Other People’s Daughters: The Life and Times of Governesses
The uneasy world between
Ruth BrandonWeidenfeld, 303pp, £20,
Philip Hensher on Ruth Brandon's new book
Some roles in domestic service truly capture the imagination and have supplied English literature with several of its most enduring figures. There are the manservants from Sam Weller to Jeeves. There are butlers, including the terrifying one who receives the news of Merdle’s death in Little Dorrit with such equanimity, Henry Green’s Raunce, and Kazuo Ishiguro’s infinitive-splitting Stevens in The Remains of the Day.
Surely, however, no domestic role has provided so many poignant inventions as that of the governess. From the moment the threat of the ‘governess-trade’ is made to hang over the head of Jane Fairfax in Emma, the 19th-century novel can hardly do without it. Governesses in fiction present a picture of feminine dependency and helplessness; of a burgeoning intellect trapped within a confining role; or of demure erotic appeal and repression. Beneath the high-necked and sombre dresses of Dickens’s Miss Wade, Henry James’s narrator in The Turn of the Screw or Charlotte and Anne Brontës’ heroines, an unfulfilled passion both furiously erotic and fiercely intellectual pounds away.
Viewed unsympathetically, governesses were easily turned into villains, with their apparent ambitions towards the masculine world of ideas and independent earning. The predatory governess, planning to murder various members of the family and ultimately marry the paterfamilias or unattached brother, is a stock figure of the period. Thackeray’s Becky Sharp at the Crawleys’ is relatively benevolent compared to the ones in Sheridan le Fanu’s Uncle Silas or Mrs Henry Wood’s East Lynne. Actually, as Ruth Brandon’s study declares, it was very rare indeed for a governess to marry her employer. Becky Sharp and Jane Eyre tell us much more about the 19th century’s fantasies and fears than about its realities.
Governesses, too, could be merely ridiculous; Wilde’s Miss Prism is only one of many comic stereotypes. Randolph Churchill was unforgettably described as having ‘the manners of a pirate and the courage of a governess’, which tells you a good deal about how these, often remarkable, women were denigrated. The governess, an absurd, dependent old virgin always going on about how clever she would have been if she had only had the opportunities, was a favourite joke of the 19th century — and, having read some of Ruth Brandon’s case histories, the joke doesn’t seem all that far from the reality. Some of these yearning women, deprived of all fulfilment, whether intellectual, professional or sexual, must have been nervy and difficult people to share all but the largest houses with.
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Marķa-José Ugarte
March 15th, 2008 1:15am'Some of these yearning women, deprived of all fulfilment, whether intellectual, professional or sexual, must have been nervy and difficult people to share all but the largest houses with.' I object to this definition of a Governess. I was born in the early 40s and I had a nanny until I was 5 or 6 years old. From then up to 12 or so, I had a governess. She was a Secondary School Teacher. As we lived at a walk distance from the school, she was the one taking me there and coming to pick me up and was my coach with my homework. I went out with her to play with my friends - daughters of my parents' friends - either in parks or at their homes. All of the governesses were friends, facilitating in this way keep the 'environment' that our parents wished. I must say that I had a natural affection for my governess but it never took the place of the love and emotional affection that I had for my mother. There was no rivalry in my home as the one mentioned above. I think that the book should have had an apendix with the experiences of the ones we had a governess - and perhaps not from the UK. Marķa-José Ugarte
Liz Babcock
March 23rd, 2008 8:25pm"Governess in the House of Atreus:" pure gold!
Liz Babcock
March 23rd, 2008 8:29pmIvy-Compton Burnett the "governess in the House of Atreus:" pure gold! The author neglects to mention the account of Nancy Mitford of the poor harried ones in her family, driven out by the shenanigans of her and her scapegrace sisters, until the parents hired one they liked: she took them on shop-lifting expeditions.
Paula Wagstaff
March 24th, 2008 1:50amAnd then of course there was the Winston Churchills nanny, who was a Christian..who when he died, had her photo besides his bed.
It is a shame society looks down on the most vital of careers, and yet somebody has to do it.
As materialism and greed blinds so many to what is of importance, and robs them of so much, while pretending to offer so much ... why are doctors leaving Malawi and my country (New Zealand) for more pay elsewhere.
Women left their children to work, and for more money, not being content with being in the home to raise their own children.
Some of use chose to step into their shoes, knowing there were more Winston Churchills being born.
Maybe I should write my own book.
paulawagstaff.com
Lucy Matheson
March 25th, 2008 11:32amPerhaps I was exceptionally lucky, but my time as a governess was an extremely happy one and I am still very much in touch with the family and hope I shall always be. It helps that the mother of the family had been to my school and studied the same course as I was studying at the same University and so was very aware that I was the same as her, just a few years behind her.