In Bed with the Victorians: The Life-Cycle of Working-Class MarriageThis book examines the life-cycle of Victorian working-class marriage through a study of the hitherto hidden marital bed. Using coroners’ inquests to gain intimate access to the working-class home and its inhabitants, this book explores their marital, quasi-marital, and post-marital beds to reveal the material, domestic, and emotional experience of working-class marriage during everyday life and at times of crisis. Drawing on the recent approach of utilising domestic objects to explore interpersonal relationships, the marital bed not only provides a rereading of the experiences of the working-class wife but also brings the much maligned or simply overlooked working-class husband into the picture. Moreover, it also extends our understanding of the various marriage-like arrangements existing throughout this class. Moving through the marital life-cycle, this book provides a greater understanding of marriages from the outset, during childbirth, at times of strife and marital breakdown, and upon the death of a spouse. |
Contents
| 1 | |
Chapter 2 Beds of Newlyweds | 15 |
Chapter 3 From Marital Bed to Childbed | 34 |
Chapter 4 Marital Beds in Marital Strife | 51 |
Chapter 5 Beds After Marital Separation | 65 |
Chapter 6 Postmarital Beds of the Bereaved | 83 |
Chapter 7 Conclusion | 103 |
Bibliography | 109 |
Index | 119 |
Other editions - View all
In Bed with the Victorians: The Life-Cycle of Working-Class Marriage Vicky Holmes No preview available - 2018 |
In Bed with the Victorians: The Life-Cycle of Working-Class Marriage Vicky Holmes No preview available - 2017 |
Common terms and phrases
Accommodating the Lodger Amanda Wilkinson Anderson Bailey Begiato bedroom bereaved Bigamy birth Bury Post Cambridge University Press Carl Chinn census Chap chapter Chelmsford Chelmsford Chronicle child childbirth cohabitation coroner’s court coroner’s inquest held coroners death domestic arrangements England Essex Standard father female Frost Gender Gillis Henry Wilson household housekeeper infant inquest report inquests reveal Ipswich Journal John labourer landlady Living in Sin lodger London Love and Toil lying-in marital bed marital breakdown marital strife marital violence married Mary Michael Anderson mother neighbouring Nineteenth-Century Norfolk Oxford University Press Peter Laslett quarrels quasi-marital beds resided rural Sarah separation shared homes sleeping arrangements slept spouse struggle Suffolk Suffolk Chronicle University of Essex Unquiet Lives Vicky Holmes Victorian era Victorian working class Victorian working-class home Victorian working-class marriage widowhood wife wife’s woman women working-class couples working-class husband working-class marital bed working-class widowers working-class wives