Thou shalt not travel alone, Victorian woman!

Have you ever seen a person enraged about the idea of women not being keen on marriage or having kids? Or, perhaps, there is this couple that has decided to raise their kids without being bonded by marital status - which bothers this saviour of traditional values? And what about those two married lesbians bringing up a child conceived via artificial insemination? Changes in social norms are not so easily accepted by everybody. Here we take a look at a particular social norm of a bygone era, which has now basically died its natural death in the so-called Western world. It is just one of many that the conservatives of our days did not have the chance to defend.

Tourism is a booming industry today. The not-so-distant Covid restrictions a few years ago not only demonstrated the important share of this sector within the economies of many states, but it also served as a demonstration of how important travelling has become to millions of people. Who could have guessed that we would have ever coined such a term as “revenge tourism”? And while today we no longer make any fuss about it, there were times, however, when “traveling was considered a noble male pursuit”. One of the first European solo female travellers of the 19th century, “Mrs. Pfeiffer had to find a justification for traveling alone due to societal pressure from her family.”

In the contemporary USA we also find such social norms. “For some time, propriety dictated that a woman should not travel alone, though by the Civil War that restriction was lessening in some parts of the country.” Today this is largely forgotten, as are the guidelines of how to dress for travelling: “A proper lady wore certain clothes – ‘traveling dresses’ – when she went on journeys. One fashion publication from the era detailed some of the dress’s characteristics. First, the clothing was crafted from subtle, dull colors; a lady did not need to draw attention to herself.”

If someone from the early 19th century USA or western Europe had the chance to witness our current state of global tourism, they would be utterly shocked by the prevailing social liberties for women to travel alone, with other women, with other men without being married, and so on. But it would also be curious to see their reaction to the fact that the death of the social values of their world did not bring about any social collapse.

Is there any lesson here for the defenders of the traditional values of our days? Well, what is normal today will no longer be so tomorrow. And what is sacrilegious today will no longer be considered as such tomorrow. And if they sense the urge to fight against the new emerging social norms, then let it be. However, if it helps in any way, it’s worth knowing that our grandchildren will be happily raising their offsprings within non-marital, homosexual, and who knows what other types of different partnerships. And our conservatives have as much power over it as their 19th century’s friends had over women travelling solo.

Sources:
1.  https://medium.com/@alexandrafiona/on-victorian-values-and-solo-female-travelling-272905d869ad
2. https://emergingcivilwar.com/2018/11/02/railroads-her-journey-ladies-traveling-in-mid-19th-century-america/

Image by Freepik.com