- Jane Austen's Cottage At Chawrton - Sylvia Kent
There are countless book about the life of Jane Austen. The fascination with this novelist who only published six books within her short lifetime (1775-1817) is widespread with ever-increasing generations of readers falling under her spell.
Jane Austen's Household
One of the secrets of her success – other than her intriguing stories - is perhaps, her vignettes in which she gives readers a flavour of the ordinary life of those Regency times (1811-1817). So we learn of the minutiae of running a middle-class family household, one whose competent control of a large house and family, occupied a great deal of female time and energy.
To take pleasure in housekeeping is a virtue in Jane Austen’s world. Her approval is bestowed on minor characters in her novels, like Mrs Grant and Charlotte Collins (Pride and Prejudice) each of whom compensates for less-than-happy marriages by deriving pleasure from "her home and her housekeeping, her parish and her poultry, and all their dependant concerns".
Women of the time whose husbands were rich enough to employ a housekeeper and a maid or two, had time and freedom to spend paying visits to family and friends, practising their painting techniques and needlework, play pianoforte and learn accomplishments honed to attract a rich husband.
None of the characters in Jane Austen’s novels would have done their own cooking or housework, but many of them did have to oversee and guide a servant or two. This was the case for Jane’s mother. Mrs Austen gave birth to eight children, the second of whom, George, was brain damaged.
Steventon Rectory, Jane's environment, must have reverberated to the sound of children as they were growing up. There were always around a dozen people sitting around the dining room table and virtually all the food they consumed was baked, brewed, churned, preserved and cooked at the Rectory. This must have been an enormous task which is where extra housemaids were absolutely necessary.
Preparing for Spinsterhood
Mrs Austen undoubtedly initiated her two daughters into the art of domesticity. Since they were unlikely to marry men rich enough to afford a housekeeper, they had to know how to manage a house and home by themselves, perhaps on a limited income. Even women who might not marry, could probably be called on to keep house for a widowed or bachelor brother or aged parents. This, of course, happened to Jane’s elder sister Cassandra, who, in her middle twenties took over the role of housekeeper from her mother. Had Cassandra married or died, the role would have probably fallen to Jane.
A peaceful, well ordered framework was a happy home as far as Jane was concerned. Her maxim, that a good housekeeper was one who kept within her budget, who created a comfortable home for her family and who was hospitable to guests, has actually never really gone out of fashion.
Mansfield Park
The topic of good housewifery arises in Mansfield Park. Mrs Price is decidedly incompetent and slovenly with no control over her servants. Her food is awful and she is always in a mess, behind with her cooking and cleaning and her food is disgusting. Then we have her sister, Mrs Norris who is a mean economiser for its own sake, not out of necessity. Her frugality is an unpleasant characteristic, especially as she is always criticising other women’s wastefulness. Fanny Price concludes, after suffering under her mother’s roof, "Mrs Norris would have been a more respectable mother of nine children, on a small income".
Source: Jane Austen - A Life by Claire Tomalin (1997), A Portrait of Jane Austen by David Cecil (Penguin (1978)
