ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the life stage central to the ideology of proper Victorian womanhood, examining how social constructions of femininity are intimately woven into the physicality of marriage and motherhood. In addition, this is the stage of life that garners the most attention from the developing fields of science and medicine (particularly obstetrics and gynaecology), as it represents the apex of reproductive capacity. In this chapter we examine not only the medical discourses surrounding female bodily experience, but also the legal frameworks that came under increasing scrutiny as women activists strove to reform the laws affecting women’s lives. We look to literary texts not for evidence of women’s lived experience, but rather as evidence of the ways in which literature both reflects and produces cultural narratives around proper femininity in the Victorian era. We also examine cultural discourses around women who deviated from prescribed paths, exploring how the decision to remain single may have helped women to express resistance to the powerful ideology of marriage and motherhood throughout this period.
