![]() ![]() These would not visit the wife and daughter of such a man, or receive them in their home, if they lacked ‘refinement and culture. ![]() As the contemporary journal the Lady’s Companion commented on 10 March 1900, while the male members of high society were willing to associate with an ill-educated millionaire, that was unlikely to apply to their female relatives. It was women who made the ‘ordinances and regulations’ that governed polite society, through their power to give or withhold invitations and to choose on whom they would call or from whom they would receive calls. ![]() In 1855, the Revd Charles Kingsley in a Lecture to Ladies declared that a woman’s ‘first duties to her own family, her own servants’. Most were expected to find personal fulfilment within the home, as wives and mothers and as hostesses dispensing hospitality to guests. Domestic staff performed much of the drudgery associated with household chores, and left mistresses time to enjoy leisure pursuits. From a twenty-first century perspective, the lives of Victorian ladies appear privileged and comfortable, cushioned against the harsher realities of life. ![]()
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