{"id":15987,"date":"2022-07-08T16:30:32","date_gmt":"2022-07-08T14:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=25802"},"modified":"2022-07-08T17:04:10","modified_gmt":"2022-07-08T15:04:10","slug":"regency-romance-and-a-real-life-anne-elliot","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/regency-romance-and-a-real-life-anne-elliot\/","title":{"rendered":"Regency romance and a real-life Anne Elliot"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Elinor Evans\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Friday, 08 July 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Although the Regency period in which Jane Austen<\/a> passed her uneventful adult life is arguably more associated with her than with anyone else, the picture her novels paint of society at that time is often quite limited.<\/p>\n

For the most part, she avoids the nobility, the labouring class and, with more exceptions, the middle class. She concentrates instead on the higher gentry (landowners and people of established wealth, including baronets), and to a lesser extent on the \u2018pseudo-gentry\u2019 to which she belonged (families with small private incomes or breadwinners in respectable professions).<\/p>\n

Much of Jane Austen\u2019s knowledge of the higher gentry derived from sojourns at Godmersham Park in Kent, the home of her brother Edward Knight, who had been adopted by rich, childless relations.<\/p>\n

Read more |<\/strong> What did Jane Austen really look like?<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>
Within such houses, people followed steady but not inflexible routines, pursued outdoor activities, and ate hearty meals, always surrounded by an efficient body of servants. It was a privileged life, but not altogether an idle one.<\/p>\n
The lady of the house would supervise her cook and housekeeper and manage her domestic accounts. She was likely to make clothes for and visit the poor, perform other charitable work, entertain guests, and keep up a wide correspondence.<\/p>\n
If she had daughters, she often took charge of aspects of their education. Her husband\u2019s main duty was to manage the estate and look after his tenants. He might beautify his house and grounds, involve himself in parish matters, or act as a magistrate. He could also serve as a member of parliament, for which he received no salary.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, there was plenty of time for leisure, much of it devoted to socialising. Within a locality, the prominent families were forever drinking tea, dining and dancing in each other\u2019s houses or coming together for excursions. Such activity was more than an agreeable distraction for people with time on their hands. It allowed individuals to acquire the outward conduct and moral values of their peers and create bonds of solidarity among the gentry as a class, and expressed its role as an arbiter in the art of living.<\/p>\n
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