A Visitor's Guide to Jane Austen's England by Sue Wilkes

Author:Sue Wilkes [Wilkes, Sue]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2014-10-30T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

The Perfect Partner

‘Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.’

(Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 1813)

When you venture into polite society, your manners must be perfect, and correctly adapted to your company. Even a rich bachelor such as Pride and Prejudice’s Mr Darcy can ‘disgust’ a whole ballroom if his manners are too ‘proud’ and ‘above his company’.

The eldest daughter of a family is always addressed as ‘Miss’ followed by her surname, e.g. Jane, the eldest Bennet girl, is ‘Miss Bennet’. The younger daughters are addressed as ‘Miss’ followed by their first name and surname, e.g. ‘Miss Elizabeth Bennet’. It is most impolite to address a lady or gentleman by their Christian name unless you are a close relative.

In Emma, Miss Woodhouse is appalled by Mrs Elton’s overfamiliarity – she calls Mr Knightley ‘Knightley’ and Jane Fairfax by her full name, instead of ‘Miss Fairfax’: ‘Heavens! Let me not suppose that she dares go about Emma Woodhouse-ing me! But, upon my honour, there seem no limits to the licentiousness of that woman’s tongue!’ Frank Churchill, too, Jane’s secret fiancé, is upset when he hears ‘“Jane”… bandied between the Eltons, with all the vulgarity of needless repetition, and all the insolence of imaginary superiority.’

LOOKING FOR MR RIGHT

A young lady is not on the marriage market until she is ‘out’. If you are not yet ‘out’, then your opportunities for enjoying yourself will be limited until you are old enough to dance at public balls and assemblies. Mansfield Park’s Mary Crawford asks Edmund Bertram if Fanny Price is ‘out’: ‘Does she go to balls? Does she dine out everywhere, as well as at my sister’s?’ When Edmund replies that he does not think Fanny has ever been to a ball, Mary is satisfied: ‘Oh, then the point is clear. Miss Price is not out.’

Young ladies usually come ‘out’ when they are 17 or 18 years old. Their younger sisters wait their turn until their sibling is married or engaged, which is why the forthright Lady Catherine de Bourgh is so shocked to hear that Elizabeth Bennet’s sisters are ‘all five out at once? Very odd! And you only the second. The younger ones out before the elder are married!’

Aristocratic young ladies cannot attend grand social occasions in London until they have been presented at court, although they may go to smaller events in the provinces. Frances Winckley (later Lady Shelley) had her first London season in 1805, when she was 18 years old; she was presented at court on Queen Charlotte’s birthday.

Your first season as a belle does not have to be in London, however; the Hon. Amelia Murray came ‘out’ at Blandford Races. In Austen’s unfinished novel The Watsons, Miss Emma Watson makes ‘her first public appearance’ at a winter assembly in a Surrey town, where a ‘long list of county families’ and the Osbornes, the local nobility, are expected to attend.

If your mother can’t accompany you to a ball, an aunt or older lady friend will act as your

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