Victorian Obsession

While in high school, I was mildly obsessed with all things Victorian. I read Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, finding the characters absorbing from an era when station and manners mattered. I then purchased a complete collection of Jane Austen (who would technically qualify as pre-Victorian, but I didn't differentiate as the heroine's dilemnas appealed to me). I now own every novel and short story written by L.M. Montgomery, thrilled with her lesser known books, especially The Blue Castle which I still read annually. Instead of a sweet sixteen party, I invited my best friends over for tea. I collected imitation cameos, lace dinner gloves, and grew my hair down to my waist in hopes of one day looking like the Gibson Girl. Everyone else was addicted to flannel and all things grunge. I was making dance cards.

Much of my obsession was encouraged by my seclusion, as chronic migraines kept me home-bound for much of my high school years. It was easier to dream of a time when being ill was romantic than to deal with my pain. And so I day-dreamed and read and wrote until I got better and left my fancies behind.

But now, it seems, I have returned to them. Only, I'm trying to look beyond the niceties. It's not romantic to waste away in ignorance because medicine is not advanced. It's also not romantic to never be allowed to walk alone because society looks down on white women walking unescorted ... and if you're single and happen to meet a single male, it is not romantic to not be able to walk with him simply because you have no chaperone. It's inconvenient. It's tiresome. I'm certain, if they thought about it, which many probably didn't, women of that era would have found it annoying. And the figures that I coveted having in high school? I didn't realize just how painful and unhealthy corsets were. After all, they were the largesst reason for fainting benches and why women were considered so frail. Hello, they couldn't take a deep breath! Try being strong and virile if you can't breathe properly.

So, my perspective has changed, but I still appreciate the good manners. My little girls now play with my lace gloves, and we have tea parties, but I cut my hair long ago. There are things I envy from the Victorian era, the respect ladies and gentlemen had, I just recognize the dangers of legalism now.