The Situation of Governesses in the 19th Century Based on Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and Anne Bronte's Agnes Grey

In my essay I would like to reflect upon a fragment of nineteenth century female society that lacked wealthy positions and therefore opportunities for leading a carefree lifestyle devoid of money-related hardship and dependence on others, the latter one of which was considered “the great curse of a single female life” (MacPherson 1). In the first half of the nineteenth century, a new layer of society, namely, the new middle-class was beginning to emerge, who most of all consisted of the ‘novoeaux riches’ manufacturers, as they were then called (Sherry 31). These people provided the “impoverished gentlewomen” with work, therefore offering them the chance to come by money and make a living out of it (Sherry 31). Those women who set out to work by wealthy middle-class families were usually descendants of the clergy. They were competent to give proper education to children, and besides teaching they were also qualified enough to lay the grounds of the right manners and etiquette in them. The nature of the work these women completed from time to time was not at all homogeneous as not only teaching and moral education occurred among their tasks, but they were frequently requested and expected to perform certain duties of a housemaid as well... (Introduction)BSc/BAanglisztik