[Hardy-l] Father Time

[Jackie Wilkinson]

Right, thanks for that, Richard. So it would appear that we have a series of
'named as' or 'known as' but no actual 'legal' or 'Christianised' names,
which would in a sense take us back to Pauline's point as well. 
I would agree with Rosemarie and Roy that the Victorians were all too well
aware of mortality and I believe it was not unusual to wait before naming a
child just in case the child did not live in which case 'it would have been
a waste of time'. Certainly in the working classes babies tended to be
viewed perhaps more in the light of a dog having pups or a cat having
kittens, and just as these offspring were disposed of so it was on occasions
with children, particularly those born out of wedlock. To be blunt 'putting
them on the back of the fire' immediately after birth was not unknown. 
This, however, is not really the point I was making. I was speaking of
authorial attitude to 'little Jude' as much as parental/adoptive/social
attitude. The other children I can think of in Hardy are Tess's siblings but
they do have an acknowledgement and names; they are, as it were,
'recognised'. 
(Just as an aside here, it is interesting that Victorians and even
Edwardians dressed their male children in 'girls' clothes or 'petticoats'
until they were often as old as five or six when they 'lost their curls' and
were dressed as boys. (I believe it took Elizabeth Barrett Browning quite a
long time before her son was allowed to 'be a boy'. This would suggest all
babies/children were viewed as being an underclass in the same way as the
women whose dress they adhered to. In the upper classes girls were a means
of bringing money into the family, boys of prolonging and enhancing the
family name or business. In the working classes both boys and girls, but
particularly boys, were a means of earning money to feed mouths and
generally nothing more. In working classes childhood as we know it did not
exist, and it is interesting to note a parallel with today's society where
childhood passes quickly as 'children' grow more precocious and worldly-wise
in both dress and culture.)
Of course, coming back to Hardy and Victorian England, the further away we
grow from the nineteenth century the less able we are to understand
conditions then. Just as Hardy gained much of his knowledge of pre-Victorian
society from his parents and grandparents, so my knowledge base comes from
parents and grandparents who experienced working class Victorian and
Edwardian childhoods. Our offspring, however, have little understanding of
these conditions in that  the changes in society have been so rapid and so
seismic. 
All the best
Jacky Wilkinson