So what does a Jane
Eyre of Jane Eyre, Miss. Taylor from Emma, and Becky Sharpe
from Vanity Fair all have in common? They're governesses. Today, we'll be delving into not just
the basics of what a governess was, but really what was her life like
once she was forced into governessing. Because really, nobody aspired to
be a governess, rather it was their last ditch attempt to survive. My name is Ellie Dashwood and this is
my channel where I talk about classic literature, history and writing. If you like any of those
topics, please subscribe. So up first, let's just go
into the very basic textbook definition of what a governess was. A governess was a teacher. A family of the upper to middle-class
would hire her to come and live with them and teach their daughters from
a young age, up until her later teen years, all of the information she needed
to know to be an accomplished lady. She would receive room and boarding and
a small salary, anywhere between eight pounds and a hundred pounds a year. She was definitely underpaid
compared to male tutors that families would hire for their sons. What were her qualifications exactly? She just had to be a lady. She had to be born into the upper middle
class, received training from a governess like herself, and then pass all that
information on to the next generation. So what did a governess's day look like? Well, it was long, it was
hard and it was lonely. She would wake up, she'd give lessons
to her students in the morning. She'd watch them through play time. She'd sit through them at mealtime and
depending on the family and how many other servants they had, she might
be there at bedtime rolling up the little girl's hair in curlers so that
it would be curled for the next day. And then, some mothers of the household
would be super demanding and expect her to go help with the family sewing work. And this is what they
would do day in, day out. It was hard work. Okay. So now that we know the basics of what
a governess was, I want to go deeper. I really want to talk about where
are these governesses came from and what their position in society
was, what hope they have for the future, or rather lack of hope. And of course, we're going to be
talking about some great examples in classic literature for you. So first, where did governesses come from? What was their background? And the answer is that they were ladies
from the middle and upper-class that for some reason had to support themselves. Now there's a few different reasons
for this, but first let's go back to this fact that they had to be ladies. Now what a governess taught was not
what we usually think of as school. What they were teaching was, how
would it be a lady basically. Which yes, involved that education. Like we talked about with grammar
and literature and geography, and then of course these accomplishments,
like music and drawing and dancing, but also a large part of what they
were teaching was that air, the manners, the behavior of being a lady. Which might I just stop here for
a second and refer you to this scene from Pride and Prejudice. Has your governess left you? We never had a governess. The Bennet sisters never had a governess. Now let's watch the scene
from Pride and Prejudice. So had the Bennet sisters had a governess,
the second scene of Lydia running wild possibly could have never happened. Because essentially a governess would have
come in and taught those Bennet sisters the proper way to behave in society. But that's an entire side point. So while we're talking about these
governesses, that would teach girls such great accomplishments. I want to take just a minute
and talk about Skillshare. Yes. This is an ad for Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning
platform that for a monthly subscription fee, you can take
unlimited classes on their platform. They teach everything from writing
to drawing to digital painting. I took this class on digital painting. And it, let me make this
picture of Anne of Green Gables on the white way of delight. That yes, as I talked about
in the other video is pink. But as I said, I think it looks pretty. Basically Skillshare is a platform
where artists and experts in different fields create classes
to share their skills with you. Just like a governess shared the
skills she learned with her students. If you would like to try out
Skillshare for free, then click the link down below in the description. And thank you so much for
supporting my channel. So, okay. A governess was a lady, but more
importantly for the fact that she was a governess, she was without a husband and
without a means of financial support. So she actually had to work. Now how this lack of
financial support happened was different for every governess. But some of the main ways would either be
one, she came from poor genteel people. And this was the case for families
like the Brontës, the actual Brontës of Charlotte and Emily and Anne. They came from a genteel family. Their father was a clergyman. But he didn't have enough
money to support them. They had to support themselves,
but they did come from gentility. So that is one of the options. Your family was just
pretty much always poor. And so, for example, if you also look
at Margaret Hale and North and South. If she didn't have a rich aunt, and
if she didn't have a rich godfather, then she could have very possibly
had to end up being a governess too. Because her family was a very
poor, even though she was a lady. The other major reason is that
perhaps this girl's family was very well off most of her life,
