Duchess of Devonshire

[Susie]

I am find this very interesting........where do you find the time?

[Erie]

i think her husband was so mean to her what do you guys think?

[Whimsical]

I really enjoyed reading this book. It was engrossing from start to finish. Her husband only wanted an heir to carry on his name, it seems. However, Georginia was not putting much into the marriage-she was busy hosting, writing, politicing, gambling, borrowing money to cover her debts. While at the same time adding to the debt and hiding it all from her husband. This happened from the start of her marriage up to a few years before she died.

[Pamela]

For me, this bio is more interesting for what it reveals about the aristocratic lifestyle of the period, for the politics, for the contemporary gender relations and child-rearing practices. With respect to child rearing and gender relations the Georgians were so different from their Victorian descendants - if we can even trust our received opinions about the Victorian world view. I wonder if any historian has explored the possibility that the Victorians were largely rebelling against their libertine parents and grandparents?

[Whimsical]

I agree with your analysis. (The Georgian era (1714-1830) named for King George III. The Victorian era named for Queen Victoria was (1837-1901).

[Holly]

If you examine the personal lives of Victorians in a similar social set there really don't appear to be all that many differences. Look at the scandals attached to Edward VII when he was still the Prince of Wales, for instance. He was a far greater libertine than the devoted husband and father, George III (George IV was a better example of the rogue from that era). At another level of society, study the lives of the Pre-Raphaelites which yield some pretty juicy tidbits such as addiction, open infidelity, pre-marital sex and other things officially frowned upon by Victorian moral codes. The Oneida Community, started in Oneida, New York in 1848 was a separatist religious sect which practiced and promoted free love. (They also started the silverware company of the same name).

In truth the people of Victorian times were nothing like the prudish queen who lent her name to the era.