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The Nonesuch Oct 2019 Group Read Spoiler Thread
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Well, I'd say it's pretty undeniable, isn't it, that it was extremely hard for women to be anything other than wives/mothers/widows/spinsters, and that only spinsters and widows had any chance of doing anything else with their lives other than look after their husband/children and their houses/estates. Certainly, the latter, ie, being the chatelaine of an estate could be pretty 'job-like' by our standards, and give considerable occupation and satisfaction, but it would still belong to your husband, not you!
I guess one other 'profession' (well, semi-profession really) for a woman was to marry into the political aristocracy and then become a political hostess. She would have some degree of power in her salons and so on, guiding and hinting and being 'behind the scenes', but, again, it was 'behind the scenes' only. All done by proxy through men who were the agents, not the women directly.
In the same vein, a woman could be a bluestocking, and host literary and artistic and scientific salons, and yes, maybe one or two, like Ada Lovelace and Caroline Herschel, could actually be scientists in their own right (but get precious little if any recognition - I believe Caroline Herschel's astronomical research was all credited to her brother, William!)
As for Scarlett, I think the main point is that it is ONLY because of the Civil War that she gets ANY opportunity to 'do her own thing' however desperate the motive ('And as God is my witness I'll never be hungry again!').
I would argue that, by definition, whether the 'self-denial' was voluntary and espoused (ie, a woman WANTED to be a selfless wife and mother), or not, the blunt truth of the times was that one 'had' to be self-denying! Incredibly little else was possible.
However technically subordinate they may have been, strong-willed women have contrived to exert power across cultures and across centuries. Matriarchs have ruled their husbands and descendants with a rule of iron, concubines have possessed more political power from inside the harem than the monarch's ministers, and empresses have had their ineffectual consorts assassinated and reigned openly in their own name. But unless you're a wealthy Abbess, the common theme seems to be that it's hard for a woman to wield power without first acquiring a man (and preferably offspring).
"Yet what difference does it make whether the women rule or the rulers are ruled by women? The result is the same."- Aristotle
I think being a wife and mother was a broader series of options than we generally think today, in such a different culture - from the working woman who also earned part of the family income to the rich woman who had any number of things to do with their time. I think we far over-value paid work, when for many people - men or women - work is nothing more than what you do in order to live, and it's other things, like your family relationships or your private hobbies and interests that give your life meaning. That being said, I find it extraordinarily hard to imagine Tiffany suffering from her inability to take up a paid job or charity work or some passion for art or literature. I think if she was somehow transported to modern times, she'd want to become one of those celebrities who are famous for being famous, with an enormous following on social media and a boyfriend (not necessarily a husband!) who was also famous. In other words, she's the kind of person who wants to be a social star, admired and envied by all. About the only difference is that in the period of the book she'd marry the man everyone else wanted, and now that's not needed. She might not have had to actually let that slow down her social activities or even her sexual adventures at all, back in the pass. Some very prominent women didn't.
Brilliant image of Tiffany being a vacuous social media star, just famous for being famous!!!!
Elza - that's always been the 'hand that rocks the cradle rules the world' theory. I find it disingenuous, simply in that, as Igenlode points out, any such 'cradle-power' has to be exerted via a man - always indirect, never direct.But I agree about how 'paid work' is so often a means to an end (survival!). Most of us would like to be 'rentiers' so to speak, ie, with a 'private income', that freed us from 'wage slavery' and allowed us to do things we really wanted to do. (Lucky that for some, men and women, their work is their passion, but that isn't true for all folk.)
Without getting (too!) political, it's an argument in favour of a Universal Basic Income, to act as a 'lifetime pension', which would be derived, I assume, from both the dividends of a massive sovereign wealth fund and from corporate tax revenues.
Of course, the essential factor is that wealth does need to be created, so in that sense there are jobs that have to be done to create that wealth in the first place, and then there is work that needs to be done (teaching, nursing, cleaning the streets etc etc), as well as admin jobs that make everything run smoothly and efficiently.
I always like to think that in my own version of utopia we would all have at least three jobs - one that was 'necessary' (engineering, farming, teaching, medicine, admin, etc etc), one that was 'evolutionary' in the sense of 'forwarding mankind', ie, scientific research, both practical and blue sky, and then one that was 'artistic', or possibly as an alternative, creative in some way, even if that was something like gardening etc etc.
However, whether we should all receive the same remuneration is a much trickier issue!!!! I'll stay away from that thorny subject!