but during Regency, in Victorian times, things were very uncertain. Businesses could be lost. A family's fortune could be lost
overnight because a bank failed. For example, we see this
in North and South when Mr. Thornton's father speculated
away their fortune. And then under his control, the
mill was lost because of strikes. And so these girls who were otherwise
brought up in a rich family could suddenly find themselves poor
and needing to support themselves because they don't have a husband. And of course, all of this is
assuming that the girl does not have a fortune or a dowery that is safe in
the bank, that she can pull it off. Because if that's the case, a girl
could be an old maid without having to resort to getting a job by
simply living off of her fortune. I talk all about that option in the video,
"Why are the Bennet sisters so poor?" So check that out, if you want
to know about dowries and old maids and living on fortunes. Okay. So this is what we have: governesses,
raised ladies, now either newly poor or oldly poor, needing to support themselves. Why? Because they don't have a husband. Okay. So now this is the major hugest
factor, which is they don't have a husband to support them. Which already makes them feel kind of
like failures because a woman's whole job during this time period was to
get married and then to have children. But of course they have not
been able to catch a man. Perhaps they were too poor to do so. Also during that time period, there
was just a shortage of men in England. The shortage was caused
by several reasons. One was, there was a lot of
colonization going on in places like Australia and Canada and America. And usually the people immigrating
to those countries would be men by themselves with no women. So you're having this mass exodus of men. The next factor is, especially
during the Regency times, you have the Napoleonic Wars going on. So all these men were in the army. And then they were off on
the continent, fighting a war and then a lot of them died. And then the third reason is that men
were marrying later in their lives. And some of them were not marrying
at all, especially the upper-class. Cause it was just cheaper
to not get married. And during this time it was
a very socially acceptable for a man to keep a mistress. And there were prostitutes
all over London. So men didn't really feel this need
to go and get married because it was just such this expense and burden. Which left a lot of these girls,
as I said, without a husband. So here you have this girl who
was raised to be a wife and mother in a very comfortable
middle to upper-class household. And now, because of a combination of
circumstances, she is poor and she has to support herself or end up on the street. So now what does she do? She has a very few occupational options. And the number one occupational option
for her was to become a governess. And go and teach all of those
skills that she learned to become this lady to other girls. Okay. So now we have this governess and
she's living with this family. She's teaching their daughters,
but her life, is now in this weird limbo situation. As I talked about in the video on
being a lady, a huge part of being a lady was not working, right? So now you have this girl, who's a lady,
but by being a governess, she's working. So what is she? And really governesses
inhabited a sphere of their own. That was super isolating and depressing
because they did not fit in either world. They were certainly not
of the working class. They weren't the servants in the household
and they were not of gentility completely anymore because they're working. But they're too high for one sphere. They're too low for the other sphere. They're caught in between with no equals. So how did this play out in everyday life? They were being rejected by everybody. Why? Well, for a lot of reasons, and
it all depended on what level of society, the person the governess
was interacting with was from. So the ideal family for governess
to work for would be the super rich. And we're talking about the upper
echelons of society like Lords and ladies, and also large landowning families,
basically people with big houses. And there are a few
different reasons for this. One is they valued governesses more. That level of family had been being
taught by governesses for generations. This was nothing new to them and
they valued their services and knowledge more than the people who
had lower status than they did. So for example, as I talk about in
"10 signs you might be a Victorian era housewife," the Victorian era saw
this explosion of the middle class. And these people wanted to look rich
and one of the ways they would do this would be by hiring governesses. Now they had never dealt
with governesses before. They didn't fully understand
a governess's position. And there were several other reasons
it was not pleasant to work for people who were newly rich or not that rich,
but I'll get into those in a minute. So back to working for the
super rich, basically it was nice because they valued them. Another reason is because they had
big houses, which meant governesses usually had their own rooms, but
also their own sitting room maybe. Some of them were able to have company
over to visit them, which would be a huge thing for a governess because
usually becoming a governess, completely separated them from their
friends, their family, they didn't get a visit or really see them ever. And then the third reason would
