What was religion like in Victorian England?
It depended quite a bit on class. If you were upper class, then you were likely C.of E. (Church of England, same thing as Anglican). “Lower” classes were the same, but it was more strictly adhered to and far less of a thing for which one “posed”, to look good in society. Also, Catholics still made up a fair per cent of the lower class population, though not as much as in Ireland. In the upper classes, attendance at church was only considered “mandatory” for the womenfolk and children, NOT for the men. As in Mediterranean Catholic families, the men lolled around on Sundays (or visited their mistresses), while the women were sitting through sermons about morality, on THEIR behalf! If you read lots of Victorian novels (as I did, esp. while majoring in English and Comp Lit), you see this quite clearly. Still, the Catholic sense of guilt was quite real, especially for women. However, in certain men, it played a huge part. In Thomas Hardy’s novel, “Jude the Obscure”, he goes bonkers due to g
