The Angel in the House

The gilded cage of bourgeois marriage was occupied by between a fifth and a quarter of the population. There were infinite gradations of status, expressed not only in religious affiliation, education, forms of leisure, dress, style and location of house, number of servants employed, but also in who spoke to or called on or dined with whom. The middle classes are sometimes described as ‘the servant-keeping class, as if it was impossible for a family to cling to middle-class status if they could not afford a servant. Despite continuous criticism of marriage and its legal disabilities for women, most middle-class women wanted to marry and did so. Nineteenth-century observers said that church-going was almost restricted to the middle and upper classes. Contemporary major and minor writers alike confirmed Evangelical Christianity, which the middle class made its own, as one of the most important influences in Victorian society.

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