Victorian fallacy

Not to be confused with the book of the same name.

The Victorian fallacy describes the tendency of large proportions of western civilisation to equate the notion of history with the Victorian era or more recent history. This generally results in women's rights being more restricted historically, relative to men of the same social class in the same society, than was actually generally the case. The Victorian fallacy also results in a belief that historical societies were more prudish than they really were.

Women's Rights

Examples of the Victorian fallacy include the belief that society tended to suppress female sexuality throughout history and in all parts of the world and the notion that women throughout history have tended to remain largely confined to the home and with highly restricted rights. Women throughout history and around the world have varied in their legal rights. Some societies would give men rights lacking to women (and vice versa) while other societies would grant men and women similar rights.

The era of industrialisation saw a brief rise in certain rights being given to men in Western civilisation. An example would be the right to control real estate and financial assets. For the most part these rights were held as the head of the household. Men were the default head of the household but in a household headed by a woman this woman would generally possess these rights as well. Before the modern era these sorts of rights were not relevant to anyone except the aristocracy but as societal wealth grew with industrialisation a middle class developed. These middle class households would own land in their own right and the society needed to find ways to address that. This comes back to the definition of Patriarchy.

Sexuality

Many feminists assert that women were only allowed to enjoy sex relatively recently. A review of history around the world demonstrates that this is false.

Cultures around the world and at different times have varied widely in their approach to female sexuality. Many historical societies, including Western Europe during the Middle Ages, argued that women have higher libidos than men. Some also believed that women experience more pleasure from sex as the ancient Greek story of Tiresias demonstrates.

Child Raising

Responsibilities for raising children were often unlike the father as breadwinner, mother raises the children model that many people in the West today apparently perceive as the historical norm. The nuclear family is quite a new idea. Even in Western culture many people were involved in raising children in centuries past. For most of human history boys and girls alike would have spent a lot of time with their father as well as their mother as part of their daily activities. This was their upbringing. It takes a village to raise a child.