Introduction: Victorian Working-Class Marriage and the Marital Bed

Abstract

In this introduction, the case is set for using the marital bed to examine the experience of marriage and marital relations among the Victorian working class. First unpicking the complicated definition of working-class marriage at this time, the introduction then briefly explores the burgeoning historiography of the Early Modern and long eighteenth-century marital bed before locating the Victorian working-class marital bed and its inhabitants in the coroners’ inquests—both the original records and the ensuing local newspaper reports. The introduction then discusses the scope of the book, highlighting the importance of location and the need to broaden the definition of the ‘working class’ in order to better understand the minutiae of inter-personal relationships and individual experiences existing within the walls of these wide-ranging homes.

The term ‘bed’, which at the time was generally used to refer to the bedding or the mattress rather than the bedstead, is used as a broad category in this book to encompass the wide range of bedsteads, mattresses, and makeshift beds used to accommodate married couples in the Victorian working-class home.