Victorian values
Nineteenth-century British propriety
Victorian values refers to the moral standards associated with Britain's Victorian era (1837–1901): sexual restraint, strong work ethic, domestic propriety, religious observance, and clear gender roles.
The phrase often carries critical undertones, implying prudishness or hypocrisy—a gap between public morality and private behavior.
Politicians sometimes invoke Victorian values nostalgically: We need a return to Victorian values.
- chastityAbstaining from sexual activity
- patriarchyMale-dominated social order
- proprietyCorrectness of conduct
- moral rectitudeAdherence to ethical principles
- sentimentalismExcessive indulgence in emotion
industrialization · temperance · domesticity · duty · philanthropy · humility · modesty · fallen woman · gender roles · honesty · self-restraint · capitalism · hypocrisy · imperial expansion · empire building · entrepreneurship · work ethic · self-made man
- Thatcher EraMargaret Thatcher, Thatcher, Iron Lady, monetarism, poll tax
- prudishnessprimness, priggishness, prissiness, puritanism, stuffiness
- homehouse, home, apartment, condo, bathroom
- Colonial LiteratureHeart of Darkness, Kim, The Jungle Book, King Solomon's Mines, Robinson Crusoe
- ideologiescapitalism, communism, conservatism, liberalism, socialism
- bourgeois fictionbourgeoisie, social realism, class distinctions, middle class, petit bourgeois
Victorian valuessexual liberation
Freedom in intimate matters
permissiveness · libertinism · hedonism · free love · moral relativism
Victorian valuesauthenticity
Quality of being genuine
transparency · candor · sex positivity · openness · what you see is what you get
Victorian, values, Victoria, victor, victory, victories, victorious, victoriously, victors