The 'S' Word: The Spectre of Syphilis within Middle-Class Marriage in Late Victorian and Edwardian Britain

Abstract

The years between 1870 and 1914 witnessed profound shifts in the medical understanding of, social responses to, and cultural representations of syphilis and its sufferers. Prostitutes had traditionally been recognised as the primary carriers of disease and men their ‘unsuspecting victims.’ However, responsibility for the spread of syphilis into middle-class homes had been redistributed across the gender divide by the end of the century. This thesis charts the changing medical and social attitudes towards the conjugal and congenital transmission of syphilis during the fin-de-siècle and the effects of these changes upon the construction of middle-class male identity and gender relations.