ABSTRACT
A central element in many temperance campaigns was the belief that violence between working men could be effectively controlled if drunkenness was largely eradicated. Understanding the nature of violence requires that both acceptable and unacceptable aspects of violence are considered, including attempts to establish the broad outlines of stereotypes used to construct the nature of Victorian violence. That violence was an actual part of Victorian family, as well as community, relationships was accepted. Vic Gatrell has commented, 'Violence in the nineteenth century was ubiquitous. Though Mrs. Cross in Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles was a habitual recipient of her husband's fist, Cross was depicted as the real victim because of his wife's slatternly ways; a perspective regularly echoed in court reports. Such gendered stereotypings of violence, and the linkages made therein with drink, effectively and significantly constrained women's liberty of action in daily life but had far less negative impacts on male behaviour.
