Victorian Compromise

The Victorian age was a time of great contrasts: moralism versus vice, philanthropy versus greediness, wealth versus poverty, and the like. Therefore, Lawrence Friedman, who coined the term, argued that the Victorian Compromise served as a double standard that tolerated sin and vice, so long as they took place in the private sphere, to protect the reputation of respectable men and women who deviated from the official norms.

The religious and philosophical elements of the Victorian Compromise stood in contrast to the Victorian era itself. Evangelicalism, created in the 18th century ...