Since the rise of humanity groups of people decide how they are going to live together. They set rules of behaviour and reach understandings on how these rules are to be policed. After all, a rule counts for little if it is not enforced. But, people change their view on the human relationship as time passes. What may be workable for one group at one time may be completely unworkable for the group that follows them. Cultures change over time and the rules of behaviour change with them. Go back more than one hundred years to Victorian times and the word most often associated with the age was prudish. In other words, the people were sexually repressed by a strict code of morality. The US was just coming out of the Civil War and wanted stability in everything you can think about. Even though slavery was formally abolished, that did not mean ex-slaves were really free. Women were still little more than possessions and their place in the scheme of things was fixed. Only the most upper-class men had real freedom. Everyone else was restricted in their actions. Read the rest of this entry »