Sense and Sensibility, #2 Social Rules That Effect Women!
Spoiler alert. I will be talking about Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austin throughout this post as if someone has read the book. The Audiobook is available free on Youtube and can be read on line free as the book was published in 1811 and no longer under copyright laws.
Women being put on the shelf after a certain age and their only job being to take care of their husband and children. This has changed but this rule goes to a lot of what happens to single, married, widowed, and divorced mothers. Mrs. Dashwood who is 40 and the girls mother, does not have a first name in the whole book. She is a supporting character that is a spendthrift that has to be directed by her oldest daughter throughout the book as she is a widow and no longer has a husband to control her actions. In addition, she was never taught to take care of herself or the financial issues. She lives in a fantasy world were her life is over except for marrying her daughters off and making sure that one of them at least marries well enough to take her in during her old age.
As a widow, she only has the money and things that were left by her husband to her and no thought to remarry as why would a man marry a women who has already had children and can’t produce more. As a second wife, she was lower class then her husband but upon marrying she had a few things going for her. Her older husband only had one son from the his first marriage which allowed the hope that he might not make it to adulthood, i.e. just under 50% of children did not make it their fifth birthday. The causes were tuberculosis, smallpox, diphtheria, scarlet fever, accidents, poor food and housing conditions.
Smallpox would kill about 80% of children who got it. In 1796, Edward Jenner created a smallpox vaccine which help prevent smallpox but it was only given to those that would afford the vaccine and only those that wanted their children to get the vaccine as many people at the time had not hear of it or were suspicious of vaccines. In 1967, The World Health Organization launched a plan to eradicate smallpox through immunization and surveillance. The last know case was in 1977.
The only know smallpox virus is still held in two laboratories, one in the United States and one in Russia. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia holds the United States virus and had vaccines stocked pile plus staff that is ready to vaccinate in the case that it is used as a bioterrorist weapon.
But back to Mrs. Dashwood. Upon marrying, she was to produce children and more importantly, a son that could take over the name and lands should something happen to the John Dashwood. As John Dashwood made it to adulthood and produced a son. She had only daughters to relay on for her future, or I should say her son in laws to be plus the small amount of money and furniture from her husband estate. Her only job was to marry off her daughters and wait for death as she had no other value in society.
Mrs. Jennings had completed her job of marrying off her daughters. She was better off then Mrs. Dashwood as she had the money to have a house in London and was able to travel. But she was no longer a part of the society as who needs to invite her to parties or come to her parties without a young person of marriable age to marry off or a husband that others needed to do business with. Therefore, she became a match maker and collected girls from other women that did not have the means to carry them away to London.
London was a place to visit for most of the upper levels of society to make connections, get married, and do business deals in the season which was between November and July. Most stayed in the country for the rest of the year at their estates to promote farming, get out of the London heat, and tend to their lands. But London without anything to do was not the thing.
Mrs. Jennings was quick to pickup that Coloanal Brandon was interested in Marianne. Marianne, on the other hand, was not interested in a man of thirty five. Elinor stated, “thirty-five and seventeen had better not have any thing to do with matrimony together.” As she was trying to help her sister side step Mrs. Jennings match making attempts but it did not. Marianne in turn believes that he should be looking at a women of 27 to provide him with a nurse. The women would be comfort should she not have married prior due to a small fortune. A commercial exchange for Marianne part. Mrs. Jennings is undaunted and pushed to get them together as often as possible throughout the book.
The whole part of age on a women and her role in society comes into play. Mrs. Dashwood and Mrs. Jennings as over the hill with only setting up good marriages as they are no longer in play to remarry themselves or have any other role in life but to watch the younger women start their lives and possible help in the raising of the grandchildren. They have been sidelined with nothing to do. They are out to pasture. Even as Mrs. Jennings is pushing to take over the role to get the sisters married off, Mrs. Dashwood as little left to do but spend time with the youngest daughter. She is stuck in the country due to lack of funds and Mrs. Jennings takes her role as guardian for the two older sister in London.
The conversation between the two sisters to Mrs. Jennings shows that if a women does not marry before 27, she is as good as an old maid and is not worth much but that of a women taking care of an older man to ensure that she has money to take care of herself.
At this time a females role in life was childhood, marriageable age to be married off, wife, mother, then a burden to the family when their husband died, if they out lived him. Those that did not end up married were just a burden on the family and looked down on. Their lives were usually that of slave in the family, caregivers to young or older relatives, and generally, not treated kindly as they had no value. Not unlike Jane Austin herself.
How does this effect women today?
Woman are still pushed to get married and have children. They can have a great career but are still be put down by friends, family, and society for not getting married and had children. Men still go after women that are half their age and get them. If a women does the same, she is called a cougar which is not a compliment but rather a slight. Because the value of a women is her age in our society.
