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OverviewDomesticity is generally treated as an aspect of women s history. In this fascinating study of the nineteenth-century middle class, John Tosh shows how profoundly men s lives were conditioned by the Victorian ideal and how they negotiated its many contradictions. Tosh begins by looking at the experience of boyhood, married life, sex, and fatherhood in the early decades of the nineteenth century illustrated by case studies representing a variety of backgrounds and then contrasts this with the lives of the late Victorian generation. He finds that the first group of men placed a new value on the home as a reaction to the disorienting experience of urbanization and as a response to the teachings of Evangelical Christianity. Domesticity still proved problematic in practice, however, because most men were likely to be absent from home for most of the day, and the role of father began to acquire its modern indeterminacy. By the 1870s, men were becoming less enchanted with the pleasures of home. Once the rights of wives were extended by law and society, marriage seemed less attractive, and the bachelor world of clubland flourished as never before. The Victorians declared that to be fully human and fully masculine, men must be active participants in domestic life. In exposing the contradictions in this ideal, they defined the climate for gender politics in the next century. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Professor John Tosh (University of Roehampton, UK)Publisher: Yale University Press Imprint: Yale University Press ISBN: 9781299463851ISBN 10: 1299463851 Pages: 267 Publication Date: 01 January 2008 Audience: General/trade , General Format: Electronic book text Publisher's Status: Active Availability: In stock We have confirmation that this item is in stock with the supplier. It will be ordered in for you and dispatched immediately. Table of ContentsReviewsAuthor InformationTab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |