Victorian Domestic Etiquette

From the early 1860s, French bridal fashions advertised from Paris, for the American bride-to-be.

Victorian Era Advice on Domestic Etiquette and Duties

Etiquette is a comprehensive term, and its observances are nowhere more to be desired than in the domestic circle.  

If husbands and wives, generally, would render each other half of the little attentions they lavished upon each other before marriage, their mutual happiness would be more than doubled.

A wife should never let her husband have cause to complain that she is more agreeable abroad than at home, nor see her negligent of dress and manners at home when it is the reverse in company.

It is not in good taste for a husband and wife to call each other by endearing names in the presence of others.

A man has no right whatever to open his wife’s mail, but a woman should not receive any letters that she would not be willing that her husband should see.

If, unhappily, any misunderstandings or annoyances occur between husband and wife, it is ill-bred and unjust for either to repeat them to a third person.

Faithful unto death in all things should be the motto of both husband and wife; and forbearance with each other’s peculiarities, their never-ending effort to attain.

If a girl discovers very soon after her marriage that she has made a mistake, it is wisest for her to make the best of it; she should look for all that is good in her husband and try to forget that which she dislikes.

There are times when a legal separation is necessary, but when people marry, they marry for better or for worse, and if, unfortunately, it should be for worse, even that does not release them from the solemn vows which they have taken. — Arthur Martine, 1854

 

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia Etiquette Encyclopedia