What type of lifestyle would women have had in England- early 19th century? ?

Question

during Jane Austen period

Answer 1

They were tied very much to the home and were subject to the whims of their husbands (if married) or fathers (if not). However, amongst the upper classes at least during the Regency period there was a great deal of promiscuity. Marriages were made for dynastic/family reasons, not love and it was expected that both parties would take lovers. It was probably as a reaction to these excesses that the Victorians became so sexually repressed. For details of the lives of middle class women, read Jane Austen. She holds a very real mirror up to the Society oif her time.

Answer 2

It would depend very much on their status in life.  If they were upper class or middle class they might be educated at home by governesses, or they might go to boarding schools.  The emphasis would be very much on fashionable accomplishments, music, singing, dancing, drawing, speaking French etc.  Though some girls did get a more serious education, and there were people who were very interested in the education of girls.

For instance, a woman called Jane Marcet published a book called 'Conversations in chemistry' in 1805, its purpose was to educate people who knew little about chemistry on the subject, particularly women.  The book is in the form of conversations between a governess and her two pupils.  The book was enormously popular and was reprinted many times, the inventor Michael Faraday said that the two books that had influenced him the most in his career were the Encyclopedia Brittanica and 'Conversations in Chemistry'.

Most upper and middle class girls stayed at home until they married, working was not considered particularly desirable unless they were very poor and had to.  Becoming a teacher, either in a school or as a governess was the main occupation open to well-bred single women.  Some women achieved success through writing, like Jane Austen for instance, who is the most famous woman writer from that period, though there were many others in her day.

Girls of all classes enjoyed going to dances, where they might meet eligible young men, or just have a good time.  Girls of the upper and middle classes were generally chaperoned at dances by older women.  

I have a book called 'Mrs Hurst Dancing and other scenes from Regency Life' which is a book of drawings made by a young woman called Diana Sperling, and which shows that women could have quite a lively time sometimes.  There are pictures of Diana and her sisters walking, riding, gardening, fishing, playing battledore and shuttlecock, climbing over gates, skating on a frozen pond, and getting up to all sorts of things.  Young ladies in those days were apparently not always as staid as is sometimes imagined.

Married women often had quite large families and would be very busy bringing them up, teaching them, running the household etc. Entertaining visitors was an important part of a woman's life, and they kept up prolific correspondence with their friends, wome in those days were great letter-writers.  If women lived in the country, they would walk a great deal, and if they could afford it they might ride.

Working-class girls would start work as soon as they were old enough, most likely going into domestic service, or working in one of the new factories that were being built at that time, or they might be apprenticed to a dressmaker or milliner, or work in a shop or in various other trades.  Some women became midwives, which was an important job for a woman in those days, since it was still considered to be a woman's job to deliver babies.  If women were poor, they often continued working after marriage.

Some women had careers in the performing arts, as actresses or singers.  The famous actress Sarah Siddons, who was considered the greatest actress of her time, was nearing the end of her career in the early 19th century (she retired in 1812).

P.S. the comment above suggests reading Jane Austen to learn about middle-class life.  Jane Austen was not middle-class.  She was a member of the gentry, which was part of the upper class, and her characters are, in the main, upper rather than middle class.