I am reading The Victorian House by Judith Flanders. It is an absolutely fascinating history of Victorian life. I am currently enthralled with this piece of information. The Lancet reminded doctors that women patients complaining of exhaustion, or an inability to walk even short distances, were probably suffering from the loads they were carrying, rather than illness or the inherent weakness of being female. By the end of the century a fashionable woman was carrying thirty-seven pounds of clothing, although the Rational Dress Society had long campaigned for women to reduce their underclothing to a maximum of seven pounds. Thirty-seven pounds of clothes! The mind boggles. And seven pounds of underclothes…