Victorian Familism and the Formative Years of Female Sport

In this chapter it is argued that during the formative years of female sport – that is, from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century – the legitimate use of the female body was redefined to symbolize a more active yet nevertheless still subordinate role, when compared with men. This development is extremely complex and difficult to analyse because it touches upon many different domains, for example, the biological, psychological, medical, moral and military domains, and, importantly, incorporates elements of Social Darwinism. ¹ However, because of the limited space available here, I have chosen to focus on the Victorian cult of the family because it makes connections between these apparently separate spheres, and is thus a unifying feature of nineteenth-century bourgeois ideology and acted as a dominant constraining force on the early development of women's sport. Furthermore, Victorian familism highlights the specific nature of some of the contradictions facing the nineteenth-century sportswoman which have had repercussions for the development of women's sport until the present day.