Marriage
and the Alternatives: The Status of Women
"Single
women have a dreadful propensity for being poor, which is one very strong
argument in favour of matrimony"
-- Jane Austen, letter of
March 13, 1816
In
Jane
Austen's time, there was no real way for young women of the "genteel"
classes to strike out on their own or be independent. Professions, the
universities, politics, etc. were not open to women (thus Elizabeth's
opinion
"that though this great lady [Lady
Catherine] was not in the commission of the peace for the county, she
was a most active magistrate in her own parish" is ironic, since of course no woman could be a justice of the peace or magistrate).
Few occupations were open to them -- and those few that were (such as being a governess, i.e. a live-in
teacher for the daughters or young children of a family) were not
highly respected, and did not generally pay well or have very good working
conditions: Jane
Austen wrote, in a letter
of April 30th 1811, about a governess hired by her brother Edward:
"By this time I suppose she is hard at it, governing away -- poor creature! I
pity her, tho' they are my neices"; and the patronizing Mrs. Elton in Emma
is "astonished" that Emma's
former governess is "so very lady-like ... quite the gentlewoman" (as opposed to
being like a servant).
Therefore
most "genteel" women could not get money except by marrying for it or inheriting
it (and since the
eldest son generally inherits the bulk of an estate, as the
"heir", a woman
can only really be a "heiress" if she has no brothers). Only a rather small
number of women were what could be called professionals, who though their own
efforts earned an income sufficient to make themselves independent, or had a
recognized career (Jane
Austen herself was not really one of these few women professionals --
during the last six years of her life she earned an average of a little more
than £
And
unmarried women also had to live with their families, or with
family-approved protectors -- it is almost unheard of for a genteel youngish
and never-married female to live by herself, even if she happened to be a heiress
(Lady
Catherine: "Young
women should always be properly guarded and attended, according to their
situation in life"). So Queen
When
a young woman leaves her family without their approval (or leaves the relatives
or family-approved friends or school where she has been staying), this is always
very serious -- a symptom of a radical break, such as running away to marry a
disapproved husband, or entering into an illicit relationship (as when Lydia
leaves the Forsters to run away with Wickham);
when Frederica Susanna Vernon runs away from her boarding school in Lady
Susan, it is to try to escape from her overbearing mother's
authority completely.
Therefore,
a woman who did not marry could generally only look forward to living with her
relatives as a `dependant' (more or less Jane
Austen's situation), so that marriage is pretty much the only way of
ever getting out from under the parental roof -- unless, of course, her family
could not support her, in which case she could face the unpleasant necessity of
going to live with employers as a `dependant' governess
or teacher, or hired "lady's companion". A woman with no relations or employer
was in danger of slipping off the scale of gentility altogether (thus Mrs. and
Miss Bates in Emma
are kept at some minimal level of "respectability" only through the informal
charity of neighbours). And in general, becoming an "old maid" was not
considered a desirable fate (so when Charlotte
Lucas, at age 27, marries Mr.
Collins, her brothers are "relieved from their apprehension of Charlotte's
dying an old maid", and Lydia
says "Jane
will be quite an old maid soon, I declare. She is almost three and
twenty!"). (
Given
all this, some women were willing to marry just because marriage was the only
allowed route to financial security, or to escape an uncongenial family
situation. This is the dilemma discussed in following exchange between the
relatively impoverished sisters Emma and Elizabeth Watson in Jane
Austen's The
Watsons:
Emma:
"To
be so bent on marriage -- to pursue a man merely for the sake of a situation --
is a sort of thing that shocks me; I cannot understand it. Poverty is a great
evil, but to a woman of education and feeling it ought not, it cannot be the
greatest. -- I would rather be a teacher in a school (and I can think of nothing
worse) than marry a man I did not like."
"I
have been at school, Emma, and know what a life they lead; you never
have. -- I should not like marrying a disagreeable man any more than yourself,
-- but I do not think there are many disagreeable men; -- I think I could
like any good-humoured man with a comfortable income. -- [you are] rather
refined."
In
Pride and
Prejudice, the dilemma is expressed most clearly
by the character Charlotte
Lucas, whose pragmatic views on marrying are voiced several times in
the novel: "Without
thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her
object; it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of
small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their
pleasantest preservative from want." She is 27, not especially
beautiful (according to both she
herself and Mrs.
Bennet), and without an especially large "portion",
and so decides to marry Mr.
Collins "from the
pure and disinterested desire of an
establishment".
All
this has more point because Jane
Austen herself was relatively "portionless"
(which apparently prevented one early
mutual attraction from becoming anything serious), and once turned
down a
proposal of marriage from a fairly prosperous
man.
In
addition to all these reasons why the woman herself might wish to be married,
there could also be family pressure on her to be married. In Pride and
Prejudice this issue is treated comically, since Mrs.
Bennet is so silly, and so
conspicuously unsupported by her husband, but that such family
pressure could be a serious matter is seen from Sir Thomas's rantings to Fanny
Price to persuade her to marry Henry Crawford in Mansfield
Park.
There
are also the more
trivial attractions of the married state: Isabella
Thorpe of Northanger
Abbey "knew enough [about what her father-in-law-to-be would
contribute] to feel secure of an honourable and speedy establishment, and her
imagination took a rapid flight over its attendant felicities. She saw herself
at the end of a few weeks, the gaze and admiration of every new acquaintance at
Similarly,
according to Mr.
Collins: "This young gentleman [Darcy]
is blessed
with every thing the heart of mortal can most desire, -- splendid property,
noble kindred, and extensive patronage". And when Lydia
is to be married, Mrs.
Bennet's "thoughts
and her words ran wholly on those attendants of elegant nuptials, fine muslins,
new carriages, and servants". And on Elizabeth's
marriage she
exclaims: "What pin-money,
what jewels, what carriages you will have! ... A house in town!
... Ten thousand a year! ... I shall go distracted!" (See also The Three
Sisters.)
Jane
Austen expresses her opinion on all this clearly enough by the fact
that only her silliest characters have such sentiments (while Mr.
Bennet says "He is
rich, to be sure, and you may have more fine clothes and fine carriages than
Jane. But will they make you happy?"). However, Jane
Austen does not intend to simply condemn Charlotte
Lucas (who finds
consolation in "her home and her housekeeping, her parish and her
poultry, and all their dependent concerns") for marrying Mr.
Collins -- Charlotte's
dilemma
is a real one.
