The Genteel Reading Circle For Ladies

[EverySongbirdSays]

In which like minds will discuss Jane Austen and other such 19th Century Classics sparked from an unhealthy interest in the sex life of one Mr Collins, parson to her ladyship Catherine De Bourgh of Rosings Park

First up : Sense And Sensibility

Bring your love of Dashwood, Brandon, Willoughby, Farrars, and Emma Thompson's weird crying noise here!!!

You are right! It is Uncle Gardiner.

Cross the footman/manservant off the Bennet's list. But do you think it'd be safe to assume that there was a manservant in the Bennet household anyway? I'd think that Mr Bennet would have someone to assist him in dressing, care of men's clothing etc and I wouldn't think they'd have just a valet, but someone with other duties as well.

I think they must have had, though no idea what he would have been called, or how his role defined.

Austen seems to use 'manservant' rather than anything more defined like valet or butler or footman, doesn't she? At least for her main families. (Does Lady Catherine de B have a butler?) The Dashwoods when they leave Norland for Barton Cottage take three of their servants with them, two woman and Thomas, a 'manservant' - and his jobs at Barton seem to involve doing errands in town, where he sees the married Lucy Steele, and also indoor work. Is he doing something like waiting on table when he tells the Dashwoods that he saw her?

I always hmm inwardly when the Dashwoods speedily select three of their Norland servants to take with them to a completely different part of the country - the implication is that the Dashwoods are such lovely mistresses that any of their servants would follow them anywhere, even to a distant part of the country to a much downgraded establishment with so little time off that their chances of seeing their families in the Norland area again are pretty slim!

Can you imagine the shock of having been a servant with dozens of other servants in a big house like Norland, and suddenly you're one of three in an isolated spot in a comparatively tiny house where you're shut up with with a moody teenager almost literally on top of your employers all the time?

(Since the thread is supposed to be about S and S, which I forgot )

We have flown at a tangent, haven't we? But I'll finish our digression by saying I expect the Bennet's manservant to be in rather the same position as Downton's Thomas was went he left them and went to his 'new' position in the final season. He seemed to be neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring, but a bit of all three.

As far as SS servants, to an extent I expect that long serving ones probably built up a strong loyalty to kind employers and began to identify with them as 'family'. And, especially in a situation where they see them being basically turfed out with 'nothing', that loyalty may have extended to uprooting themselves to go with them, to 'take care of them'. Or perhaps they realized that Mrs Dashwood Jnr was probably going to be a right bitch to work for, cut wages, and probably sack a few of them to reduce expenses which might massively increase their workloads. And to an extent, even though the Dashwood ladies' household was small, it may have been an easier workload.

I am v. grateful to this thread for encouraging me to reread Sense and Sensibility for the first time in many years.

You can tell it's JA's first published novel; Elinor is too sensible for a 19-year-old, even one with a lot of responsibility on her shoulders, and is not really developed as a character. What strikes me most is JA writing out her utter boredom and irritation at years of tedious social events. All those occasions when Elinor and Marianne have to go over to Sir John Middleton's just to be sociable, and sit around for hours having to listen to banal chat, while ill-disciplined children rage around them! I think we can safely deduce that JA was an introvert.

The details of the tedious conversations are hilarious - all form and no content. Everyone saying the 'right' thing but no-one saying anything remotely interesting.

Oh yes, the bidding between the parents and grandparents about the heights of the children!

glamourousgrandmother & MrFeynman Well, I guess if you think of half of the convos you overhear at parties these days, not much has really changed!

Just leaving this here :)

I have a q. about Edward and Lucy and breach of contract etc. As I understand it at the time if the lady decides to break off an engagement, she can do so with no repercussions. But if the gentleman does it, he's at risk of being ?fined for breach of contract. This is why engagements are taken quite seriously. But in Edwards and Lucy's case, would there really be any problem if he decided to break with her - considering it was a secret engagement, and she hasn't got any influential family (apart from her vulgar sister??)? I guess he is then being super moral to stick with it. But a part of me wonders if he compromised her in some way, which has reinforced his decision to stick with her.

Also doesn't James Morland in NA break with Isabella when he notices her gallivanting about with Captain Tilney or does she break it off? Can't remember now!

I wondered that, lucysnowe. There is no mention of Edward being at risk of a breach of contract suit if he ditched Lucy, so maybe the law only applied to public engagements. There is lots of comment on how well Edward is behaving by not dumping Lucy, it's clearly presented as a moral choice.

