Charity and benevolence
'Visiting the houses of the poor is the only practical way really to understand the actual state of each family ...'
'Charity and Benevolence are duties which a mistress owes to herself as well as to her fellow creatures; and there is scarcely any income so small but something may be spared from it, even if it be but "the widow's mite". It is always to be remembered, however, that it is the spirit of charity which imparts to the gift a value beyond its actual amount, and is by far its better part...
'Visiting the houses of the poor is the only practical way really to understand the actual state of each family ... Great advantages may result from visits paid to the poor; for there being, unfortunately, much ignorance, generally amongst them with respect to all household knowledge, there will be opportunity for advising and instructing them, in a pleasant and unobtrusive manner, in cleanliness, industry, cookery and good management.'
For the indomitable Beeton, it was insufficient for the mistress of a household to fulfil her duties to her own family. She was also to think of the greater social good, and the passages above show how strongly Beeton urges the housewife to place herself in the service of others through charitable giving and visiting.
This passage also alerts us to the writer's attitude to relations between the social classes. She regarded the poor as ignorant in household matters, people who could only benefit from any advice given by their social betters. This betrays a misunderstanding of the conditions in which many working-class women lived, and which were hardly likely to be improved by advice from middle-class ladies.
Conclusion
This source provides a wonderful insight into how the the ideal bourgeois household in the Victorian era was viewed at the time, but we should take care not to assume that advice books such as this one were followed word-for-word by housewives and their servants.
This was a work of reference, to be dipped into when there was a problem with staff, or when a new recipe or lavish party was called for. It is unlikely that many would have treated this highly prescriptive book as a bible. In the context of the time, Mrs Beeton's standard of household management was an ideal to aspire to, but we can be sure that most households could not, and did not, reach the level of perfection described.
About the author
Dr Lynn Abrams is Senior Lecturer in Modern History at Glasgow University, where she teaches social and women's history. She has written on diverse topics from marriage and divorce in 19th century Germany to child welfare in Scotland. She is the author of The Orphan Country: Children of Scotland's Broken Homes from 1845 to the Present Day, (1998), and co-editor (with Elizabeth Harvey) of Gender Relations in German History, (1996).
