Vickie Rozell

Director/Dramaturg, Author, Editor

As Jane Austen was writing her novels, England was experiencing great change. The population had nearly doubled since 1760, the Industrial Revolution was changing lives, and the enclosure acts were privatizing public grazing land. By 1800 this had created the hedged land that is familiar in the English countryside to this day. In addition, in 1811 King George III was declared insane and his son became Prince Regent, giving rise to the period called The Regency, which lasted from 1811-1820.

Society in this time was extremely hierarchical, although its rigidity was showing cracks as some members of the new middle class were beginning to buy land, through which status was conferred. At the top of society was aristocracy, which consisted of about 200 families who were led by people of rank (Dukes, Marquises, Earls, and Viscounts). Their homes were on a grand scale and were as much bastions of power as they were homes.

Below them in the societal hierarchy were the landed gentry, often seen in Austen’s novels, some of whom were titled and some who were not. Like many of the aristocracy, these families had income from rents (land was the major source of status at this time). In most cases, the eldest son inherited the family estate and the younger sons would have to have an income of some type, usually from the church, the armed forces, or the law.

The next level down was the middle class, peopled by surgeons, apothecaries, merchants, musicians, and teachers. Following them were tradesmen, tenant farmers, and clerks, and then the laborers and servants who made up the vast majority of the population, and finally the poor.

In general, education was reserved for boys, although some families did educate their daughters. Boys would be taught Latin, Greek, and mathematics, either by a tutor or at a public school (similar to American private schools). When men were older, after or instead of university, they would often take a Grand Tour, traveling to Europe to experience other cultures and practice their languages.

England’s state religion was the Church of England, as it had been since the country broke from the Catholic Church at the time of Henry VIII, and its tenets were followed by all but a small minority of people. The clergy had an enormous span in their standard of living, but most country parsons would receive a few hundred pounds, with Bishops earning substantially more and curates substantially less. Unlike now, clergy did not apply to a central authority for a job, but found vacancies through private landowners or the government, although some were available through the church.

Society at this time was ruled by a well-known code of manners that was to be followed at all levels of society. For example, the use of first names was very restricted, rarely being used outside the immediate family. So, for someone to call even a friend by their first name was considered rude. One of the few exceptions to this would be a person of higher rank who could call a friend of lower rank by their first name by way of showing favor. Between men and women who were not engaged or related, however, such familiarity would be virtually unthinkable.

Other points of courtesy were equally important. Two people would never speak to each other unless properly introduced by a third, men did not greet women in public without first being acknowledged, even if they had already met, and calling on people in their homes had its own strict rules of precedence and order.

Clothing during the Regency was markedly different from what came before in the Georgian period and what followed in the Victorian period. The Georgian period was famous for excess in the form of over decoration of clothing, heavy makeup, and women’s hair styles not only excessively tall but highly decorated with ribbons, glass ornaments, and fruit. Men wore huge wigs, waistcoats with bows and buttons, and shoes with high heels. Likewise, the Victorian period featured thick fabrics and full skirts, almost totally obscuring the woman’s natural attributes. On the other hand, during the Regency, from the 1790s to about 1820, women’s fashion was in one of its most revealing periods. Dresses were made of light, often semi-transparent fabrics with high Empire waists just under the bust, which featured a classical simplicity reminiscent of Greek statuary, and much less fabric than the stiff materials and hoops that preceded and followed. These new fashions also tended to reduce the divide between the classes. Because the dresses required much less fabric and the fabric itself was thinner and less expensive, a middle class woman could wear a dress very much like that of her counterpart in the landed gentry.

In the case of men, the simplicity of Regency clothing did away with powdered wigs, brocade, and ornamentation, and introduced simple light colored pants tucked into boots, plain dark cut away coats, short, unpowdered hair and, for evening dress, silk stockings and pumps.

The eighteenth century brought great increases in both leisure time and literacy. As the gentry and some of the middle class gained greater wealth, they found they had free time to fill that they had previously dedicated to earning money. This lead to many leisure pursuits, including extensive letter writing, card playing, drawing, music, and reading.

Most women of the gentry still ran their own households, overseeing food purchase and preparation, cleanliness, etc., although they didn’t do the work. Anyone, at any level of society, who could afford even a single servant would have one--even those relatively badly off would have one maid-of-all-work, thus leaving the family to other pursuits.

