family values essays

family values essays Why were family values so important to the British middle class? Family values were so important to the middle class because as a class they wanted to be better than the other classes in society. It was the only thing that united them. In the late eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century it was a time of industrialisation. The middle class was establishing itself as a class of respectability, and making a living in the new industrial society. It developed into a class of prosperity that knew, unlike the upper class that it had worked for its living. As a result when middle class men came home from their work they wanted to relax, to be somewhere that was free from work. This became the home and as a result a divide between the public and private spear developed. Along with this divide others started to develop, the most important one was the new gender roles. There became a sharp divide in the roles of gender. Men were to be involved in the public sphere of society and women in the private. As a class the middle people in s ociety embraced these new ideals. There was a revival in Evangelical religion at this time, which was also emphasising the new roles of gender divides. The middle class supported their campaign and before long the new ideas were part of every day life. They included the idea that there was a very distinctive difference between men and women, this was both in their nature and physical appearance. Due to these differences they believed there should be a difference in the behaviour of the two sexes. Women were supposed to be domestic creatures with their place being in the home. They were to be protected from the public sphere, as they were naive and easily lead astray. In their new role women were to be seen as wives and mothers living under the control of their husband or father. They were supposed to behave morally and set examples to others. Part of this image was that t...