Women counted for little, but not everyone agreed with these Victorian standards.

For example, J.S. Mill and Harriet Taylor, a couple who flaunted convention of the time, advocated happiness above all and divorce when necessary (which was unheard of in Victorian times). They write, "If all persons were like these, [happy] or even would be guided by these, morality would be very different from what it must now be; or rather it would not exist at all as morality, since morality and inclinations would coincide" (Mills and Taylor 108). All they advocated was contentment over convention, but it was a radical idea for the time. The couple also advocated the "elevation of women" in society, and recognized the difficulty of being a woman in Victorian society - something which most Victorian men did not understand or agree with at all (Mills and Taylor 109).

Most men held beliefs more like...
[ View Full Essay]