Was life easier for the young ladies of 'Pride and Prejudice' than it is for young ladies today?

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Was life easier for the young ladies of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ than it is for young ladies today?

At a first glance, this subject seems straightforward.  Today’s young women have more opportunities, more freedom and are generally better educated than the women of the early nineteenth century; surely their lives must be considered easier.  However, it is not that simple.  Some aspects of life today are not necessarily easier or harder than then; just different.  In some areas young women now may even encounter more difficulties.

Women’s education in the time of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ was very different.  The emphasis was not on stretching the mind academically but on developing a few fashionable skills, such as an ability to speak French or Italian and having a superficial knowledge of history and geography.  Subjects like maths and science were not taught to girls beyond a very rudimentary level.  The study of them was considered too taxing for their minds, and as the very popular Fordyce’s sermons asserts ‘most properly the province of men’.  Their education would have usually been carried out at home, with a governess or just their parents to teach them.  They might then have attended one of the not very academically rigorous private ‘seminaries’ like the one the Bingley sisters went to, but could never advance their studies by entering university; they could only have broadened their mind through ‘extensive reading’ like Elizabeth Bennet.  Women spent a significant proportion of their day in developing, as Caroline Bingley describes ‘a thorough knowledge of music, signing, drawing, dancing and the modern languages’, as the possession of these ‘accomplishments’ would affect their ability to make a ‘good’ marriage.  This is why Lady Catherine thought it ‘very strange’ that only one of Elizabeth’s sisters played the piano and none of them drew.

Now, the education of boys and girls is largely the same, with little time being given over to such pursuits as drawing and sewing.  It is recognised as very important for women to learn academic subjects; they even perform better at GCSE and A Level than boys.  However, even though for many this is preferable, as they can stretch their minds and enjoy education for its own sake, it is probably not ‘easier’.  Young women today have all the stresses and pressures that coursework, exams and university admissions bring.  It is certainly easier now to be educated to the same level as men but probably harder being in everyday competition with them.

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Women had far fewer opportunities then as a result of their less academic education.  Young ladies who out of financial necessity were compelled to find employment often faced difficulties; the few jobs open to women, like governessing, usually had meagre salaries and poor working conditions.  This meant women were compelled to depend on men for financial security; and if left without a male provider would have to rely upon the charity of others, the predicament haunting Mrs Bennet.  Their lives were also very restricted.  Charlotte Lucas is still dependent on and living with her parents at twenty-seven; she would ...

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