Female Love and Myths of Passionlessness
Female Love and Myths of Passionlessness
I found this week’s readings on the intimacies of 19th century female relationships to be very interesting. Carroll Smith-Rosenberg’s essay provided a very well-rounded look at the dynamics between women and how their close relationships were formed within societies. It makes sense that sexual-segregation would influence women to become very close to one another because that was where the majority of their time was spent. And obviously women did have shared experiences that men could not understand, such as the “biological realities of frequent pregnancies, childbirth, nursing, and menopause” (Peiss, 206). But I’m not sure that I fully agree with Smith-Rosenberg’s assertion that “such female relationships were frequently supported and paralleled by severe social restrictions on intimacy between young men and women” (Peiss, 206).I understand the idea that young women were prevented from becoming close with young men. Including the previous quote, I felt that parts of the essay seemed to imply that close relationships between women only arose out of necessity and desire for a close emotional bond that could not be filled by men due to society. Undoubtedly, these relationships were great for the women involved as they encouraged self-esteem and positive interactions among women instead of “hostility and criticism” (Peiss 208). Though society may have prevented young women from intimate interactions with young men, I think that the relationships between women arose more from their proximity and shared experiences than just because they were prevented from being around men much.
Most interesting to me was Karen Lystra’s essay on “Sexuality in Victorian Courtship and Marriage,” which dispelled a lot of myths about passionless women and sexuality in Victorian society. From our readings of other documents and essays in the Peiss book, I never would’ve thought there would have been such a degree of sexual freedom in Victorian courtship. Although premarital sex was obviously taboo and out of the question, touching and other physical intimacies took place between men and women during courtship.
Additionally, it was stated that “Victorians joined the sexual and the spiritual or moral in the concept of true love” and that “sex could be sacred and sexuality might be spiritual, if affection were blended with desire” (Peiss, 230). These ideas are interesting because much of the previous reading on American Victorians indicated that religious views cast sexuality as somewhat immoral. Even married men and women were supposed to exercise self-restraint, according to Sylvester Graham’s essay (Peiss, 115). There was supposed to be “a proper degree of chastity” between husband and wife and sex was supposed to be for reproductive purposes. But in Lystra’s essay, she explains that abstinence was not the Victorian birth control method of choice (Peiss, 235) and that couples were physical and explored their sexualities. Interestingly, in argument that women began to take control of their own sexuality, there was still a sort of caveat that said control mainly involved the right to say ‘no’ instead of embracing their sexuality (Peiss, 235). But I guess any movement away from the father/husband ownership of a woman’s sexuality is a good step.
Tags: 19th century, birth control, passionlessness, sexual segregation, sexuality, Victorians, women
