carlile describes women more as objects than as people. By using the word “commerce” at the beginning of the quote, Carlile is essentially saying that women’s worth drops significantly the older they get. This is a prime example of how normalized sexism was during this period, especially within the 1830s-1840s.

Question: As Carlile focuses on the commercial value of women’s sexuality, I was wondering if there were any parallels that we could draw from later feminist movements. Were there similar arguments presented to feminists at the turn of the century? I also wonder just how men, like Carlile, would react to ideas of feminism, literature, and law that were presented by West.