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Double Standards In Victorian Society

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In both novels the double standards in society are notable, as women always take the blame and were punished for the same actions that men partook in regularly. Both authors cleverly expose the hypocrisy and double standards in society through the portrayal of their female protagonists.
In Hardy’s novel, the double standards of society greatly affect Tess’s life experience. Tess was expected to work, marry, and support her family as she was the eldest daughter. When she was a young virgin girl, she is seen as desirable by men and society. Consequently, after her “relations” with Alec D’Urberville, she is considered a “fallen woman” and immoral by Victorian society. Women in Victorian England were expected to be chasted, wholesome and most …show more content…

Rasheed forced Mariam to wear a burqa to protect her “nang and namoos”, he claims that, “But I’m a different breed of man, Mariam. Where I come from, one wrong look, one improper word, and blood is spilled. Where I come from, a woman’s face is her husband’s business only. I want you to remember that. Do you understand?” The interaction between Rasheed and Mariam reveals the double standards in society, men set the rules and claimed ownership of women, while women had no say and were regularly silenced by men. He forces her to cover herself, but Mariam discovered in his drawer, “Beneath the gun were several magazines with curling corners. Mariam opened one. Something inside her dropped. Her mouth gaped of its own will. One every page were women, beautiful women, who wore no shirts, no trousers, no socks, or underpants. They wore nothing at all. They lay in beds amid tumbled sheets and gazed back at Mariam with half-lidded eyes. In most of the pictures, their legs apart, and Mariam had a full view of the dark place between.” The sequence of questions which follow, shows the double standard of Rasheed’s demands for Mariam and reveals him to be a hypocrite, “Who were these women? How could they allow themselves to be photographed this way? ... And what about all his talk of honour and propriety, his disapproval of the female customers, who, after all, were only showing him their feet to get fitted for shoes?

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