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Abstract
History adequately captures the Victorian society as having existed on the tenets of exploitation, double standards and hypocrisy. The more intriguing character of the Victorian society was that women bore the brunt of the society's inequality, injustice and unfairness. This paper examines British history with the intent of exposing the variables that shaped and defined the Victorian era consciousness, especially the collective perspective about gender related issues. This investigation is undertaken through an in-depth analysis of Thomas Hardy's novel; "Tess of the D'Urbervilles". The article presents a historical narrative of the gender irregularities and biases that defined the Victorian woman. The paper adopts the feminist theory as framework of analysis, because of its utility in deconstructing mechanisms for questioning and interrogating societal vices, especially the raison d'être for the subjugatory and oppressive patriarchal dictates that existed in the Victorian era. The article conducts an assessment of Thomas Hardy's female character, Tess, especially on issues relating to her death. The paper concludes that Africa can learn from the progress made by the West through the harsh Victorian era, till this era of very minimal gender-discriminatory practices.
Keywords: Africa, Patriarchy, Subjugation, Tess, Victorian
Introduction
One of the major characteristics of the Victorian society is the gender-based inequality that existed in the period. Arguably, women bore the brunt of the inequality because of the inhuman treatment meted to them by the system. The women who were either the 'chaste' or the 'depraved' were either praised for their ignorance and docility or condemned for their assertiveness and knowledge. Through the lenses of patriarchal domination, the naïve and chaste were considered morally upright, while the depraved were described as the progenitors of vices; they were thus categorised as the irredeemable and fallen souls. The sexual perversions of the men, on the other hand, were excused as actions caused by their genealogy and the sexual ignorance of their respectable wives. The woman was thus denied psychological and physiological freedom. This research work focuses on the concept of gender as it explains the disequilibrium between the sexes in the Victorian era. Furthermore, there is an attempt to understand the views of a patriarchal society, and indeed, to investigate the variables that are responsible for patriarchy as a dominant social phenomenon.