Eyre Conditioning Trivia Quiz

Answer: A farm worker's daughter

As being a governess depended as much on the way you spoke and behaved as your education; most farmer's daughters didn't have a hope. Being a poor but genteel woman was a very scary because there were very few options open to you. Young women from rich families stayed home till they got married. Poor women went out to work in factories, shops or on farms. Women who had been raised genteelly were faced with looking for about the only job open to them, being a teacher or governess. The Bronte sisters, Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, and Lucy Maud Montgomery all either considered teaching or were teachers at one time in their lives.

And no married woman was ever hired as a governess. That would have been immoral. Older widows were sometimes considered acceptable.

Answer: Cooking

'Mothers and Governesses' by Mary Atkinson Maurice (1847) outlines the ideal governess: '...ladylike, in both mind and manners...a patient temper and cheerful disposition...English studies, as well as Parisian French fluently spoken...as well as German or Italian...drawing and music.' Further, 'The Complete Governess' by 'an experienced teacher' (1825) provides instruction in teaching English, Arithmetic, Geometry, Natural Philosophy, Geography, Astronomy, Botany, Zoology, and Accomplishments (dancing, needlework, music, drawing).

Therefore, Jane Eyre had the right stuff. She was a poor relation raised in an upper-class family, went to a good charity school, and she could speak French because that school had a Frenchwoman as a teacher.

Cooking was not necessary. Cooks did that.

Answer: False

Mary Atkinson Maurice in her 1845 handbook 'Mothers and Governesses' reports that in the average wage for a governess per year was about £20 a year (while cooks and gardeners are listed at £50 for the same period). She reports that many advertisements for governess positions stated that 'No salary is given because it is hoped that a comfortable home will be considered sufficient remuneration.' Maurice adds '...alas! There are many who accept these offers as a way of escaping starvation'.

There was some help available. In 1841 The Governesses' Benevolent Fund was established in England to help governesses in financial trouble. They list name after name of women in distress who have to provide for parents and siblings as well as themselves. The Benevolent Fund included a savings bank, a home for retired governesses and training provided for new ones. The Establishment for Gentlewomen during Temporary Illness opened in 1850 and Florence Nightingale became director. It was a charity hospital for penniless ex-governesses. Florence left for the Crimea in 1854.

Answer: Adventure, new people and places

"How delightful it would be to be a governess! To go out into the world; to enter upon a new life; to act for myself; to exercise my unused faculties; to try my unknown powers." writes Anne Bronte in the first chapter of 'Agnes Grey'. In 'Jane Eyre', Charlotte Bronte writes, 'now I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had courage to go forth into its expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils.'

For many young women of genteel family in the 19th century, life could be boring and confining. The idea of heading out on one's own seemed to many a really wonderful thing. And not all of them ended up at windswept Thornfield Halls. They sometimes went further afield, to other countries. At the turn of the 20th century, for example, there were about 8000 British governesses in Russia, where English had become very popular among the upper classes. 'Mothers and Governesses' (1849) states that English governesses abroad, especially in France, were treated with far more consideration than at home.
Some went as far as Australia, where with all the single men around, governesses got married pretty quickly. Anna Leonowens (inspiration for 'The King and I') went even farther, all the way to Siam.

Answer: Loneliness and humiliation

The biggest problem a governess faced is that she was neither fish nor fowl. First, the minute a 'lady' started working she stopped being a lady and was dropped by most of her friends. Once in the household she served, things did not get better. As the author of 'Mothers and Governesses' explains, the governess occupied a 'dubious position'. 'She is neither the companion of the parents nor the friend of the children and she is above the domestics. She therefore stands alone....A governess is looked upon as a necessary evil.' Sometimes the isolation was somewhat self-imposed. A young woman of noble but poor family who has been hired by wealthy industrialists would feel herself to be 'above' everybody in the house.

'Jane Eyre' is a governess's fantasy. The servants are kind, the attractive master is her intellectual equal and wants to spend his evenings with her. Little Adele is loving and motherless. Charlotte Bronte, the real-life governess, didn't have it so easy. Her employment with the Sidgwick family in 1839 was pretty terrible. Mrs. Sidgwick appears in 'Jane Eyre' as Mrs. Reed, the woman who spoiled her children and abused Jane. As Charlotte wrote to a friend at the time, ''Mrs Sidgwick is generally considered an agreeable woman...but O Ellen does this compensate for the absence of every fine feeling of every gentle - and delicate sentiment?'

Jane Austen, another clergyman's daughter in straightened circumstances wrote in 'Emma'; 'I was not thinking of the slave-trade,' replied Jane [Fairfax]; 'governess-trade, I assure you, was all that I had in view; widely different certainly as to the guilt of those who carry it on; but as to the greater misery of the victims, I do not know where it lies.' (1815)

Answer: French

Governesses generally had a lot to deal with in the 19th century, but foreign governesses had to deal with a lot more. As French was a must-speak for well brought up girls, uppercrust families often hired French governesses in order to impart a 'pure' accent to their charges.

