"A Model Wife and Mother"

I love this statue.

I'm sure you all know who this is. If not, let me give you a clue ... one of the reasons why I love this statue is because of her name. When I was in India, a number of people said to me "oh, Victoria, you have a very important name". And yes, I guess it is. After all, she was the first and only Empress of India.

The most amazing thing about this statue to me is the inscription:

VICTORIA
QUEEN AND EMPRESS
A MODEL WIFE AND MOTHER

It was dedicated to the Queen by the women of Hamilton in the early part of the century.

Queen and Empress --- yes.

But ... a model wife and mother ????

I guess it depends which model you're looking at. Model wife she was. She loved Prince Albert. In every sense of the word. Prince Albert, despite being regarded as her social inferior, was her closest advisor. When he died, she went into mourning and wore black for the rest of her life. By all reports, she was a woman deeply in love and a woman who deeply loved.

As far as the Model Mother part ... by all reports, that's stretching it quite a bit. She was the mother of nine children, but allegedly thought the act of childbirth and all things associated with it to be deeply disgusting. And she once referred to babies as being ungainly as little frogs. Deeply maternal she was not. Allegedly, anyway.

All that aside, what I find ironic about this statue is the juxtaposition of those words, Empress, Queen, Wife, Mother. It makes me wonder what statement was being made about ideal womanhood. Was it not enough to be Queen and Empress?

Or maybe it was an attempt to humanize her and minimize the distance between her and her loyal subjects in Hamilton?

Well, without reading too deeply into it, the statue just plain makes me smile. Partly because of the absurdity of it, partly because it's so damn dramatic ... I wouldn't describe her face as severe, but she is not a woman to be trifled with. "Mom" is not the word which comes to mind when gazing upward at this woman with sceptre in hand and a lion guarding her feet.

I like it because it's a great piece of art, a great piece of history. With a really great name.