However, the breach of contract law would surely affect people's thinking on engagements generally and men and women's responsibilities.

I can't see Edward compromising Lucy in the sexual sense in which the word is generally used, but their engagement certainly restricted her ability to find another fiance (or at least Edward thought it had!!) and this was surely a factor in his continued loyalty to her.

I think there would be a social implication for a broken 'secret engagement' if the two young people were to have been seen to be seeing a lot of each other. I guess that's why gentlemen took such care not to 'raise expectations' in a young lady or her family. I expect Edward had said enough to Lucy and her family to give the impression that he was going to marry her at some point. Even if an engagement weren't announced I expect that breach of promise could come into play if a man's general behaviour had been such to presume that a proposal would happen at some point. Especially if a girl 'gave up' other courtship or marital opportunities because she expected a certain gentleman to propose or if she'd spent enough time with him 'privately' to damage her reputation.

In PP Bingley paid enough attention to Jane to raise 'certain expectations' amongst her family and neighbours so that when he left precipitously she was an object of some pity in the neighbourhood for her 'disappointed hopes'. In some situations Bingley may have been looked down on (socially) for having 'trifled with her affections'.

I also expect that 'social position' would play a part in breach of promise. It would be much less likely that a son of a duke would be found in breach of promise for a 'secret engagement' to a merchant's daughter (as long as he hadn't seduced her) than he would if he had one with the daughter of an earl.

Irene I wonder a bit if Lucy arranged to get herself compromised, but I am probably being very very unkind to her hussy

Agree with the social position bit which is why Darcy and Caroline were being so very delicate re Jane (although they also didn't approve of her) but then we have Willoughby who is able to gallivant off and marry an heiress having practically been engaged to poor Marianne. But maybe his neighbours will tut after him ever after?

The whole engagement thing is v. interesting. It's a verbal contract seemingly but very binding. And it must be v. important for the lady to be absolutely sure the gentleman will stick to it. Imagine if Darcy changed his mind?? Also it's interesting that in no Austen novel do you get a heroine proposed to and her saying 'hmm, I'll think about it'. Elizabeth notably doesn't both times, even though it might have possibly been a good idea :) but in real life, I am sure that must have been much the best option? Tho to be fair if a guy has got as far as proposing to you, you must have a good idea it was coming...

Also it's interesting that in no Austen novel do you get a heroine proposed to and her saying 'hmm, I'll think about it'. Elizabeth notably doesn't both times, even though it might have possibly been a good idea smile but in real life, I am sure that must have been much the best option? Although I think that's what Jane Austen did in real life. I can't remember his name.

Not quite, this is what happened:

Just before her 27th birthday, Jane Austen receives her only marriage proposal. A recent Oxford grad named Harris Bigg-Wither proposes to Austen while she is visiting his sisters. Realizing that the marriage would be good for her family's circumstances, Austen accepts. The next morning, however, she changes her mind and withdraws her acceptance. Bigg-Wither marries two years later; Austen never does.

Well, we don't know what made JA briefly accept Harris B-W, who seems by all accounts to have been what would in her day been called a bit of a booby - younger, shy, physically unattractive, his only two 'good' points being that he was the younger brother of two of her friends, and rich.

Biographers usually surmise that it was a vaguely Charlotte Lucas-ish desire for an establishment and to be able to offer Cassandra and her mother a permanent home, followed by an overnight realisation that marriage without love would be a disaster (as she says more than once in letters to her nieces).

But we don't know, only that Jane told HB-W she had changed her mind first thing in the morning after accepting him the night before, and leaving the house immediately. Cassandra destroyed all the letters that might have talked about it.

but then we have Willoughby who is able to gallivant off and marry an heiress having practically been engaged to poor Marianne.

How widely known is his relationship with Marianne, though? It takes place in a remote part of the countryside in a fairly confined social circle, and by the time he and Marianne re-encounter one another in London (where being seen repeatedly dancing with her in public etc etc would certainly have given rise to a general expectation of their engagement), he's gone all distant and polite and is no longer corresponding with her.

Similarly, I imagine Edward would have been forced to be more upfront with himself about his own feelings and/ or the risk of exciting feelings in Eleanor if they'd met in society London, rather than in a private family gathering at Norland...?

I'd say it was probably pretty easy to 'compromise' a young lady back then. Walking alone where you were out of sight or being alone in a room for a long time, anything that could give the impression that 'something' had had enough time or privacy to have happened. So I agree it had to do with enough people being able to observe the couple to give general rise to gossip or speculation. Thus the need for chaperones or other family members to accompany a couple on a walk. Or for open doors and servants or family to be present or at least in and out of a room in which a couple was 'courting'.

