Victorian Family: Secrets

Family Secrets: marriage discontent and sexual repression

       Behind the ideal Victorian family façade, there lurked issues of      marriage discontent, sexual repression. Characters like Bertha Mason in Charlotte’s Bronte’s Jane Eyre serve as an allegory that is representative of the secrets that lurk behind the Victorian family. Indeed, in Jane Eyre, the existence of this secret becomes the reason why Rochester and Jane are unable to get married. Bertha Mason’s entrapment is symbolic of the entrapment that men and women often found in Victorian Marriages. Since, marriage was regarded as being exclusively a sacred institution, divorce or separation was reproachable by society. Further, according to Showalter, works of fiction written after the Matrimonial Causes Act (1879), which transferred the clerical authority over marriage to the civil laws, tended to portray “an unhappy marriage as a cage rather than a spiritual opportunity.” Clearly, an unhappy couple bound by the laws of God now became an unhappy couple bound by civil laws. Thus, discontentment in marriage was a rather common secret in Victorian society, which often led to infidelity.

            The issue of sexual repression in women is also worthwhile exploring, as it reflects the consequences of holding up such high standards in this ideal conception of a Victorian family. Again, Bronte’s depiction of Bertha as a “dark, and majestic” woman whom Rochester met in Jamaica seems to associate this character with sexuality. In addition, the fact that she is locked up in the attic brings up the idea that Bertha is also a sexually repressed woman, which might be partly the cause of her insanity. However, this repression seems to be tightly related with the repression found in her marriage with Rochester. In fact, Showalter argues that “the escape from sexual bonds and family networks rather than sexual gratification or frustration was the real subject of female sensationalism” (105). Thus, this seems to suggest that the family is, at least partly, the cause of sexual repression, which might had led to infidelity.

WORKS CITED (ORPHANS & SECRETS)

WORKS CITED (MAIN)

HOME

BACK TO VICTORIAN NOVEL SITE

 Sergio Tapia