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| Scene of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's wedding, c1840 |
Those 'Something Old' Wedding Vows
{Part Two of “Marriage and the ‘Prospect of Happiness’”}
A bride is a woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her. -Ambrose Bierce, 19th century journalist
After years of badly-behaved Hanoverian kings, their niece, nineteen-year-old Princess Victoria, became the queen of England in 1838. “The emphasis upon Victoria’s sheltered upbringing, her maidenly modesty and her dependence on her first prime minister,” historical novelist Philippa Gregory explained, “emphasized the subservience of all women — even a queen.” Although Victoria was a feisty, strong-willed, smart, determined young woman, she believed her own second-class status because of her gender.
This inequality had been deeply embedded in the patriarchal-controlled culture for centuries, reinforced at every traditional “Westernized” wedding ceremony. Women promised “to obey” their husbands when saying their marriage vows — vows written in the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer from 1549. And vows repeated into the twentieth century.
“On her marriage to Prince Albert in 1840,” Gregory continued, “Victoria signaled her obedience to her husband as master of the household, her deference to him as an advisor and her role as domestic woman: a wife and mother, supporting the idea that a happy marriage was created and nourished by female submission, however important the wife might be.” So even with a woman on the throne, a married woman’s “prospect of happiness” remained in question.
However, Victoria became queen at a time of robust social activism that put attention on women’s rights in both England and the United States, including a move to change marriage laws. As the most powerful woman in the world, Queen Victoria’s example in marriage was influential and far-reaching. This may have hindered, but it did not stop the growing movement for women’s autonomy. Plus, there was another feisty woman on the other side of the Atlantic. Susan B. Anthony, who chose not to marry so she’d be free to dedicate her life campaigning for a woman’s right to vote in the U.S., declared: “No man is good enough to govern a woman without her consent.”
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