It's highly likely that Edward and Lucy had been alone together at her uncle's of a cozy evening long enough to compromise her. And it's also quite possible that her uncle was 'in on it' in order to get Lucy a rich husband, perhaps because he knows that he would have to provide for her after her parents are gone.

Meant to add; if Willoughby and Marianne's carriage jaunt had been widely known of, I daresay she would have been thoroughly 'compromised' depending on how long they were gone. The fact that basically no one knows is what saves her reputation.

Mrs Dashwood comes across as increasingly culpable when you think about it, doesn't she, with all that misplaced confidence in a tacit engagement having taken place and her 'delicate' refusal to force her hotheaded teenage daughter's confidence on her relationship?

Mrs D strikes me as a woman who had a very 'soft' life. Not necessarily in the financial sense, but in the sense that perhaps she was never 'crossed in love' and was greatly sheltered guarded by her own parents before she met Mr D. If she herself had only been 'courted' by men who were true gentlemen (or perhaps Mr D was her 'one and only') it may be that she was as vulnerable to Willoughby's 'ways' as Marianne. She wouldn't force confidences from Marianne because she wouldn't have thought she needed to. She would have expected both Willoughby and Marianne to behave properly.

I really think she couldn't conceive that Willoughby would act in a dishonourable fashion towards Marianne.

And then says afterwards that there was something about Willoughby's eyes she'd never liked. Anyone less patient than Eleanor would have been tempted to give her a smack.

I agree Mrs D was vulnerable to Willoughby. I think I'd perhaps put it down to a combination of being rather helpless and still recovering from a bereavement and the recent loss of her home, to having been horrified at Fanny Dashwood's worldly, financially-savvy matchmaking for Edward Ferrars, and a romantic desire for at least one of her beloved daughters to bag an apparently eligible chap she's passionately fallen for and who seems (unlike Edward re Eleanor) to be about to declare himself.

But one can't help thinking that virtually any of the other mothers, chaperones and mother-figures in JA would have prevented the situation getting quite so out of hand.

Mrs D is a bit like Mrs B only without the mercenary bent (also a little more secure in terms of housing).

It just makes you think how much everybody knew everybody's business back then - especially in the countryside. And yes Willoughby's and Marianne's exploits were the talk of the country but maybe in town they would not have raised an eyebrow amongst the ton.

Thinking again about ladies being compromised, it must then have been a bit of a deal for Darcy and Lizzy to go off for a long walk together but perhaps again the gossip was that Lizzy disliked him so much she couldn't be compromised :)

I think maybe the idea was that impropriety could only take place indoors!
Darcy several times met Lizzie as if by accident in the park at Rosings, which he presumably would not have done if it would compromise her, and she must have been walking alone with Colonel Fitzwilliam for some time while he was telling her of Darcy's success in separating Bingley from Jane.

Also, in Persuasion, Charles Musgrave sees nothing improper in asking Captain Wentworth to escort Anne home because he has an appointment with the gunsmith.

Of course Emma is frequently alone with Mr Knightley and Fanny Price with Edmund, but that would presumably have been thought to be Ok because they were part of the family. Even though that didn't stop either couple...

There is a bit in PP where Caroline Bingley refers to Lizzy's 'country ways'; "It seems to me to shew an abominable sort of conceited independence, a most country-town indifference to decorum".

So perhaps there was a bit more 'laxity' in country neighborhoods than in 'town' (i.e. London, Bath, other fashionable spots). Perhaps it was felt that one would be more likely to be seen strolling down a country lane or along an estate path. Neighbours, servants, gardeners, I expect that country lanes could be quite busy and someone wanting to preserve their reputation or avoid compromising would keep to paths where they knew they would be observed.

I expect you wouldn't see a 'reputable' young couple strolling into the woods off a path or lane!

because he has an appointment with the gunsmith

Next time I leave work early I'd love to say "terribly sorry chaps, I have an appointment with a gunsmith".

I think in short it all comes down to Edward being v. v. moral in sticking with Lucy! or he slept with her.

Elinor of course is quite an old fashioned heroine and admires him for it while she deplores the result. Lucy's running off with Robert F is kind of a deus ex machina in this case IMHO. And it does make it a little awkward that Mrs F still keeps him in her will, while Edward is pretty much exiled. That and the bit about Mr Pratt's establishment instead of Eton seems to suggest that Edward was really NOT the favourite child!