A Man's Place: Masculinity and the Middle-class Home in Victorian EnglandJohn Tosh shows how profoundly men's lives were conditioned by the Victorian ideal, and how they negotiated its many contradictions. Tosh begins by looking at the experience of boyhood, married life, sex and fatherhood in the early decades of the nineteenth century - illustrated by case-studies representing a variety of backgrounds - and then contrasts this with the lives of the late Victorian generation. By the 1870s, men were becoming less enchanted with the pleasures of home. Once the rights of wives were extended by law and society, marriage seemed less attractive, and the bachelor world of clubland flourished as never before. The Victorians declared that to be fully human and fully masculine, men must be active participants in domestic life. In exposing the contradictions in this ideal, they defined the climate for gender politics in the next century. |
Contents
List of Illustrations | ix |
The MiddleClass Household II | xxv |
The Ideal of Domesticity27 | xli |
Husband and Wife 53 | lxvii |
Father and Child79 | xciii |
Boys into Men | 102 |
Convivial Pleasures and Public Duties I 23 | 123 |
The Decline of Deference | 145 |
The Flight from Domesticity | 170 |
Q 5 | 198 |
Notes2OO | 229 |
Other editions - View all
A Man's Place: Masculinity and the Middle-Class Home in Victorian England John Tosh Limited preview - 2008 |
A Man's Place: Masculinity and the Middle-class Home in Victorian England John Tosh No preview available - 1999 |
A Man's Place: Masculinity and the Middle-class Home in Victorian England John Tosh No preview available - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
activity affection appeared association authority became become Benson bourgeois boys called Cambridge century certainly Chapter character child childhood Church club comfort common culture daughter depended Diary domestic duty early Edward emotional England English Evangelical example expected experience father fatherhood Gender History Holden household husband important influence Isaac James John John Heaton kind late later Leeds less letters Library lives London male manhood manliness marriage married Mary masculine matter means middle middle-class moral mother nature never nineteenth century parents paternal patriarchy period political position practice question quoted reason refer reflected relations respect responsibility Rights role Sarah sense separation servants sexual social society sometimes sons sphere spiritual status Thomas took traditional values Victorian wife wives women young