Jane Austen For Dummies (26 page)
Read Jane Austen For Dummies Online
Authors: Joan Elizabeth Klingel Ray
There's no reason to doubt that Austen was out and attending formal and informal dances when she reached 16, the normal coming-out age, though only sketchy records of her social life at that age exist. She had a sister who was just two years older than she was. So why wouldn't the practical Mrs. Austen allow the 16-year-old Jane to join Cassandra at neighboring dances and dinners? Elizabeth Bennet's sympathy for her mother's letting Lydia come out early may well have come from Austen's own experience.
We do know that the 18-year-old Austen and her elder sister joined their married cousin in Southampton in December of 1793 at an Assembly Ball. And we know she attended balls the previous year, 1792, because that was the year of marriages: Her brother James married Anne Mathew; her cousin Jane Cooper was married; and Margaret Bigg, the eldest sister of Jane Austen's good friends Catherine and Alethea Bigg, married. It's reasonable to speculate that in a year when engagements and marriages were flourishing, formal and informal dances were, too. So Jane Austen would have been “out” by this time.
But Austen makes her feelings about the “coming out” process clear through her characters' experiences. For example, as she approached age 16, Austen wrote jokingly about young women coming out in one of her juvenile pieces, “A Collection of Letters,” dedicated to her cousin Jane Cooper and copied in Volume 2 of her youthful works. (For more on Austen's early writing and her cousin Jane, see Chapter 3.)
In the first letter, addressed “From A Mother to her friend,” the fictional mother, A.âF.â, writes of bringing her two daughters out through a series of teas with close friends, visits, dinners, and a private concert â much less exciting than coming out at a ball â “How they will bear so much dissipation I cannot imagine,” Austen has the mother say ridiculously; “of their spirits I have no fear, I only dread their health.” At a tea? (Picture the teenage Jane Austen smirking as she wrote those lines!) Heading to tea at their mother's friend's house, the two daughters “trembled with fear & expectation,” as they “prepared to find a World full of things to amaze and shock them.” (Should they select Darjeeling or Earl Grey tea?!) As they arrive at their first tea-drinking challenge, the elder sister, age 17, “could hardly breathe,” while the younger, age 16, “was all Life & Rapture,” as she said, “âThe long-expected Moment is now arrived, and we shall soon be in the World.'” Getting through the tea experience, the girls â now young ladies who are “out” â “returned [home] in raptures with the world, its inhabitants, and its manners.”
Clearly, the young writer thought the whole thing was ridiculous. Sip a cup of tea and voilà , a girl became a woman, ready to become a wife! She must have felt that dancing at a “coming out” ball was equally stupid as a mark of maturity.
No wonder at age 38, Austen, reviewing her teenage niece's novel-in-progress, commented that what one of her characters “says about the madness of otherwise sensible Women, on the subject of their Daughters coming out, is worth its' [sic] weight in gold” (Letter to Anna Austen, August 10â18, 1814). By this time, Austen had undoubtedly witnessed numerous coming out events with an amused smile on her face.
While gentlemen could look for those overt clues of the close bonnet, demure demeanor, and accompanying governess or chaperone to help them know if young ladies were “out” or not â if the young ladies were not out, they wouldn't be at the dance or dinner party! â young gentlemen, themselves, displayed no overt signs. Gossip, of course, told young ladies which men were available: They knew older brothers, cousins, and so on. And even when the stranger Darcy enters the Meryton Assembly, the gossip soon circulates that he's eligible and has an income of £10,000 a year (PP 1:3). Furthermore, only the brothers, cousins, and so on, who were eligible or looking for wives would be at the balls and dinners. Their younger brothers were at school, learning geography
and
dancing, as they waited their turns to attend balls!
Young gentlemen became eligible for marriage at a later age than the young ladies for the very simple reason that they had to be able to afford marriage. Twenty-one was the age of coming of age for men, and they could not enter into any contracts before 21 without their parents' consent. This included marriage. Thus, it should not surprise readers of Austen's novels to come across young women marrying older men. If the young gentleman did not inherit property and wealth as an eldest son, or have the prospect, as an eldest son, of inheriting his father's property, he had to find a genteel occupation, such as an Anglican clergyman or an army officer, in order to support a wife and family in a genteel style. He needed time to establish himself, and as a younger son, he would then need to look for a rich wife. Colonel Fitzwilliam, the younger son of an earl, makes this clear to Elizabeth Bennet, saying, “âI may suffer from the want of money. Younger sons cannot marry where they like'” (PP 2:10). The Colonel is clearly planning to marry a rich young lady who will supply him and their family with money.
