In Bed with the Victorians : the Life-Cycle of Working-Class Marriage
Vicky Holmes (Author)
'Vicky Holmes shows how we can understand gender and working-class married life through that most essential of objects: the bed. It allows her to write in new ways about space and inter-personal relations. This is a highly original exploration of the Victorian domestic interior which rethinks the way we study family history.' Rohan McWilliam, Anglia Ruskin University, UK 'Vicky Holmes takes us into that most intimate of domestic spaces, the bedroom, to peer into the marriages of working people. She shows us the marriage bed as a place to quarrel and to make up; a private space that was also, for some couples, embarrassingly public; a place of comfort for parents and children and one of sorrow; a symbol of togetherness and of loneliness. Through the records of coroners' courts, In Bed with the Victorians offers readers a wonderful new insight into facets of life that have long remained hidden from history.' Julie-Marie Strange, University of Manchester, UK This 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.-- Provided by publisher
1 online resource
9783319603902, 3319603906
1006878656
Acknowledgements
Contents
Abbreviations
Chapter 1 Introduction: Victorian Working-Class Marriage and the Marital Bed
Abstract
Approaches to Marriage and the Marital Bed
Locating the Victorian Working-Class Marital Bed
Scope of the Present Book
Chapter Outlines
Chapter 2 Beds of Newlyweds
Abstract
â#x80;#x98;[Her Father] Slept in the Same Room as Usâ#x80;#x99;: Sleeping With the In-laws
â#x80;#x98;We are Only Lodgersâ#x80;#x99;: Newlywed Lodgers
â#x80;#x98;[The] Next Roomâ#x80;#x99;: Shared Homes and Bedrooms with Non-kin
Conclusion Chapter 3 From Marital Bed to ChildbedAbstract
â#x80;#x98;Making Arrangements for the Expected Confinementâ#x80;#x99;: The Transformation of Marital Bed to Childbed
â#x80;#x98;In Her Confinementâ#x80;#x99;: The Wifeâ#x80;#x99;s Experience of Childbirth
â#x80;#x98;I Called to My Husband Directly, Who Was Sleeping in the Next Roomâ#x80;#x99;: The Husbandâ#x80;#x99;s Experience of Childbirth
â#x80;#x98;Sleeping by [Her] Sideâ#x80;#x99;: The Return of the Husband to the Marital Bed
Conclusion
Chapter 4 Marital Beds in Marital Strife
Abstract
â#x80;#x98;They Were Always Quarrelling Even When They Were in Bedâ#x80;#x99;: Marital Quarrels Â#x80;#x98;Rip the Feather Bed Openâ#x80;#x99;: The Marital Bed as a Tool of Abuse and Controlâ#x80;#x98;At These Times He Slept in the Shedâ#x80;#x99;: Controlling Access to the Marital Bed
Conclusion
Chapter 5 Beds After Marital Separation
Abstract
â#x80;#x98;Lived Together As Man and Wifeâ#x80;#x99;: Quasi-Marital Beds, Landladies, and Housekeepers
â#x80;#x98;On a Couchâ#x80;#x99;: The Unstable Beds of Working-Class Women After Marital Breakdown
Conclusion
Chapter 6 Post-marital Beds of the Bereaved
Abstract
â#x80;#x98;Employed to Make His Bedâ#x80;#x99;: An Empty Space in the Marital Bed Â#x80;#x98;I Have Been Married Twiceâ#x80;#x99;: The New Marital Beds of the Bereavedâ#x80;#x98;A Stump Bedsteadâ#x80;#x99;: The Lodgersâ#x80;#x99; Beds of the Bereaved
â#x80;#x98;[The] Little Girl, with Who the Old LadySleptâ#x80;#x99;: The Downgraded Beds of the Bereaved in the Homes of Kin
Conclusion
Chapter 7 Conclusion
Abstract
Bibliography