Victorian Healthcare
1st: Only the "rich" could afford to go to the doctor
2nd: Many considered doctor appointments a point of prestige
3rd: From the various accounts I have read, husbands did not care
To me ... rightly or wrongly ... these visits to the doctor were ... uh, er, uhm ... a type of promiscuous behavior that was condoned by society (rightly or wrongly I consider the treatment at the time promiscuous behavior) [Based on how society viewed things then]
It would seem that there really is a correlation between physical/emotional/sexual abuse and poverty...
(no matter what culture, time frame, or society)
being poor promotes stress ... fear ... worries ... major problems
some folks respond to issues associated with poverty or perceived poverty with abuse
depending on the degree of poverty ... or the perceived notion of being poor (called "relative poverty") ... and a person's ability to handle stress has (in my mind) a direct correlation to the degree of abuse
I also think it relates to "culture" ... poor women in the cities would frequently physically fight back (cuz it generally meant their lives)
Frontier Women
Victorian women in our West could hold their own ... remember, Annie Oakley was not that unusual ... many women had to hunt to provide for their families ... Annie Oakley was only unusual to the extent that she made her living by trick shooting, her connection with Buffalo Bill, and her ability to promote herself in the marketplace
Men thought twice about being abusive to frontier women ... also, many American men truly held their wives in very high esteem and treated them how they would wish to be treated (i.e., Western men tended to not listen to the goofy rules from England or the East ... they were not in to prestige and status like those in the East)
~ from the notes of Lady Victorian Historian