It's fine for a couple to meet on the dance floor or at a dinner. But first impressions in a crowded room could be very misleading, because all one had to go on was the other person's appearance, and at a social event everyone would be dressed well and intent on appearing elegant and charming. So couples needed time to get to know each other. One-on-one conversations, however, could be a problem because young ladies and gentlemen who weren't related weren't supposed to be left alone together in private. And if a young gentleman and a young lady danced too many dances together or spent too much time alone in public and people noticed â which was very likely, given that the ballroom and other social venues were full of lookers-on and gossips â it was assumed that the couple was serious about marriage. So going from getting to know each other to feeling enough about each other to be engaged was a tricky and subtle road filled with many roadblocks.
With rules and traditions restricting the time that young ladies and gentlemen could be together, couples had to use what time they had well.
Young ladies and gentlemen appreciated dancing because it gave them an opportunity to talk. For this reason, young people looked forward to balls. Granted, this rather public business of conversation was better than nothing. But the young lady and gentleman who were mutually interested had to grab opportunity as it came because even dancing and then dining or drinking tea together at the ball didn't give a couple that much time to get to know each other. The rule was no more than two dances: each dance consisting of two separate dances, for a total of 30 minutes on the floor. So two dances gave the couple an hour. (For more on dancing and how it relates to courtship, see Chapter 5.)
Obviously, young people who had a romantic interest in each other couldn't always be in the ballroom. A young gentleman might be invited to a young lady's home (but with her parents looking on), yet ways existed for the couple to be together:
Acting:
Home acting
â acting out a popular play with other family members and friends taking part â was very popular. The parents might be the audience. In
Mansfield Park,
Maria Bertram and Henry Crawford get to show their feelings for each other through their roles of long-separated mother and son â the hugs and affectionate poses they strike as a reunited family enable them to have considerable physical contact on the stage. No wonder they like to rehearse the reunion scene a lot!
Singing duets:
With young ladies expected to be musical, a traditional evening entertainment included having them play the pianoforte and sing. But if her young gentleman was also musical, he might go to the pianoforte after a while and watch her play or even sing with her. He might even learn ahead of time the male part of her favorite songs. While Darcy gives no indication of having any musical talent enabling him to break into harmony, he does go over to the pianoforte to listen to Elizabeth play at Lady Catherine's (PP 2:8).
Playing card games:
Because card playing was a popular evening pastime for both men and women at home, the young couple could join the parents and other guests. The couple might be partners in the game or at least sit at the same table, enabling them to use the time to talk. When Austen writes in
Mansfield Park
that Henry Crawford has “his hands full of business” as he plays the card game Speculation with Fanny Price and others, her phrase is a loaded one (2:7). Henry isn't only busy with the cards; he is busy trying to arouse Fanny's interest in him. Even more in his favor, Fanny is sitting at the table close to him.
If the families of both the lady and gentleman happened to be in London, Bath, or another city that boasted a theater, the couple had another chance to meet and talk. During the intermission or after the play's conclusion, the gentleman could go to the lady's theater box, sit down, and chat with the lady of his interest. Henry Tilney does this at Bath's Theatre Royal when he sees Catherine Morland seated in a box with the Allens (NA 1:12).
The hurdles faced by couples trying to get to know one another as a potential spouse led to their finding ways to spend time together, if only to talk. But Austen also questions the existing stringent rules for male-female relationships, showing in her novels characters of excellent morals enjoying each other's company alone.
Taking a walk on a quiet path together is always a good way for a couple to talk together, too. But because a young lady and gentleman weren't to be alone in private taking long, romantic walks weren't an option. (This shouldn't be confused with instances when a gentleman sees a young lady he knows alone on a public street, for some reason, and then gallantly escorts her home.) Yet in Austen's novels, her very proper heroines and heroes sometimes do manage to walk together for long periods of time in even the most remote places! In
Pride and Prejudice,
when Elizabeth visits Rosings, she enjoys taking long walks in Rosings's beautiful park. Darcy often arranges to accidentally meet her on her rambles, even though she tells him where she likes to walk to discourage his meeting her. (The clever Elizabeth can't figure out why he keeps showing up on her walks!) Meeting her as she walks, of course, gives him time to talk with her. So there were ways to get around the “no time alone in private” rule, and Darcy was aware of it.
If a young lady and gentleman walking together in private for a long period of time was viewed suspiciously, driving together in a carriage was surely worse. After all, an unscrupulous young man, up to no good, could get away quickly with the young lady in a carriage. And let's not even think about what could occur in a closed carriage.
A good example that shows the stigma of riding in carriages as a “couple” can be seen in
Northanger Abbey.
