question_answer 2)

Read Sources A and B. What do they tell you about the ideas of clothing in Victorian society? If you were the principal in Mary Somerville's school how would you have justified the clothing practices?  

Source A Mary Somerville, one of the first woman mathematicians, describes in her memoirs the experience of her childhood day: 'Although perfectly straight and well made, I was encased in stiff stays, with a steel busk in front, while above my frock, bands drew my shoulder back until the shoulder blades met. Then a steel rod with a semi-circle, which went under my chin, was clasped to the steel busk in my stays. In this constrained state, I and most of the younger girls had to prepare out lessons.' From Martha Somerville, ed., Personal Recollections from Early Life to Old Age of Mary Somerville, London 1873.

   

Source B Many government officials of the time were alarmed at the health implications of the prevailing styles of dressing amongst women. Consider the following attack on the corset: 'It is evident physiologically that air is the pabulum of life, and that the effect of a tight cord round the neck and of tight lacing differ only in degrees.. for the strangulations are both fatal. To wear tight stays in many cases is to wither, to waste, to die.' The Registrar General in the Ninth Annual Report of 1857.

 

Answer:

Sources A and B are exemplifying the fact that dresses of women in Victorian society were very tight. In fact, they were strangulating to the wearer and in some cases could even cause death. These dresses were supposed to signify the role of women in society as secondary to men.    If I were the Principal of Mary Somerville's school, I would have justified the clothing practices, giving the following reasons    (i) A woman has to be docile, dutiful, submissive and obedient. That is her role in society.   (ii) These dresses are meant to inculcate these qualities into a girl by making her adjusted to some suffering in life, and so such dresses are justified.