Crazy Victorians

I've just spent the last few hours - okay only three and a half - at my Gender in Victorian Literature class, and although by the end of class I'm aching to escape my cramped desk and let my legs once again taste the freedom of actually standing up and walking around freely, I was more struck this time by the eccentric love lives of some of the more famous literary Victorians. Let's just say that they understood that there was more happening above their ankles than our current popular culture would let on; however, most of the unfortunate people were absolutely terrified on the first night of their honeymoon because they either did not know what to do or what to expect. My own thoughts tended to how our culture - drastically different from the victorians in that regard - is not just comprised by a given group of people, but by a group of people at a specific period of time.

Setting Bill and Ted aside for the moment, I've occasionally wondered about how someone on the past would react in the present. For example, during the 1850's, and even as far back as the middle ages, there were a few women who wrote and published books that offered other women practical advice or described proper etiquette in varying situations. Would a Victorian recognize the same type of thing in Dear Abby or Emily Post (aka Miss Manners)? Would the average American be shocked that they might? I always used to assume that in our advanced age, we've left much of history behind - and maybe that is still true, but apparently, their influence lives on.