Victorian morality is a distillation of the moral views of the middle class in 19th-century Britain, the Victorian era.
Josephine Elizabeth Butler was an English feminist and social reformer in the Victorian era. She campaigned for women's suffrage, the right of women to better education, the end of coverture in British law, the abolition of child prostitution, and an end to human trafficking of young women and children into European prostitution.
The Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, or "An Act to make further provision for the Protection of Women and Girls, the suppression of brothels, and other purposes," was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the latest in a 25-year series of legislation in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland beginning with the Offences against the Person Act 1861. It raised the age of consent from 13 years of age to 16 years of age and delineated the penalties for sexual offences against women and minors. It also strengthened existing legislation against prostitution and homosexuality. This act was also notable for the circumstances of its passage in Parliament.
The Contagious Diseases Acts were originally passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1864, with alterations and additions made in 1866 and 1869. In 1862, a committee had been established to inquire into venereal disease in the armed forces. On the committee's recommendation the first Contagious Diseases Act was passed. The legislation allowed police officers to arrest women suspected of being prostitutes in certain ports and army towns. Since there was no set definition of prostitution within the Act, the question was left to the police officer’s discretion, and women could be arrested even if there was no actual evidence of prostitution. The women were then subjected to compulsory physical examinations for venereal disease. If a woman was declared to be infected, she would be confined in what was known as a lock hospital until she recovered or her sentence was completed. Men suspected of frequenting prostitutes were not subjected to the same treatment of compulsory checks and confinement. The law was initially aimed at working-class women in towns near military bases, due to the concern that sexually transmitted infections were hampering Britain’s forces. The original act only applied to a few selected naval ports and army towns, but by 1869 the acts had been extended to cover eighteen "subjected districts".
In Great Britain, the act of engaging in sex as part of an exchange of various sexual services for money is legal, but a number of related activities, including soliciting in a public place, kerb crawling, owning or managing a brothel, pimping and pandering, are illegal. In Northern Ireland, which previously had similar laws, paying for sex became illegal from 1 June 2015.
The practice of prostitution in colonial India was influenced by the policies of British rule in India. During the 19th and 20th centuries the colonial government facilitated, regulated and allowed the existence of prostitution. Not only was prostitution in India affected by the policy of the Governor General of India, it was also influenced by the moral and political beliefs of the British authorities, and conflicts and tensions between the British authorities and the Indian populace at large. The colonial government had a profound effect on prostitution in India, both legislatively and socially.
Charles Bell Taylor was an English ophthalmic surgeon, known also as a campaigner against the Contagious Diseases Act and vivisection.
The International Abolitionist Federation, founded in Liverpool in 1875, aimed to abolish state regulation of prostitution and fought the international traffic in women in prostitution. It was originally called the British and Continental Federation for the Abolition of Prostitution.
Gertrude Guillaume-Schack was a German women's rights activist who pioneered the fight against state-regulated prostitution in Germany, where she was born. She met considerable resistance due to the prevailing belief that such matters should not be discussed by respectable people, especially women. She also became active in organizing workers associations for German women, and was linked to the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Her activities and political views caused her to be exiled by the German authorities. She moved to England in 1886, where she became involved in Socialist organizations, but fell out with Friedrich Engels. After leaving the English Socialist League she became involved in theosophy. Refusal to accept medical treatment may have contributed to her early death of untreated breast cancer.
Robert Eli Hooppell was an English cleric and antiquarian.
The Association for Promoting the Extension of the Contagious Diseases Acts was established in 1867 to support the Contagious Diseases Acts that were passed by the British Parliament in 1864. The acts legalized prostitution and put the women involved under police and medical control. The Association strongly campaigned for the extension of the Contagious Diseases Acts to be extended outside of the naval and army barracks and be made effective to the whole of the country, as they believed this was the best way of regulating prostitution.
Svenska Federationen, was the Swedish equivalent of the British Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts. It was established in 1878 with the purpose to repeal the so-called reglementation system, which required prostitute women to registration and regular medical examination to prevent sexually transmitted infections. It also opposed the sexual double standard, which regarded men as naturally unable to sexual self-control and viewed prostitutes as the sole problem. The Svenska Federationen was dissolved after the reglementation system was abolished in 1918. Between 1878 and 1905, it published its own paper, Sedlighetsvännen.
Josephine Butler (1828–1906) was an English feminist and social reformer in the Victorian era. She was especially concerned with the welfare of prostitutes although she campaigned on a broad range of women's rights. In 1864 her daughter Eva fell 40 feet (12 m) from the top-floor bannister onto the stone floor of the hallway in her home; she died three hours later. The death led Butler to begin a career of campaigning that ran until the end of her life; she later wrote that after the death she "became possessed with an irresistible urge to go forth and find some pain keener than my own, to meet with people more unhappy than myself. ... It was not difficult to find misery in Liverpool." Her targets included obtaining the vote, the right to better education and the end of coverture in British law, although she achieved her greatest success in leading the movement to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts, legislation that attempted to control the spread of venereal diseases, particularly in the British Army and Royal Navy. She was also opposed to the forced medical examination of prostitutes—a process she described as "surgical" or "steel rape". Her campaigning led to the suspension of the practice in April 1883, and the Acts were formally repealed in three years later.
Eliza Mary King, better known as Mrs E M King, was a New Zealand feminist who campaigned in England and the United States for repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts; world peace, co-operative housekeeping, rational dress reform and the agrarian reform policies of the American Farmers Alliance.
Anna Maria Priestman, was a British social reformer and women's rights activist.
Mary Hume Rothery or Mary Catherine Hume-Rothery was a British writer and campaigner for medical reform. She campaigned against the Contagious Diseases Act and founded the National Anti Compulsory Vaccination League.
During the beginning of the late Victorian era in Cape Town, South Africa, prostitution was considered an offense but was rarely prosecuted. The majority of prostitutes during this time were local women of color, though there was a small number of European women partaking in sex work as well. As time progressed, regulations on prostitutes increased under the Contagious Diseases Acts, and Cape Town saw a rise in both European prostitutes and prostitution itself as a result of the Mineral Revolution and the Second Boer War.
Finska Federationen, was the Finnish equivalent of the British Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts. It was established in 1880 with the purpose to repeal the so-called reglementation system, which required prostitute women to registration and regular medical examination to prevent sexually transmitted infections.
Foreningen imod Lovbeskyttelse for Usædelighed, was the Danish equivalent of the British Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts. It was established in 1879 with the purpose to repeal the regulation system, which required prostitute women to registration and regular medical examination to prevent sexually transmitted infections.
Margaret Tanner born Margaret Priestman was an English social reformer. Priestman, along with members of hers and the Bright family, were important in the creation of some of the first women's suffrage societies, founded in London, Bristol, and Bath.
