Quote:
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Practically, the Victorians made major effect in change for the positive. Perhaps the literature you are reading from that era would give you a different picture.
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I would like to go off topic one more time if I may, given that the above quote was originally in answer to one of my posts.
I fully stand by my charge of hypocrisy towards the Victorian era and moreover address it to those who portray said era as a shining example to follow.
As Bethberry has already mentioned things were bad enough in the Victorian era if you were a resident of Britain. If you were poor or a Catholic then you could expect the harshest of treatment. Let us not forget that whilst Jack the Ripper was slaughtering prostitutes many of the upper classes did not express concern at their plight. No, in their eyes they had earned the “wages of sin”.
But things were even worse in the countries which the Victorians sought to “civilise” usually by slaughtering the population with high powered rifles. A look an the history of Indian or the African continent as a whole shows how honourable the Victorians were.
It is a sad fact that whenever a country becomes governed rigidly according to morals influenced by religion then tolerance and compassion go out the window.
In the Victorian’s case then I guess it is to be expected since they read a book that proclaimed that a woman who was raped in a city should be stoned to death as she could not have screamed loudly enough.
See Leviticus for details.
(If this post is too far off topic then I guess it can be deleted but since this thread has already run a pretty broad range of topics then I hope it can stay)
I would say that it could be that the absence of any strict religion in LOTR is one of the reasons it has attained such widespread popularity.