Poor Spinsters in Regency England | The Case of Miss Bates in Emma

Miranda Hart as Miss Bates, Emma 2020  

Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor, which is one very strong argument in favour of matrimony. - Jane Austen's Letters 

I have recently went to see EMMA. (2020). And while there is much to say about this cheeky, pastel-colored adaptation of the classic, my thoughts often turned to poor Miss Bates, played to perfection by Miranda Hart.

In Jane Austen's Emma, Miss Bates is the staple of Highbury society. She is neither clever nor pretty (and never was), she is talkative and cheaper, lives with her mother, and is generally well liked. She is also an old maid and very poor.

I have recently had an occasion to contemplate the relationship between single-hood and poverty. Not just in the distant past, but in our contemporary world. Sure, having a large family and children can be quite a drain on one's resources, too. But being a single woman of a certain age with a limited income (and dependents, such as aging parents) is just as difficult today as it was in 1815*.

School; James Godby, 1810; London via The British Musseum

In Jane Austen's England, single women of genteel birth had few options of earning an income. They could become paid companions or teachers and governesses (provided they had found themselves into a little education). There were some options of entering into a feminine profession such as a dressmaker, but that too required industry and  a good head for finances, as well as skill. However, all professions meant a loss of social standing. Consequently, the best a single woman without an independent income could do is to retain an appearance of gentility on a small income. Provided she was grateful and cheerful like Miss Bates, she could hope to be well-liked, but she had no certainty of being respected.

Gwyneth Paltrow as Emma, 1996

In the novel, Emma proclaims that she shall never marry. And when Harriet Smith with utter horror asks whether that means that she would be an old maid, Emma coolly replies:

I shall not be a poor old maid; and it is poverty only which makes celibacy contemptible to a generous public! A single woman, with a very narrow income, must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid! the proper sport of boys and girls, but a single woman, of good fortune, is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as any body else. 

This distinction between the poor old maid and a rich one may strike the 21st century reader as ridiculous. But I invite you think about our contemporary discourses on single women. A single career woman can find acceptance, even adulation, for being a #GirlBoss. But if one is unfortunate enough to have neither a career (or even a job) nor a partner, one might be subjected to the same kind of contempt and pity as any poor spinster in Regency England.

Phyllida Law (Mrs Bates) and Sophie Thompson (Miss Bates) Emma, 1996 

But let's look at "poor old maid" and try to understand what that entails. I'll be using Miss Bates as a case study.
First, who is an old maid? Well, it's definitely a woman - hence, the "maid". Unmarried men do not seem to evoke the same level of contempt and ridicule. But how old is an "old maid"? Jane Austen has very few spinsters in her novels. A few of her characters hover on the edge of spinsterhood, but are usually rescued from it by a timely proposal.

In Pride and Prejudice, Lydia exclaims that:

Jane will be quite an old maid soon, I declare. She is almost three-and-twenty! Lord, how ashamed I should be of not being married before three-and-twenty!

But then again, Lydia is a very foolish character. And it's very unlikely that anyone but this flighty teen would consider the sweet and beautiful Jane at 22 to be a spinster. 

Charlotte Lucas (Lucy Sccott) P&P, 1995

Charlotte Lucas, one the other hand, is more generally considered to be on her way to spinsterhood. She is 27 and has no fortune.  But she extricates herself from the unfortunate fate by snagging Mr. Collins just in time.

Elizabeth Elliot in Persuasion is nearing her 30th birthday, and she feels that she's approaching

 ...the years of danger, and would have rejoiced to be certain of being properly solicited by baronet-blood within the next twelvemonth or two.

We don't know whether Miss Elliot ever marries, but she has rank and (some) wealth on her side. At any rate, she will most likely be spared the indignity of real poverty in spinsterhood. Anne Elliot is 27 at the beginning of the novel, and she is treated by most people as a spinster.