be because people of that status were not threatened by a governess. While, a governess was a lady, she usually
came from the middle to lower upper class. While the upper upper-class was above
her, even in her normal growing up. So basically she ranked below them,
even when she was simply a lady before she became a governess. And so they weren't threatened by her. Just as they wouldn't have been
threatened by her had she remained a lady. So a great example we see of this is Emma. Miss. Taylor has such a great
position at Hartfield. And one of the reasons is Hartfield is
a big house and they are very old money. They've had generations of
being taught by governesses. So she's accepted on the
terms of being a lady there. And so really Miss Taylor has a
pretty cush setup at Hartfield. So if you look at the lower upper class
and the middle class, you started to see more problems with governesses
because their houses were smaller. Governesses, maybe only had a very tiny
room in the attic, which actually put more pressure on her because she did not
get to sit with the family after dinner. She didn't get to sit with
the servants after dinner. She'd have to go back to her
tiny room all night, every night. And just sit there by herself. Because again, remember
she didn't fit anywhere. It was very rare for a governess
in the lower upper and middle class households to be accepted in. And one of the reasons is they feared her. Either as an example of what
their daughters might be. She's working for someone whose say, a
manufacturer ,that manufacturer's family looks at her and is like, "she used to
be a lady, but she's now on hard times. This might happen to my daughter. My daughter might end up a governess." And so there's this sort of
resentment and dislike of her. And so that's one of them. If you go low enough in the middle
class, what you have is people who are socially below these governesses. This governess is more of a lady
just from breeding and background and family history, then this new
middle-class could ever hope to be. And they resented her for that. And yet they were held in awe at her
ability to be a lady and they wanted their daughters to have it, but that
didn't make them really like her anymore because she was so above them. And then finally the servants of the
household didn't like her because here they had a treat her like a lady, but she
was earning a salary the same as them. So it seems like this
unfair double standard. And one of the major factors of
whether of governess would have a good position was the mother of
the household she went to work for. There's this big problem of mothers being
jealous of the governess, because part of being a lady was really not taking care of
your own kids cause that's too much work. Right. And as we learned being
a lady means not working. So that's where governess is and nannies
and nursery maids really came in. But then mothers are still mothers
and they're like, "but I want my kids to love me the most." Only you're never
interacting with your kids. Why would they love you the most? They barely see you. And so mothers would get very
jealous of the governess. Because of course the
governess is suspending all day every day with these kids. So the kids are going to start loving
her more than they love their mother. This makes the mother angry. And so a extra boost for a governess
would be if the mother was dead. Which is sad, but we definitely see
this in both Emma with Miss Taylor. And we also see this in Jane Eyre. Where their jobs are made so much
easier by the fact that there is no mother there to have to deal with. And one of the ways that this jealousy
would come out in the mother is that they would always side with their children. And they would really sort
of prevent the governess from enforcing any sort of discipline. So you have kids running wild, you have
kids hitting the governess, but the governess can't do anything because the
mother is going to side with the child. So now what I want to do is
let's watch this scene from Emma. That really involves all of these
factors we just talked about. And then we'll talk about it a bit. Who else have we visited? Oh the Westons, of course. I was rather astonished
to find her so ladylike. Cause I believe she was her governess. Okay. So here we see Mrs. Elton, who is middle-class. Her family comes from trade. Lady ranking wise, she is
not very high on the scale. Talking to Emma who does
come from very old money. Leave your ranking wise, she
has a lot going on for her. Now what they're doing is they're
discussing Emma's governess, Mrs Weston, who was of course, Miss Taylor originally. So now here, what you see is that
difference in respect and expectations of those two different classes. Emma, of course, it's like
my governoress was ladylike. Why would we hire a
non-ladylike governess? This is offensive to me that
you would even suggest a thing, and that the woman who brought
me up should be ladylike. I've never met her equal. because again, remember
she is of old money. She's very long in the gentility
where they respected governesses more. Meanwhile, we have Mrs. Elton being like, "Oh, wow, she's genteel. That's so surprising." AKA, I don't really respect governesses
and don't expect much from them. And of course this is a really
coming from a place of insecurity. Because let's just all face this much, Ms. Taylor, while we don't know a
lot about her background, from her position in the family. We can tell that more than likely she came
