"Being pregnant is an occupational hazard of being a wife"

Queen Victoria’s statement, “Being pregnant is an occupational hazard of being a wife”, offers a fascinating glimpse into both personal and societal attitudes toward marriage and motherhood during the Victorian era. Her use of the term “occupational hazard” is striking and almost jarring; it frames pregnancy not as a voluntary or joyous event, but as an inherent risk or downside accompanying the role of a married woman. This perspective reflects the realities faced by women in her time, where marriage almost universally entailed the expectation of bearing children, often many times over the course of a woman’s life.

By likening pregnancy to a “hazard,” Queen Victoria acknowledges the physical toll, health risks, and personal sacrifices involved in childbearing. Pregnancy and childbirth before modern medicine were fraught with danger, maternal mortality, chronic health complications, and the immense demands on a woman’s body were everyday realities. For women of her class and station, even with access to the best medical care available, these risks were very real, and often exacerbated by the expectation to produce multiple heirs.

The phrasing also subtly touches on issues of autonomy and societal obligation. Calling it an “occupational hazard” situates marriage and motherhood within the framework of duty or profession, suggesting that being a wife was defined not merely by companionship but by the labor, emotional, physical, and reproductive, women were expected to perform. Such language highlights the limited agency many women experienced, where personal choice was often overshadowed by convention and expectation.

Victoria’s candid remark can also be viewed as expressing a certain weariness or even frustration with these cultural norms. As a mother of nine, she was intimately acquainted with the relentless cycle of pregnancy and motherhood. Her view resonates as both a social critique and a personal admission, laying bare the costs of womanhood in her era and inviting later generations to question the taken-for-granted link between marriage and motherhood.