Intimate Britain: Family, Society and Culture, 1832-1918

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 6
• Convenor: Sean Brady
• Assessment: two essays of 3000 words (25% each) and a three-hour examination (50%)

This course introduces you to the study of Victorian family life, and examines themes such as: childhood; old age; the Victorian way of death; education; married life; developments in gender expectations; feminism and the family; the franchise and masculinity; the state and motherhood; housewifery and the male breadwinner wage; suffrage and women; the First World War and the family.

This course also looks at the family and its discontents, exploring themes such as: divorce; homosexuality; the 'new life' of the 1880s; the 'New Woman' and the 'crisis in masculinity'; bastardy; birth control; bachelorhood; and the spinster and her enemies.

The course will involve study of documentary evidence, and the historiography of the family, gender, class and sexuality.