Most private activities like letter writing, drawing, practicing the piano, or reading would happen in the morning before breakfast, which tended to be between 9 and 10am. Letter writing was a popular activity since it was the only way to communicate across long, or even short, distances. In the early 19 century, postage was paid by the recipient, and the cost was calculated by the distance covered, unless it was local enough to be hand delivered by a servant. Most letters were only one page long, part of which had to be reserved for the name of the recipient, so people became expert at not only writing very small, but in writing crossways across already written text in order to include more information. It was considered inappropriate for a single man and woman to write to each other, unless, of course they were family members, which offered great fodder for novelists in the form of secret correspondence between couples. Interestingly, it was considered normal practice to share letters with others, so much so that people expected that others would read their letters.

What we think of as a midday meal was only beginning to exist, at this point it was fairly ad hoc. The “evening” meal had for centuries been eaten in the middle of the day, because of a lack of light by which to cook later in the day. This changed in the early 19 century, however, as the more fashionable people started eating later and later. By 1808, at least at the Austen home, the meal was being eaten at 5pm. Regardless of when it was eaten, dinner was the largest meal and biggest event of the day. It was very elaborate, with as many courses as the household’s budget would allow with multiple main dishes and vegetables as well as desserts and wine.

At this time, the British didn’t take tea as an afternoon meal as we know it now. Tea and coffee were still fairly expensive commodities, so they were kept under lock and key by the mistress of the house and would often be taken only in the morning and evening. After dinner, the women would go into the drawing room, leaving the men in the dining room to drink, smoke, and discuss topics unsuitable for conversation with ladies. After an hour or so, the men would join the women, at which point the whole party would have tea.

The final meal of the day, supper, got pushed continually later by the encroachment of the evening meal, slowly becoming more of a late snack, unless there was a ball which would justify a larger meal.

In the evenings, people did not engage in individual activities like reading and letter writing, rather everyone, including dinner guests, would talk, play cards, or enjoy live music. In most cases, the music would be played by the women of the party, since being able to play music, especially on the pianoforte, was considered a necessary skill for any young woman of the gentry. Most young women also sang, either accompanying themselves or together with another woman. Occasionally a man would join them, but in general it was their job to listen and to appreciate the performances.

Sometimes, at the end of a dinner party, the furniture would be moved away to allow the young people of the party to dance, but the more exciting choice was to give or attend a ball. A ball usually included a sit-down dinner as well as the dancing, and was augmented by card games for the older or those attendees uninterested in dancing. Like everything else in society, there were strict rules governing behavior at a ball. This included a prohibition against casual conversation without a formal introduction, but dancing offered unprecedented opportunities for private conversations that were forbidden anywhere but on the dance floor. It also allowed the opportunity to meet new people, show off one’s finest attire, and even to flirt, if the occasion arose.

The dances were stylized, with specific steps which produced aesthetically pleasing patterns in squares, circles, or, more commonly, in long lines. While the younger people danced, their elders would talk, play cards, or admire the dancers. At the end of each dance, it was up to the gentleman to escort the lady back to her chaperone. While unattached men were allowed to roam the ball, women were required to be escorted.

The world of the Regency was a difficult place for women. They were thought less intelligent than men, and therefore received very little education. What they did receive was usually very simplistic and aimed only at attracting a husband, so it focused more on the “social graces” than on actual learning. For example, drawing, singing, dancing, playing musical instruments, and running a household were emphasized to the detriment of subjects like Latin and arithmetic.

Generally, women of the gentry did not work (there were a few exceptions like teachers and governesses), and had to depend on making a good marriage in order to secure not only their social position, but their livelihood. Courtship, of course, was governed by many rules, most established to protect a woman’s reputation. Before a couple was engaged, they could not call each other by first names, be alone together, correspond, or touch in any but the most restrained way. Any one of these activities would indicate the couple was engaged to an outside observer. The closest they might come to privacy would be walking outside with an understanding escort who would walk apart from them, but still within sight. Women were not even supposed to respond to the attentions of a man before he had made his intentions explicitly known—meaning the time he proposed. Any deviation from the rules of decorum might imply a loss of virtue for the woman.

In order to propose a man had to manage to be alone with the woman long enough to indicate his intentions. If the woman turned him down, it was considered honorable for her to keep that information to herself.

In general, women were married before they turned twenty-five, and marrying in their teens was quite common. With a lack of birth control, women often had many children, and death in childbirth was not uncommon. For example, three of Jane Austen’s brothers lost wives in childbirth, two of them with their eleventh child. Women who never married had to rely on relatives for their support, or find work in a world of limited opportunity.

Women, including Austen, were beginning to break this mold. The relatively new genre of the novel attracted a number of female authors, although many people looked down on them and their work. It would be many years before the idea of independent women gained society’s respect.

© Vickie Rozell, All Rights Reserved

Reproduction only with permission