Anne Elliot (Sally Hawkins) Persuasion, 2007 

From Austen's work we can glean that spinsterhood begins around late 20s and early 30th. However, spinsterhood is clearly not about age, or not entirely about age. While Elizabeth Elliot worries about her unmarried status, she is not treated as a spinster by those around her. Anne Elliot, on the other hand, is expected to always be convenient to others, whether it is caring for her hypochondriac sister Mary or playing the piano, while others dance. An old maid is thus defined not only by her age, but also by her social status. Wealth and rank play an important part in this, but as the comparative cases of Elizabeth and Anne Elliot show, spinsterhood is more about how others relate to you. An old maid is a woman who does not (or cannot) do as she pleases.

This makes poverty an important components of spinsterhood. I am talking about relative poverty. In Emma, Miss Bates is not from the laboring classes. Her father was the vicar of Highbury (the position now occupied by Mr. Elton). But her present situation is that of relative destitution, made worse by the fact that she has known comfort and some prosperity in her youth.

Miss Bates (Tamsin Greig) Emma, 2010  

Austen is often very explicit about everyone's income in her novels, whether large or small. But we have to guess how much Miss Bates has. We know that on their income, Mrs. and Miss Bates can only afford one maid and have to rent lodgings above some shop or business premises in Highbury. Miss Bates's monologues are full of communications about provisions, daily routines, and food. Emma find this tiresome; but for Miss Bates these are not trivial matters - she is trying to economize wherever she can and is grateful to neighbors and friends for gifts and attention.

Emma, Illustration by C. E. Brock, 1898, 

Sense and Sensibility is a novel full of clear information about different income brackets. The Dashwood women, on a joint income of £500, can afford two maids and a man and a cottage (though rented to them on very easy terms by a cousin). When Mrs. Jennings contemplates the income of Lucy Steele and Edward Ferrars, after he had been disinherited by his mother, she clearly does not think that they would have more than £150 - £170 per year. Just like Mrs. Bates and Miss Bates they would not be able to afford more than one maid. In a wealthy household like Chatsworth in 1811, a housemaid would earn £11 per year. A "stout girl of all works" that Mrs. Jennings envisions for the young couple would probably come cheaper.

Miss Bates does not keep poultry or cows and does not have a garden. And she has no male relatives who could add to her comforts with any steady flow of cash. In the 1800's, labor was relatively cheap, while goods were expensive. Therefore we can assume that most of the income goes to food, lodgings and some for clothes. Therefore, Miss Bates's income would have been on the lower side of £150.

Miss Bates (Constance Chapman) and Emma (Doran Godwin) Emma, 1972

This income is so small that it cannot comfortably accommodate the addition of Jane Fairfax, who is on the verge of becoming a governess. Miss Bates is in raptures regarding the salary offered to Jane. Considering that when Mary Wollstonecraft went to work as a governess to Lord and Lady Kingsborough in 1786, she was offered a salary of £40**. It is unlikely that Mrs. Elton's friend Mrs. Smallridge would have offered much more to Jane to be a governess. But if Miss Bates's entire household income is around £120-150, even £20 per year for a single person would have appeared to her as immense riches. 

In the end, Jane is save from the terrible fate of being a governess and from the even more terrifying fate of being an old maid by her marriage to Frank Churchill. We can assume that with Jane becoming the new Mrs. Churchill, Miss Bates and Mrs. Bates would acquire some supplement to their income.   

(*) The biggest financial risk for women today? Embarking on a relationship, The Guardian, 2017.
(**) Brandon, Ruth. "Other People's Daughters: The Life and Times of the Governess." Phoenix, 2009.

Sources:
- Copeland, Edward.  “Money.”  The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen.  Ed. Edward Copeland and Juliet McMaster.  Cambridge: CUP, 1997.

- Craig, Sheryl Bonar. "“The Value of a Good Income”: Money in Emma." Persuasions On-Line: the Journal of the Jane Austen Society of North America 22, 2001.

-  Jacobs, Corrie L. "The ‘Great Talker’: Spinster Stereotypes in Emma".  Jane Austen Society of North America. 2015 Essay Contest Winning Entries, 2015. 

- From Servants to Staff: How much? Chatsworth Official Website, News & media ,News, blogs & press releases, 2017