These foreign imports had to overcome two obstacles. The first was prevalent cultural stereotypes. By the 19th century France had gained a reputation for naughtiness and mindless gaiety that was highly suspect. In 'Mothers and Governesses' Mary Atkinson Maurice begs 'English mothers! if you wish to spoil the purity of your daughters' minds, to sap their morals, to destroy their simplicity, place them in the hands of a French governess!' Jane Eyre congratulates herself that in the case of little Adele, '... a sound English education corrected in a great measure her French defects.'

Frenchwomen also tended to be Roman Catholics, a thing held in deep suspicion by English Protestants. Charlotte Bronte spends most of 'Villette' disrespecting Catholicism and the character flaws she believed it instilled in its followers. The ideal foreign governess was Swiss; she could speak both French and German and was more likely to be a Protestant.

Letters to "The Times" in London during the 1840s point to another problem foreign teachers faced. Agencies in England hiring governesses abroad were often unreliable, and women who had spent their last Franc on a ticket were left stranded once in England with no job.

Answer: False

The official line at the time was don't lay a hand on them. And many didn't. In 'Jane Eyre', Louisa Eshton remembers her governess like this. 'We might do what we pleased; ransack her desk and her workbox, and turn her drawers inside out; and she was so good-natured, she would give as anything we asked for.' Susan Ridout in 'Letters to a Young Governess' (1840) warns that parents will believe their children, not the governess, so be very careful. She recommended a Christian 'lead by example' course, and a lot of prayer. And they needed it.

But for children of neglectful or absent parents, things could be different. Governesses, often angry, lonely and frustrated, resorted to slapping, beatings and humiliation. Katheryn Hughes in 'The Victorian Governess' (2014) reports of even more exotic punishments. A weird spinoff of this kind of treatment could only be called Victorian governess pornography; erotic stories of out of control governesses beating and sexually abusing children. It was a very popular diversion in its day.

On the bright side, there were children who became very attached to their governesses. In fact, Susan Ridout, in 'Letters to a Young Governess' (1840) points out numerous examples of attachments to governesses in childhood that resulted in friendships that lasted into adulthood.

Answer: To avoid getting hit on by men

'If there are young men in the family where you reside, remember that your carriage will generally govern theirs; they will not presume, if you are discreet and unpretending,' advises Susan Ridout in 1840. Hmm...I've heard that before. Mary Atkins Maurice warned that the governess, in an unguarded moment might do 'something she will regret for the rest of her life.'

In 'The Victorian Governess' (2014), Kathryn Hughes points to many examples she's found in letters and diaries written in the 19th century by governesses of being flirted with, kissed and groped. Complaining meant instant dismissal without a reference. One young woman wrote of her terror every night, when the father of the family would come upstairs with the children with the excuse of tucking them in. He would wait till the children were in bed then go after her.

Socially isolated within the home, the governess was easy prey.

Answer: The governess gets married to someone rich

Jane Eyre marries Mr. Rochester. Miss Temple, in Jane Austen's 'Emma', marries Squire Weston. Even Becky Sharp, the schemer in Thackeray's 'Vanity Fair' runs off with Rawdon Crawley. There were hundreds of novels that appeared in the 19th century in which governesses played a pivotal role. Most of these are forgotten tales of downtrodden governesses who endure horrible gothic trials before finding lifelong security in the arms of a pleasant man with an income. These books were generally written by women. Male authors in the same period were more inclined to make their governesses spicier and in some cases, downright sadistic (except for Charles Dickens', who spoke up for governesses in 'Martin Chuzzlewit').

Governess romance novels have made it into the 21th century and are very much like the 19th century ones except that the hero is rich but not mild-mannered any more. He is now a wild and sexy (rich) guy who generally appears on the cover of the book with his shirt half off. Even Mr. Rochester, with a wife in the attic, would draw the line at that.

Answer: They wrote a book

Mary Wollstonecraft, Jane Austen, The Bronte sisters, Lucy Maud Montgomery and Louisa May Alcott all did it. They recognized a talent in themselves and thought it might be a way of accruing some much-needed funds. But it wasn't easy.

The rise of novels as the predominant literary form in the 19th century was pretty much due to the women that were reading them. Catherine Moreland in 'Northanger Abbey' (1799) is embarrassed to mention novels to Mr. Tilney because 'they are not clever enough for you - gentlemen read better books.' Women were reading them and certainly, women were writing them. They used pen names: the Brontes became the Bells, Mary Ann Evans became George Eliot and Jane Austen, a bit more defiant, became 'A Lady'. There was tremendous backlash from upset men, as typified by the snotty letter Southey sent to Charlotte Bronte. But writing certainly paid. Louisa May Alcott could make $50 for a single serialized story while teaching would give her $50 a year.

These women all made it, but there were untold numbers that didn't. It would break your heart to read the classified section in the 'Ladies' Magazine' in the mid-19th century. Each issue would have at least one notice to a 'Miss S' (or N or B or whatever) stating 'We regret to inform you that your manuscript is unsuitable to our needs at this time.'

And in 1997, Joanna Rowling was advised by her publishers to call herself 'J. K. Rowling' on the cover of 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone', because identifying herself as a woman might turn off boy readers.