Catherine Morland is rightly stunned when she discovers that her chaperone, Mrs. Allen, permits her to go for a drive with John Thorpe in his carriage. When she returns to the Allens' house, she hears the sensible Mr. Allen speak of the incident:
These schemes are not at all the thing. Young men and women driving about the country in open carriages! Now and then it is very well; but going to inns and public places together [which Thorpe had planned for a meal]. . . . Do not you think it has an odd appearance, if young ladies are frequently driven about . . . by young men, to whom they are not even related? (1:13)
When Mrs. Allen agrees with her husband on the impropriety, Catherine is distressed and asks Mrs. Allen, “[W]hy did not you tell me so before? I am sure if I had known it to be improper, I would not have gone with Mr. Thorpe at all; but I always hoped you would tell me, if you thought I was doing wrong.'” Mrs. Allen's mistakes as a chaperone along with Catherine's social innocence could've exposed the young lady to public criticism. Austen lets the reader know what the social norm is, and when a character acts inappropriately, she wants the reader to scrutinize the behavior and the consequences.
Going for a nice, leisurely horseback ride together is another no-no, especially into the deep, dark woods. Alone â in the woods â together? See how difficult proper courting was?
In the 1995-film version of
Sense and Sensibility,
Elinor and Edward, who are interested in each other, go for a long ride together at Norland Park. And it sure looks like they're heading towards the woods! But if the proper Elinor chastises Marianne for the curricle drive with Willoughby, it's hard to believe that she would ride in the park alone with Edward. Taking a film-maker's latitude, Emma Thompson, who wrote the screenplay, needed to quickly show the film's audience that Elinor and Edward enjoy each other's company. Perhaps, too, Thompson like Austen, when she sends her characters walking together, trusts her characters to behave properly when they ride. (For more on the film versions of Austen's novels, see Chapter 15.)
A “couple's” riding scene that does occur in an Austen novel is
Mansfield Park
's “teaching the city-girl, Mary Crawford to ride” episode (1:7). Mary and Edmund are both on horseback, “riding side by side.” Mary then begins to canter, and Edmund follows. Soon, however, they stop and Edmund is “close to her, he was speaking to her, he was evidently directing her management of the bridle, he had hold of her hand.” The way Austen builds the sexual tension of the scene is quite remarkable: He simply holds Mary's hand as she holds the bridle. And these two aren't even in the deep, dark woods! But the sexual tension between the two is high through just his touching her hand.
Austen lived in the great age of letter writing in England. Jane Austen's letters are important documents of her busy life in Georgian England. Austen called the true art of letter writing . . . “[an expression] on paper exactly what one would say to the same person by word of mouth” (January 3â5, 1801). (See the nearby sidebar, “Letter-writing mechanics.”) While Austen's letters don't include courtship letters, they do provide a glimpse into the way Jane Austen viewed the people and the world around her, and they offer the closest example possible of what she sounded like when she spoke.
But as far as love letters go, in Austen's day, a young man and woman who weren't related to each other and who wrote letters to each other were assumed to be engaged. In other words, a would-be couple, not yet engaged, was prohibited from writing to each other â yet another roadblock to reaching the altar! So even though England started to observe Valentine's Day in the 1600's, forget sending that Valentine's card in Austen's time unless you were engaged to the recipient.
Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill break the letter-writing rules in
Emma.
They're secretly engaged â a social
faux pas,
as engagements were meant to be open with parental or guardian approval â and write letters to each other. Because they are pretending to be virtual strangers when they are visiting Highbury, the only way they can communicate is through letters. In their secret letters, Jane and Frank also exchange little tidbits of news. Because of their letter-writing campaign, Jane adamantly insists on collecting her own mail from the post office despite Mrs. Elton's pressuring her to let her servant pick up Jane's mail when he gets the Eltons' mail (2:16).
The “no letters” rule caused difficulties of all sorts in Austen's books. Because of the rule, Jane Bennet can't write to Bingley to inform him of her visit to London when she goes to visit her aunt and uncle (PP). Instead, she must write to his obnoxious sisters, hoping that they'll tell their brother that she's in the city. Of course, Bingley's sisters hide Jane's letter and their knowledge of her being there from their brother. If Jane
had
been able to write directly to Bingley, their marriage could've occurred on about page 80 of the book, instead of about 300 pages later!
Another letter difficulty occurs in
Sense and Sensibility
. Because Marianne writes to Willoughby as soon as she and her sister arrive in London, Elinor assumed the two must be engaged. Marianne writes again and again to him. Surely, this is a secret engagement between the two. So Elinor is shocked when, upon Willoughby's returning Marianne's letters to her, Marianne admits that there was no engagement (SS 2:7). In
Emma,
Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill secretly exchange letters: On the one hand, they are secretly engaged, and so as an engaged couple, they can write to each other; on the other hand, the engagement is a secret one â they have gone against society's norms.
