Why was Illegitimacy such a source of shame in Victorian times?

Last month my step-son and his partner had their first baby: the adorable and quite perfect Poppy Rose.  They aren’t married.  In 2025 this is the opposite of a big deal - in fact it doesn’t even warrant a mention.  However, if we go back to the 1880s when the heroine of my novel gave birth to her first child, Anthony Atkinson Whitfield, the situation was very different.  Anthony was a child born out of wedlock and this was reckoned to be the single greatest source of shame for a woman in the Victorian era.

So what was the origin of this state of affairs?

I suppose our first port of call must be the Bible, where all Christians are taught that sex outside of marriage is illicit and a sin - adultery, in fact.  Of course, it takes two to embark on that particular tango, yet, strangely, the stigma seems to have applied to women to a much greater extent than men.  The English language is littered with expressions that confer tolerance of a man’s such indiscretions e.g. ‘sowing his wild oats’, whereas no such latitude is meted out to women, who were deemed to have ‘fallen’ - from a state of virginal or connubial grace, presumably.

Here we begin to see the many double standards that exist in relation to this contentious subject.

Leaving morality to one side, let’s focus on some of the economic ramifications of sex outside of marriage and its likely consequences.  In an era before any effective contraception, a couple indulging in sex were inviting the high likelihood of creating a new life.  Indeed, one could argue that the married state was the socially approved structure for reproduction.  A Victorian man of even limited means would have assets to pass on to the next generation and matrimony and monogamy were the means by which he could be assured that his legitimate heirs would receive the fruits of his labour.  

Conversely, an unmarried mother faced a very precarious situation: if the baby’s father failed to take responsibility for his actions then the mother would be deprived of the means to support herself and her baby.

I’ll take a real-life example from my novel ‘Mrs Maydwell’s Coffee Palace’ to illustrate the point.  My heroine, Christiana, enters domestic service at the age of 17.  Less than a year later she returns to Wheatbottom Farm, her family home, heavily pregnant.  She loses her job once her expectant state becomes physically obvious.  She has no income and nowhere else to go, so she goes back home to her parents.  At this point the moral imperative comes back into play: her parents are ashamed of their daughter.  They cannot retain a position of respectability in their local community if she remains amongst them.

So what are Chrissie’s options?  If she has to remove herself from the home, where she will be shunned as a source of shame, she will need to find work to support herself.  But she can’t work if she has a baby to rear, can she?

There are limited employment options for women and none of the arrangements we have today for child-care.  What jobs was Chrissie equipped to do?  Laundress, charring, possibly dressmaking, domestic service or farm work.  None of these paid well and none were conducive to raising a baby alone.  As a consequence many single mothers drifted into prostitution as the only viable means of supporting themselves.  Plenty of Victorian women committed suicide because of a combination of shame and destitution.

Chrissie could therefore be described as ‘lucky’, in that her parents were prepared to take in the illegitimate child and rear him, whilst she was sent out of the district to work, unencumbered by an infant.  It’s worth noting that this might only be the case because he was a boy.  A male child held the prospect of being able to work on the farm in the future, a girl not so much so.  In this sense it could be seen as a financial investment of sorts.  Chrissie’s father also took in his sister’s illegitimate child and raised him as his own - being a boy.  When this same sister - now married - falls on hard times, she and her daughter are packed off to the workhouse.  Another double standard.

The final irony is that a great many Victorians practised sophistry by covering up their sexual indiscretions and presenting themselves as models of moral rectitude.  Let’s take Chrissie’s parents as an example:  Chrissie’s parents were John Whitfield and Elizabeth Graham.  This was John’s second marriage.  His first wife was Hannah Herron who died aged 27 of child-bed fever.  They were a respectable couple - he was a land-owner - yet Hannah lived with him for at least five years, bore him three children and was pregnant with the fourth, before they actually wed in 1863.  Plenty of illegitimacy there - but masked from public scrutiny somehow.  

Chrissie’s mother, Elizabeth, was herself the product of an adulterous liaison, which resulted in marriage only many years and many children later.  Elizabeth’s mother was the housekeeper before she was the wife of Elizabeth’s father.  History repeated itself when Elizabeth, aged 16, became the housekeeper of widowed John Whitfield.  John and Elizabeth married in September 1867.  Christiana was born in January 1868.  Draw your own conclusions!

So, yes, sexual indiscretions were commonplace in the Victorian era and, if you managed to conceal them, all could yet be well.  Otherwise, you would be thrown to the twin lions of moral opprobrium and financial difficulty.  Such hypocrisies destroyed the lives of many women and children.  Only the strongest - or the luckiest - survived and prospered.

November 2025