"Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor, which is one very strong argument in favour of matrimony"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 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).
-- Jane Austen, letter of March 13, 1816
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 £100 a year by her novel-writing, but her family's expenses were four times this amount, and she did not meet with other authors or move in literary circles).
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 Victoria had to have her mother living with her in the palace in the late 1830's, until she married Albert (though she and her mother actually were not even on speaking terms during that period). Only in the relatively uncommon case of an orphan heiress who has already inherited (i.e. who has "come of age" and whose father and mother are both dead), can a young never-married female set herself up as the head of a household (and even here she must hire a respectable older lady to be a "companion").
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. 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!"). (See also the reflections on the recompenses of old-maidhood from Jane Austen's Emma, published in 1815 when she was herself 39 years old and never-married.)
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:
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.
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Creada: 22/02/2000
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