While there were printed versions of the code of correct behavior for ladies, gentlemen had largely unwritten rules for behaving honorably. Why, aside from his attraction and affection for her, might Val have felt bound to offer marriage to Caro after their appearance in the theatre lobby? How might such marriages made to preserve a lady’s reputation have led to unhappy marriages? What do you think about the notion of “compromised virtue” in general? What role might the rules of inheritance have played in its prevalence?
Quick trips to the seaside, such as the one Caro and Val take for their wedding journey, were far more difficult before the advent of rail travel. How might the choice of where railroad stations were built have affected the economies of villages along the roads that were once the main routes from London to other cities and towns? How might the ease of travel have made it more difficult for the authorities to solve crimes?
If you were to create a code of conduct for behavior in the present day, what rules would you list? How would your rules differ from the ones ladies like Caro were expected to follow?
Further Reading
Beeton, Isabella. Mrs. Beeton’s Household Management. Ware, UK: Wordsworth Reference, 2006.
Doughan, David, and Peter Gordon. Women, Clubs and Associations in Britain. London: Routledge, 2006.
Flanders, Judith. Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006.
Foulkes, Richard. Shakespeare and the Victorian Stage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Furger, Andres. Driving: The Horse, the Man and the Carriage from 1700 up to the Present Day. Hildesheim: Olms, 2009.
Langland, Elizabeth. Nobody’s Angels: Middle-Class Women and Domestic Ideology in Victorian Culture. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995.
Poovey, Mary. Uneven Developments: The Ideological Work of Gender in Mid-Victorian England. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Ruskin, John. “Sesame and Lilies.” In The Works of John Ruskin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Summerscale, Kate. The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher. New York: Bloomsbury, 2009.
Summerscale, Kate. The Wicked Boy: An Infamous Murder in Victorian London. New York: Penguin Press, 2017.