The Death of Christian Britain
The Death of Christian Britain
The Death of Christian Britain
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— Women in Discourse and Narrative 1800–1950 —<br />
the fading fortunes <strong>of</strong> the Nonconformist and dissenting presbyterian<br />
churches, the decline <strong>of</strong> evangelical campaigns for temperance and abolition<br />
<strong>of</strong> gambling, and decline in the religious press. On the surface, it<br />
appeared that religion was disappearing as an issue in the discursive<br />
portrayal <strong>of</strong> British womanhood. However, the change was less radical<br />
and more subtle than this. <strong>The</strong> religiosity <strong>of</strong> woman was being shorn <strong>of</strong><br />
its literal religious conversionist character, but was left in an intensified<br />
metaphorical character. Women were being shown not as striving to create<br />
an anxiety-driven climate <strong>of</strong> <strong>Christian</strong> rebirth in the home, but as effortlessly<br />
attaining a state <strong>of</strong> moral domestic contentment.<br />
<strong>The</strong> decay <strong>of</strong> conversionism and the rise <strong>of</strong> the cult <strong>of</strong> contentment was<br />
most discernible in literature for teenage girls and young women. Between<br />
the 1880s and the 1920s, the Girl’s Own Paper was dominated with stories<br />
<strong>of</strong> ‘waiting for the right man’: a man <strong>of</strong> good morals, sensitivity and interest.<br />
In the main serial <strong>of</strong> 1886, the heroine weighed up her leading man: ‘He<br />
had his taint <strong>of</strong> worldliness; he was by no means perfect – kind-hearted,<br />
frank, and generous as he was. He had a high regard for the world’s standard<br />
<strong>of</strong> gentlemanly decorum, and would have felt as much ashamed <strong>of</strong><br />
failing in a point <strong>of</strong> etiquette as <strong>of</strong> committing a far graver error.’ 118 <strong>The</strong><br />
heroine waited on him day and night: ‘<strong>The</strong>re were days when he did not<br />
come to the house, mornings when I lingered till the last moment in the<br />
garden without seeing him’. <strong>The</strong> Girl’s Own Paper urged women to train<br />
to please men; the ultimate danger was not a ‘moral fall’, but spinsterhood.<br />
One article provided the precise demographic data <strong>of</strong> women’s problem:<br />
in London in the mid-1880s there were 1,123 women to every 1,000 men,<br />
with the clear message that moving to London in search <strong>of</strong> ‘a position’<br />
reduced the odds in the lottery <strong>of</strong> man-hunting. 119 Women’s role remained<br />
unremittingly domestic. On the problem page, a male inquirer worried<br />
about finding a woman to teach geometry to his future sons, and was told:<br />
‘it is more essential for her to study the art <strong>of</strong> nursing the sick and the<br />
care and rearing <strong>of</strong> young children; the arts also <strong>of</strong> teaching needlework in<br />
all its branches, <strong>of</strong> housekeeping and cookery, and <strong>of</strong> guiding and directing<br />
a household, and the work <strong>of</strong> each servant, as well as the etiquette, under<br />
all circumstances to be observed by the mistress <strong>of</strong> the house who receives<br />
and goes into society.’ 120 In ‘Between School and Marriage’ (by the much<br />
published author <strong>of</strong> How to be Happy Though Married), a woman’s years<br />
between the ages <strong>of</strong> 18 and 21 were delineated as ‘golden girlhood’ when<br />
boys might go to university or training, and girls must guard against<br />
‘uselessness’. 121 Jobs for women remained before World War I not vocations,<br />
but moral interludes: women should select positions in ‘thrift’, not<br />
finance, as church organists, or sanitary inspectors. 122 Prize essays for<br />
readers were on ‘My Daily Round’, calling for and getting lists <strong>of</strong> domestic<br />
or work duties placed in a moral framework, ending with homilies from<br />
hymns: ‘Labour is sweet, for thou hast toiled,/And care is light, for thou<br />
85