Review: _Governess:_ looking at the downtrodden in Georgian and Victorian society

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The Governess has become a stock figure in the literary world. Especially in historical novels, and most of all in the historical romance genre, she is a convenient place to put a poor but nobly born heroine, and eventually have her goodness and hard working labours be virtuously rewarded by marriage to the hero or wealthy gentleman to rescue her out of poverty and back to the genteel life that she was born to. All right, so that is a gross simplification, but it's driven many a plot over the years. But outside of the romanticized view, what and who were the real governesses? Author Ruth Brandon takes a look at their world from about the mid-1750's to the end of the Victorian period when the First World War swept away most of England's class structure. She takes a look into their lives through the eyes of six women who had both fortunate and at times very unhappy lives. The book opens with a discussion of what a governess was -- a young unmarried woman or widow who was brought into a wealthy or middle class household to provide the younger children or daughters with a basic education. Here we meet the real quandary of what a governess was -- while by birth she could be considered a gentlewoman, and therefore a 'lady,' she was also a servant by the fact that she was employed and paid a wage. Given that in Victorian society, a lady of the middle or upper classes was that by the virtue that she did not did anything that could be considered to be work, the governess was in limbo. She was far too good to be with the servants -- and therefore, was separated from forming any relationships there, but the people that she worked for in turn considered her to be beneath them in terms of society. Cut off from most relationships, the governess was isolated and alone, resented by one group, and ignored by the other. But not all governesses had bleak lives. Some were able to form close and loving bond with their students, such as Agnes Porter, who worked for the Earl of Ilchester and his family for several generations. When she had finished her career of teaching, she was given an annuity by the family to live on. How we know of her treatment is from her journals during the time of employment and some time afterwards. For a governess, this sort of situation was the best. Others were not so fortunate. Mary Wollstonecraft worked for some years as a governess, never quite settling down into a bearable situation. She gave vent to her frustrations by writing one of the most influential books about the plight of women in her book _A Vindication of the Rights of Women,_ something that did not endear her to her past or future employers. Indeed, the shadow of that book would haunt her and her relations for quite a few years afterwards, and having it published during the time of the French Revolution didn't help either. The only recourse for her to turn to after her writing pretty much banned her from any future work as a governess was marriage -- a situation at the times that wasn't much better than being a governess. Her husband, William Godwin, already had a daughter, an illegitimate one, who would be raised with Mary's surviving children. This daughter, Claire Clairmont, was pretty, talented, but rather impetuous. When her half-sister, Mary Godwin, married Percy Shelley, Claire found herself attracted to her brother-in-law and this in turn set off a long running emotional conflict between the two sisters. When Shelley introduced the poet Lord Byron into their circle, poor Claire was caught up in an entanglement that would bring hardship, misery and vindictive behavior from Byron that was cruel and barbaric to say the very least. Eventually, it would be working as a governess that gave Claire some income, and peace of mind. After this story, I did not think that it would get worse, but the tale of Nelly Weeton broke my heart. Her story is hardly unique, a woman who was ignored by her family -- unless they needed her as an unpaid drudge, or as a source of money -- and when she eventually did marry, her husband abused her mentally and physically, until she was forced to leave him -- and her infant daughter. The laws at that time were pretty Draconian where women and their money were concerned -- a husband was entitled to all of his wife -- property and income upon marriage, and if he was a spendthrift or bully, there was not much that a wife could do to protect herself. Some tried to fight the system by using family and political connections, some families tried to protect their daughters by striving for settlements that gave their girls some protection upon marriage, but it wasn't until the late Victorian period that laws were passed that allowed a woman to keep her property and money separate from her husband. As to abuse, unfortunately that still continues today, and in the Victorian period, where men were viewed as the final say in a family, and where physical punishment wasn't viewed as a crime, many women were trapped in homes that were a living hell. Eventually Nelly would be reunited with her daughter, opening up a day school and managing to have an existence that gave some freedom. But the story that really grabbed my attention was that of Anna Leonowens, made famous by the musical _The King and I._ And I found that what I thought was true about her turned out to be something very very different. I'll let the reader discover for themselves what the real story was, and it is nothing like what popular imagination would like us to think. Anna, after she left the employment of the King of Siam, would create a lucrative income for herself from her experiences abroad. So too would many other women who spend time as expatriates teaching in faraway lands. Finally there is Anna Jameson, who would strive towards the creation of Girton College in Oxford, a school that was just for women to get advanced education and would finally bring the system of governessing to a close. The book winds up with a few stories about other women who worked towards equality for women in education and teaching. Along with the narratives, there are two inserts of black and white photos, extensive notes, along with an index and bibliography. I'm of rather mixed feelings about this book. While I was both intrigued and at times horrified by the treatment that governesses received, I found the author's focus on mostly negative experiences to be off-putting. I had hoped that there would be more stories about how governesses managed to get some respect and stability, but Ms. Brandon is almost gleeful in how she describes their shadowy world, and never skips an opportunity to tell the reader that yes, things were really awful, and how grateful we must be for living in such enlightened times as now. To be honest, I was hoping for something more. At times the writing style is very dry, and I found myself losing attention on the book and having to go and do something else for a while. Overall, this gets about three and a half stars from me, rounded up to a four. It's very good in spots, but the final effect for me was less than enthusiastic. I would suggest Kathryn Hughes' excellent book, _The Victorian Governess_ as a better read, and much more interesting. Governess: The Lives and Times of the Real Jane Eyres Ruth Brandon 2008; Walker Publishing Company, Inc. ISBN 978-0-8027-1630-9 This was originally published elsewhere on a now defunct website. All rights reserved to the author of this review, Rebecca Huston