As age is a part of a women’s value in our society, less women will marry or remarry after the age of 50. Men over the age of 50 are more likely to remarry. But this is were it gets real. If less women over the age of 50 marry or remarry, then who are those men over 50 marrying? They are marrying younger women which still have higher value unlike older women in our society.
Hollywood helped keep this in our minds as you got paid differently as a women vs a man. As a man, you would be paid as you got into your career and could still play the leading role until you were much older. For example, Cary Grant was the romance lead in Charade at the age of 59. His leading lady was Audrey Hepburn age 33. As the lead, you make more money as you are drawing people to the movie theater.
In Hollywood, women’s role were child, romantic lead, side kick, wife, and older female. As a child, you generally were paid scale unless you were a Shirly Temple. As romantic lead, you were paid the most as a woman. This was when you were young and beautiful. The side kick was not paid as much but you did not have to be very beautiful but homely as to not distract from the leading lady. But the moment a female actress started to be called, Ma’am, her career just took a dive. You now get the wife or older female roles and the money goes down as most of these are not the lead roles or you see these actresses playing roles that are not really in their age range. This changed in the late 1990’s with The First Wives Club with Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn and Diane Keaton who all turned 50 during the filming. But it still holds true today as actresses are turned over but actors can play the lead until almost death.
Most films are made for characters that are between 18 to 50. It is the time in most people life that are the most exciting and that you are having things happen that are interesting. Women are generally younger in the movies and are past over for rules as they move into their mid 30’s and by 45 or younger, those roles go to younger actresses and they are cycled out of the main roles to that of wife or older woman which pay much less. But you have Harrison Ford playing Indiana Jones at 80. The younger the women in Hollywood is, the more she will make but once she is wife age. Her roles and status decrease.
Society values women less and less as the age. Women are not looked to for wisdom or advice as we have had our time, according to social rules, but rather pushed aside to allow the younger women to take over. Men’s value increases as they have money and wisdom to give according to society rules. Beauty is a women’s asset. If she has money, she is only valued to care for herself or to marry so that her husband can take the money from her and take care of it.
But if you check your favorite shows, the people around you, etc. You can see this underlining believe that a women age is valued more the younger she is. Fanny, John Dashwood’s wife, is about 19 years old in this book. She pushes out Mrs. Dashwood who is between 35 and 40 as she takes over her household without regards to her feelings. The three Miss. Dashwood’s are lucky that their mother lived past her father’s passing as John Dashwood and therefore, Fanny would have been in charge of them until they become of legal age of 21. She would also have been in charge of their money and if they could or could not get married.
Mrs. Jennings is only valued as she has time and money to be a matchmaker. But her daughters use her for babysitting and entertainment. She was one of the lucky females of the day. She keep a bit of status because she was left with a bit of money. But she would never be seen as a new wife unless a man needed a nurse and she was without funds.
Things have changed but this still holds true as women are still valued for their youth and beauty. But what is also true is that women change when they go through menopause. Before menopause, women have higher estrogen which pushes them to make sure that everyone around them is doing well and nesting activity to keep house. As that decreases so do women, give a shit button. I think that this is the one of the reasons that women don’t get married after 50. They lost the ability to want to nest and clean up after a man.
Unfortunately, it is estimated that 50% of our homeless will be women over 50 year old by 2030. But it is history that makes them homeless as most women gave up time in careers to help with raising children or taking care of family members including an older husband. The unpaid work that most of them have done rather then work a successful career have left them with little money for retirement or an ability to make money in good paying careers as they age and have to go back to work. Plus women were and still are paid less for the same work.
Even if women take a job at Walmart or the Dollar Store, they are giving the jobs that pay the lowest and the men are giving those that pay more, i.e. women generally offered cash register positions and men are offered stocking positions. These are federal minimum wage at $7.25 vs at least 12 dollars an hour or more. That is $4.75 more an hour or $190 per week for 40 hours which is about $823 more a month. I understand that it is not the same job but this holds for women who are older or younger. But that is enough to do much better in life and getting off the street.
Many of those women did everything right. But their husband’s left them or their husband’s become ill and needed medical care which took out many assets and had to be moved to assistant living later after the assets were spent down. Depending on the state and the laws of the state plus the value of the amounts of assets that the couple have, the women may lose a lot of their lifestyle and even have to pay spousal support if they work to nursing homes. Or died on them and took their security away as the retirement was paid only to the husband plus they get less in Social Security then he did.
As people live longer, I see more women going into this position. As women over 50 are not seen as valuable, I don’t see that they will be getting out of this but rather that our streets will fill up with less druggies, homeless vets, etc. and more women of 50 years old based on our pasts history of making women less important as they age.