19th century- What were women like?

When Jane Austen wrote her books, she wasn't writing a historical novel, she was writing contemporaries. However, she did have a shielded life, her father being a minister, and it being a large family of six brothers and two sisters.

Still, I believe her reality has to be closer to the truth she knew than the standard reality that we now have of the past. 

The further away we get from the truth, the more generic it becomes. 

So let us study the past through Jane Austen's characters.

All are very different: Jane the beautiful kind daughter who waits for love to find her, but embraces it when it comes. She epitomizes what a young woman should be.

Elizabeth who examines life with a satirical eye, who challenges authority, (Not only Darcy, but his Aunt), who fights against injustices,

Lydia, who sees the reality of her situation, as the youngest of 5 daughters with a pathetic dowry to catch a man. She runs off with a soldier to London and lives in sin until they are found and married. She refuses to allow shame to touch her. She did what was necessary to become Mrs. Wickham...and thus, there is no shame involved.

Kitty, the sister without a sense of self, she  follows and emulates others.

Mary: Rigid, rule conforming, judgmental and plain. Perfect for their cousin, but Mr. Collins wants a beautiful wife, and when he cannot have that, he settles for a plain, kind, pragmatic wife.

They are all stereotypes, but real enough to Jane that she could bring them to life, which probably means they all existed in the people she knew.

Then move to Sense & Sensibility, and you get two more young women: Elinor, quiet, supportive and kind, but with low self-esteem,

and Marianne, spoiled, vivacious and mesmerizing.

Then in her later novel, Emma, Austen provides a young who externally appears to be the proper young woman, but in fact, has many flaws she must fix, including rudeness and a meanness of spirit to those less fortunate before she can become worthy of the man she loves.

While none of them  learned to fence or fought pirates, I believe if offered the opportunity Lizzie, Lydia and Marianne would have done so without hesitation.

I was surprised to discover that Jane's books did not conform to 19th century expectations of a novel. They failed to express the strong emotions in sound and color that was expected by readers. Does that mean her characters were too subdued?

By the end of the 19th century, women became very vocal about their rights, or lack there of. The New Women and other organizations challenged and forced a great deal of changes through Parliament. 

If ignored, they would rally people to the streets to protest not just for their rights, but for their children's safety. They had far more influence than the men of power wished to admit.

Women who did the extraordinary, who spoke up, who did not conform to the rigid standards of the time, were the ones who changed the world. It is those women I wish to celebrate in novels, for they inspire me.

History of the 'norm' is filtered and diminished to such a degree, who knows if it is true at all. Did all young ladies learn to play and sing? According to Jane, they did not. Did any of her young ladies spend a moment sewing? Not that I recall. However the movies certainly had them doing so.

But did a real woman dress like a man, attend medical school and become the highest ranking doctor in the army, performing the first successful Cesarean where mother & child survived. Yes, that is well documented and certain.  That is a heroine extraordinaire.


In my upcoming Late Victorian Mystery/Sleuth novel, The Troublesome Assistant,  my heroine, Vic, decides early on in life that she would rather have the opportunities of a young man rather than the confined and strict bindings of a woman. So she dresses as a male from the age thirteen onward. By the time she goes to Oxford, she is most convincing as a young man, so much so, that the greatest sleuth in England doesn't catch on right away.

I'm very proud to declare my heroine a one of a kind.