2.+Social+Elements



**Social Overview ** “The social classes of England were newly reforming, and fomenting. There was a churning upheaval of the old hierarchical order, and the middle classes were steadily growing. Added to that, the upper classes' composition was changing from simply hereditary aristocracy to a combination of nobility and an emerging wealthy commercial class. The definition of what made someone a gentleman or a lady was, therefore, changing at what some thought was an alarming rate. By the end of the century, it was silently agreed that a gentleman was someone who had a liberal public (private) school education (preferably at Eton, Rugby, or Harrow), no matter what his antecedents might be” (Miller). The Victorian Era had its share of changes, especially when it came to gender matters, child labor, poverty, and prostitution. Prior to the Victorian Age was the Industrial Period, a time progression in technology and economy. Because of the demand of jobs and the excitement of moving to city, urbanization took place. Urbanization soon took its toll when poverty struck. This in result caused bad conditions in the city, becoming //slums//. Kellow Chesney described the situation as "Hideous slums, some of them acres wide, some no more than crannies of obscure misery, make up a substantial part of the, metropolis... In big, once handsome houses, thirty or more people of all ages may inhabit a single room." (Victorian).



Poverty left some women to go in the direction of prostitution. Prostitution forced society to scrutinize the purity of women and allowing pressuring in homemaking. Prostitution also lead to Contagious Diseases Act of 1864, which allowed testing for women suspected of having sexually transmitted diseases. In society prostitution was degrading__.__ “Beginning in the late 1840s, major news organizations, clergymen and single women became increasingly concerned about prostitution, which came to be known as "The Great Social Evil."” (Social). Prostitution ultimately gave right to women to divorce under certain circumstances. Like this achievement, there were others such as the Child Custody Act 1839, which gave right to women to have rights over children, the Married Woman's Property Act, which allowed women to have right to property, and lastly the Voting Act, that gave rights to women to vote over 30.