Her Oxford

1. Parting the Curtains

1 1 Parting the Curtains I f queried, Victorian Englishmen would probably have answered that most middle-class women of marriageable age were, or soon would be, wives and mothers. These Englishmen might have been surprised by the 1851 census. Out of a population of almost eighteen million, women outnumbered men in Great Britain by over 500,000, and more than 800,000 women—almost 10 percent of the female population— were classified as spinsters. The disparity in numbers of men and women continued to grow throughout the century; there were 1.4 million more women than men by 1911. A contributing factor was the higher mortality rate for young boys; fewer boys than girls survived past the age of fifteen.1 The imbalance was, however, especially great among the middle classes, and other factors besides mortality played into it. More men than women from this class were emigrating; they ventured to the far corners of the empire and often stayed away from England for many years, if not for life. Moreover, middle-class men who remained at home were increasingly disinclined to marry until they had accumulated enough capital to feel financially secure. To compound the problem, middle-class mothers and fathers expected their daughters to maintain or elevate their social status by marriage ; young women who married beneath their station could bring disgrace on themselves and their families. With suitable men in short supply, therefore, middle-class women could not be assured of finding husbands, which they had been taught to accept as their primary goal in life. Middle-class daughters who did not marry could prove a serious financial drain on their families. Typically, their fathers were business, clerical, or professional men who relied solely on earned income, which might not stretch to supporting unmarried daughters at home for life. If these fathers died prematurely, became disabled, or lost their jobs, the future could look ominous. Women who had no marriage prospects or financial resources were compelled to enter the labor market. To maintain respectability, they needed to find work commensurate with their social status—not an easy task. By 1850, more than twenty-four thousand “surplus women” were trying to keep body and soul together by working as governesses. Being a 2 Her Oxford governess was almost the only employment suitable for genteel girls who had to earn their own living, though it was a poorly paid, crowded field. In most cases, these young women had nothing except their gentility to recommend them to prospective employers. They had received little or no schooling, and their lack of knowledge was profound. They had had few opportunities to obtain any qualifications that would allow them to compete successfully with French and German women seeking employment as governesses in England, who might possess diplomas or other proofs of training. The handful of schools to which middle-class girls had access in midVictorian England were expensive and offered little beyond a smattering of French and a rudimentary knowledge of singing, dancing, and drawing . They were more like finishing schools, turning out young women who were graceful adornments to the drawing room or the tea table but who were woefully ignorant of grammar, history, or arithmetic. Their goal was marriage and motherhood, and if they needed an acceptable outlet from domesticity, they could turn to voluntary charitable work. Education was not considered necessary for any of these roles. In fact, many people believed education would prove a liability on the marriage market because it would diminish a woman’s femininity and render her less attractive to men. Writing Emma in 1816, Jane Austen slyly poked fun at the low expectations for girls’ education. Though seeming to praise Mrs. Goddard’s village school, in contrast to others where young ladies were primarily taught to be elegant know-nothings, Jane Austen described the establishment as a real, honest, old-fashioned boarding-school where a reasonable quantity of accomplishments were sold at a reasonable price, and where girls might be sent to be out of the way, and scramble themselves into a little education, without any danger of coming back prodigies.2 As Austen implies, most parents did not want their daughters challenged intellectually. Many people firmly believed that serious study could adversely affect a growing girl’s physical and mental health, maintaining that such an expenditure of energy would inhibit natural reproductive development . Headmistresses often had no qualifications for managing even the most inadequate of schools, but because the education of girls commanded...