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Frances is sent to Grahamstown to stay with Victor's mother and prepare for her inevitable wedding.
In the meantime, Walter's nightmare becomes a reality: he is assigned to Mbokothwe, the mission station
which he feared the most.
VICTORIAN MORALITY
The Victorian Age -- named after Queen Victoria who ruled the British Empire for 63 years (1837-1901)
-- was marked by a deeply conservative morality.
Indeed, it was a morality which covered every facet of society from sexual mores to codes of dress.
The Victorians were essentially middle class English, caught up in a very strict religion. They were wealthy
but believed their wealth came as a blessing from God.
But what God gives, God can also take away. If that were to happen, the Victorians believed they would
be plunged back into abject poverty.
To avoid such a catastrophe, the Victorians followed a puritan way of life. Anything that brought sin upon
their heads was to be avoided.
The ultimate sin lay in unbridled sexuality. Avoidance of all temptation therefore lay at the forefront of their
morality.
For the Victorians, the purpose of marriage was primarily for the bearing of children and to prevent
husbands from burning up with sexual desire. Sex for the wife was therefore a duty and was not meant
to be pleasurable.
Sex was, however, something that was strictly to be confined to marriage. Sexual rules were therefore
simple: there could be no sex until after marriage. Even kissing was considered dangerous.
A woman who lost her virginity outside of marriage was regarded as "fallen" and therefore a harlot.
Indeed, few men would seek a marital alliance with such a person.
Since middle class Victorian women were not expected to work, a good marriage was essential. A
"fallen" woman, however, had little marital prospects and was therefore doomed to a life of poverty.
On the other hand, couples did engage in sex outside of marriage but, if they were found out -- usually
by an unexpected pregnancy -- it was expected that they would immediately marry.
Indeed, not to marry would bring humiliation to the whole family. Should a father even suspect that a
prospective marital partner was having sex with his daughter, he was justified in forcing the young man
into marriage.
The Victorians were also noted for their strict dress codes. Men always wore long pants, polished shoes,
jacket, tie and hat on almost all occasions.
Women ensured that almost every part of their bodies was covered: long-sleeved dresses with the lace
overlapping the wrist, high collars and wide skirts which reached to the ankles.
Corsets were popular as a means of keeping the waistline narrow. The bra, however, was only invented
in the 1930s.
Men were never to be seen nude or semi-nude in front of a woman. Women were in fact expected to
avert their eyes even if the man was merely without his shirt.
Women were certainly never to be seen nude or semi-nude in front of a man, even if that man was her
husband.
Sex within marriage therefore happened in the dark and usually fully dressed in night-clothes. The
woman's night-dress might be rolled up but not removed!
When it came to sea-bathing, separate areas were designated for men and for women. Women were
often taken out into the breakers on board bathing booths on wheels, so that the men would not even see
them alighting into the water.
Even so, the ankle length skirts of their bathing costumes were weighed down with lead pellets lest the
skirt float and reveal even so much as the woman's legs under the water.
Have you looked at the questions
in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:
How does one explain Emily's coldness of heart as is revealed in the opening pages of this
chapter? (5)
[Need help?]
You need to read the text thoroughly to answer this.
Emily, in her early days at the mission, seems to have made "pacts" with God, promising that her
children would become priests if God gave her safe delivery of her first two babies.
When God appears to reject her pact and her first two children are stillborn, Emily becomes bitter.
She believes it is her sin that has led to this punishment and her reaction then is to become even more
committed to God which, ironically, leads her away from being a good mother.
Helmina is thereupon entrusted with the task of raising Frances and Crispin. Emily, instead of being a
warm mother, becomes an embittered one and an enforcer of the law, no matter how much suffering this
causes.
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"No, Helmina had missed none of them. None. And those she had not seen, she had invented. She
could feel the tears herself, crowding in behind her lids. How closely and how damningly she faced her
own deceit."
- Comment on these lines as a reflection of Helmina Smythe's attitude and thoughts. (5)
[Need help?]
As a Victorian and a Christian, one would have expected Helmina to be the model of virtue.
She believed that even thinking of sex was a sin. Yet she thinks of it regularly, watches Victor's every
action and even invents scenes in her mind.
There is implicit in these words that sex is often on Helmina's mind, and therefore she damns herself by
these thoughts -- and damns herself for not reporting on Victor's actions.
Of course, Helmina knows exactly why she has been deceitful. She had wanted Frances to fall pregnant,
thereby forcing her into a marriage with Victor and leaving Walter for herself.
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Walter feels he has failed Frances.
- Has he failed her? What else could he have done to help her? (5)
[Need help?]
It's very difficult to see what else Walter could have done.
In terms of the morality of the times, Frances and Victor were indeed married from the moment they had
sexual intercourse even if Frances had not consented to it.
As a gentleman, Walter could not come between them while, at the same time, to have shown any
physical affection to Frances would have been akin to committing adultery.
Could he therefore have been any more demonstrative in his affection?
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Why is Frances sent to Grahamstown? (5)
[Need help?]
When Frances confessed that she and Victor had had intercourse, her mother had very little option but
to prepare for her wedding to Victor.
In the first place, intercourse for Emily meant that the marriage had already been consummated.
Second, since Frances had not said when this action had taken place, Emily would presume that it was
a continuous relationship and that Frances could already be pregnant.
The confession had then happened in front of Helmina and so could not be hidden even if Emily had
wished to do so.
In terms of strict Victorian morals, therefore, there was little option but for Frances to be sent to
Grahamstown to prepare for the wedding which would take place as soon as possible.
Please note, however, that Frances was NOT sent to Grahamstown because she was pregnant. She
certainly was not pregnant. That is something made very clear in an earlier chapter.
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Explain Helmina's reaction to Walter's transfer to Mbokothwe. (5)
[Need help?]
Helmina saw blessing and sin in everything.
She presumably saw Walter's arrival at St Matthias as a blessing.
When she realised that there was a chance of losing him to Frances, however, she embarked on many
stratagems -- including lies -- to keep them apart.
When news arrived of Walter's transfer to Mbokothwe, therefore, she had to perceive it in terms of
punishment from God for her lies and her subterfuge.
She would naturally believe that God had deliberately intervened to take Walter away from her because
of her deceit to Frances, Walter and Emily. That's how her world and her superstitions worked.
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