from a very genteel family of some sort. So that means Miss Taylor, now, Mrs. Weston would outrank Mrs. Elton, on terms of how lady there are. So really the lady like rankings
are going Emma, Miss Taylor/Mrs. Weston. And Mrs. Elton at the bottom. And so we can see how
Emma is bringing Mrs. Weston up. And her position is governess. While Mrs. Elton is trying to bring Mrs. Weston down. And like I said, it was all about
how you viewed governesses was from where you were at in society. So next step on the things that
made a governess's life hard was the fact that a lot of people
saw them as a sexual temptation. First to the husbands of the house. Which is why a lot of people, they
wanted a young governess because of course age-ism existed, but they
also wanted a plain governess because they didn't want a pretty young lady
living with them, tempting the man of the house to have an affair with her. And then of course there was the
next fear, which is that if the household had sons around her age. That one of them would run
off and marry the governess. And they just couldn't have that. Now, of course, literature at the time
was not helping the poor governesses out because there you have Jane Eyre, who does
end up married to the man of the house. Admittedly, he wasn't... well, he was married. So much stuff going on in Jane Eyre. And then you have Becky Sharpe
from Vanity Fair running off with one of the sons of the household. Overall literature was not helping
out the poor governess' plight. And we can see the stereotype talked
about in this scene from Jane Eyre. Governesses are a nuisance. All of them, they're
carrying on with the tutor. Or even worse, making eyes
at the master of the house. It was hard to be a governess. Now, how did all these
factors affect governesses? It made their lives hard and
lonely and uncertain, and sometimes they'd get emotionally attached to
these kids that they were pretty much raising for someone else. And then the mother would
come in and just fire them. So they had to learn how to
guard their hearts a lot. There was always this hope they
had like, "Hey, maybe I'll find a husband and I'll get married." And that did sometimes happen. We see that with Mrs. Weston and Emma. And we see Jane Fairfax being
saved before she even had to become a governess in Emma. But overall, a lot of them just live
these lives of isolation and kind of low grade depression, if not full
out depression, their whole life. And of course, once they hit a certain
age, unless they had a family that really loved them, and gave them an
annuity or kind of like a retirement fund, they would just end up in poverty. By the end of the 1800s, there
had actually been charities to help older, desperate governesses,
because it really was this problem. So how did it all of
this affect governesses? Well, let's take a look at
what Jane Fairfax has to say. As I have told you before, I
must wait until the summer. There are plenty of places which
deal in the governess trade. Oh dear. You make it sound like slavery. That's right. Jane Austen really likened
this to a slave trade. Obviously there are major differences,
but these women lived poor, unfulfilling, very hard lives, not of their own
choosing, but because it was the only way they could survive during that time. And how did this affect society? Well, one is the governess
figure dominated literature. Of course you look at
Jane Eyre, Becky Sharpe. These are huge governess based novels. And it was actually really interesting
because Jane Eyre, the novel was criticized because the governess
didn't just sit there and accept her position and think it was great. There really was this concept during that
time that if you were poor and friendless and penniless and living this hard life,
That's the life, God destined you to live. And if you were in any way complaining
or unhappy with this lot, and there's something wrong with you. Not only was Regency and Victorian
England hard to live in, but apparently you had to be happy
about it to make anybody else happy. Of course, this literature also
heightened the fear among the upper and middle classes that these
governesss were after their men. And ultimately. The whole system of governessing
held women back educationally because their education, not only was it not
standardized, but it was not very good. If you had a governess who was
supposed to teach you French, but she didn't really know, like, so she's
teaching you in a very poor accent. What she thinks is right, imagine how
that's going to affect your French, right? You're not going to be very good at it. And if you become a governess,
you're going to go and you're going to teach the next person that. Ultimately women had a hard time
advancing in almost any sphere because they were only as good as their teachers. And a lot of their teachers
were not very good. And this actually led people to
believe that women just weren't smart. It's really a cause and effect situation
of like, "Oh, well, women don't understand this, so they must not be very smart". When it's like, "Well,
you never taught them. But you teach all the boys
and you think they're smart. But you don't teach the
same thing to girls. And then you just assume they're dumb." I also never said these time
periods were logical either. Anyway, that's it for our
video today on governesses. Do you think you'd be happy as a
governess during this time period? And if so, what subject
would you want to teach most? Let me know in the comments
below and have an awesome day. Cause you're awesome.