Beth-in-UK wrote: Brilliant image of Tiffany being a vacuous social media star, just famous for being famous!!!!Although Tiffany isn't exactly vacuous; unlike, say, Belinda in The Foundling, she isn't dimwitted. "Famous for being photogenic" would be more like it, I think! At least until the "famous for being famous" kicked in. Beautiful, wealthy, fashionable, constantly seen at all the best places with the best people ... yeah, that's our Tiffany.
I guess it's the concept of being a social media star that is vacuous in its own right!!! I mean, what woman of intelligence would want to be one? (Or a pop singer for that matter!)(sniff! )(Showing my intellectual snobbery alas I fear!)"Beautiful, wealthy, fashionable, constantly seen at all the best places with the best people ... yeah, that's our Tiffany. "
Alas, yes it is...sigh.
Exactly - Tiffany doesn't particularly want a man and she certainly doesn't seem to want love; she wants admiration and recognition from all and sundry. Being a celebrity would be her dream career...(In fact, given the choice, she would probably rather not be tied to any one man, as that would reduce the options so far as an admiring court went. But a failure to marry would in itself be a failure, so she needs to be seen to marry as well as possible and then host as many lavish entertainments as possible in order to be the envy of the town.)
It seems quite reasonable to me that I should do something useful in return for food, clothing and shelter - in my case, as in that of most in my society, I do so through the intermediary of money I earn, but I have no particular objection for it to done through services as part of a family unit - or, I suppose as part of some group like a commune or monastery or something. I just don't think having a paid job is the main determinant of one's social status especially when I see it as usually being just a way to get by, except for those who have a real calling that they happen to be able to get paid for, I suppose. I've got some doubts about the practicality of a universal income, but this probably isn't the place to get into them. I think Heyer's books sometimes do reflect the risks of not needing to be useful, most obviously in the case of all those idle fops. They don't tend to be her heros, though.
Cheryl, I agree, and to my mind, providing that being a 'shareholder' in 'sovereign wealth' or whatever, by virtue of simply being a citizen, gives me an income, that I then use my time to do other 'civically useful things' (whether that is cleaning the streets or being a doctor or whatever) to 'earn' that income so to speak, and then use any 'surplus time' (free time) to do what I like (eg, paint, sew, garden, whatever!)(or even be on social media!!!!), then I think that having an actual 'paid job' is not essential at all.My particular beef is with 'freeloaders' - I just cannot abide people who regard themselves as 'entitled' in any way. To my mind, if you don't work (in some capacity) you don't eat. End of. You do NOT 'live off other people's labour'. Of course, that raises huge political issues (which I agree are not for this place!), as to what is 'work' anyway (eg, is it being a vacuous social media star, or even, say, an arms dealer, etc etc)(ie, the issue of what work is actually 'moral' in the first place!), let alone comparative remuneration (ie, who gets paid what for what!) (VERY thorny issue!), but I do think the principle of 'no work, no food' holds generally good.
Only those who actually cannot work (eg, the sick?) get 'free food'!
I'm sure my argument can be shot down, as, sadly, so many political convictions are not actually very solidly clear cut, definitely including mine!
Bringing the discussion back to The Nonesuch, and GH in general, it has to be one of the reasons that Waldo is such an unarguably 'good' man. OK, one can criticise him, as one can all 'upper class' folk, for living off the labour of others, ie, accepting rents from tenant farmers (hmm, was living off the 5% interest from Gilts 'expropriative'? Can't decide for the moment!). But given that, unlike a lot of his peers, he actually put a good chunk of that money BACK to those even less fortunate than his own tenants, I think it does give him huge brownie points.As for Tiffany, I do think one of the most socially useful 'careers' she could have had as a society beauty and, eventually, a society wife, would be to use her beauty and personality to support Waldo's efforts.
Thinking about other GH novels, I wonder if she did give approval to any 'idlers'? I'm thinking of (view spoiler)
With respect to GH overall, I do think that it is probably telling that she doesn't 'approve' of total idleness, and perhaps because she herself was a working woman (ie, an author getting paid for her writing), she would be naturally impatient with women who were content to be nothing more than ornamental?? (She's pretty scathing of (view spoiler)
Elza wrote: ""Yet what difference does it make whether the women rule or the rulers are ruled by women? The result is the same."- Aristotle"
I love that quote! It always makes me chuckle.
Georgette Heyer Fans
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And yet it remains the only goal that is open to her, and so the only goal that she's pursuing.
Scarlett went through civil war, and was the only person to get Tara going again becuase all the men were dead.
Before the war she was just gathering up beaux, and if there hadn't been a war she'd be the miserable, flirtatious, probably adulterous wife of that poor boy she married at sixteen, because there was no other option.