Otter's Rock

I just read a fic where a character in the Regency period is reflecting on how she'd never imagined she'd be able to have a full-time nursemaid.

Me: Girl, you are and have always been wealthy and you live in an age where labor is CHEAP.

And by "cheap" I mean "so cheap that servants had servants." (Upper level servants in large houses would often have lower-level servants assigned to them as a perk of the job.) So cheap that the gap between "people who were servants" and "people who had servants" was very narrow, and often crossed over the course of a person's lifetime. It was fairly common for working class/poor girls to work as maids for a few years saving up money before they got married, and if they married a reasonably prosperous farmer they would probably be able to afford to hire a maid themselves in good years. (Not "maid" as in "a personal servant to wait on you hand and food," this is "maid" as in "someone to do the nastier/harder bits of cooking and cleaning.")

By 1795, the price of wages for a day laborer was pegged to the price of bread. A gallon loaf weighed 8lbs 11oz, and was theoretically enough to feed a person for a week. Laborers were supposed to make at least three times the cost of a gallon loaf per week, so that if a gallon loaf cost 1 shilling they should be paid at least 3 shillings per week. That is peanuts. For comparison: A pair of wool stockings in the Regency era cost about 2 shillings 6 pence. In other words, a day laborer was paid only a little more per week than the cost of a good pair of socks. Silk stockings--the kind you would wear to a ball--were 12 shillings, or four times the weekly wages of a day laborer.

Combine this with how labor-intensive even the most basic tasks were, and it meant that anybody who could afford servants had them, and anybody above the poverty line could afford them.

Over the course of the 19th Century, the cost of wages relative to the cost of other things rose dramatically, so people had fewer servants and fewer people could afford to have servants. And still, Agatha Christie remembered that when she was young "I couldn’t imagine being too poor to afford servants, nor so rich as to be able to afford a car." She did not grow up wealthy, she grew up middle class. Even in 1900, your average middle-class person in England could not imagine being too poor to afford servants.

This changed radically over the course of the 20th Century; now a middle class person might have a cleaner who comes in once a week, but they definitely will not be able to afford a full-time servant. You have to be wealthy to afford that. So we assume that servants are a mark of huge wealth even in historical periods, when they just ... weren't. This is not helped by the fact that novels set in period times (whether written then or later) rarely mention the servants, so you can read, say, an Austen novel and not have any clue what sort of servants they have. But unless you have researched the issue, it's best to assume they have more servants than you think they had.

Most people (at least most Americans) have never been in a grand Stately Home of the scale Wayne Manor is supposed to be. We just don't know much about what they're like. There was a very brief era (the Gilded/Robber Baron age) where they were built. Rich people now who build grand piles tend to just do McMansions on steroids, and those are different than the earlier mansions, in a lot of ways.

The major difference is that building a house that big actually had a purpose in the pre-20th-Century era, so the layout of the house is going to make sense, and the rooms will be smaller, because they're built for purposes and not just "look at me, I'm fuck-off huge!"

( Historical mansions vs. McMansions. )

( Carnegie Mansion in New York: an example )

( Here's some considerations when thinking about Wayne Manor: )

Modern engagements are super long, by historical standards. Up until the 20th Century, most engagements in Europe were a couple of months at the longest, unless there was a specific reason it needed to be longer. In England, for example, a standard engagement was only four weeks long. You could get married quicker, if you had a special license (which you needed money for and a bishop who liked you), but four weeks was the standard waiting period between "engagement was announced" and "wedding."

Why four weeks? Well, because the banns needed to be called. The wedding would be announced in church (usually the bride's home church) every week for four weeks, so that any objections (her first husband isn't dead, he just skipped town!) can be made ahead of time. The bit in movie weddings where the minister asks "if any has reason these two may not be wed, speak now or forever hold your peace" is a remnant of this custom. (Note: at least in the US, this is not part of the standard wedding ceremony.)

If you're wondering "but how did they arrange everything in such a short time?" the answer is both "there was less to arrange" and "they'd been arranging the necessary things for most of the bride's life." The ceremony and reception were MUCH simpler and smaller. The wedding itself would be a standardized ceremony at the church (no custom vows, no unity candle, fairly short by modern standards and with basically nothing to plan unless you were, like, royalty and were going to have choirs singing and the like. The reception--if there was one, and a lot of couples didn't have one--would be a meal, usually at the bride's house. The bride and groom would be married in their best outfits, which might be custom-made for the ceremony but not exclusive to it. Men didn't rent tuxes, and women didn't wear 'wedding dresses' (i.e. a dress which you only wear for your wedding) until the late 19th/early 20th century. White dresses gained in popularity over the course of the 19th Century from the 1840s on, but they would still usually be dresses you would wear to fancy occasions unless you were very wealthy, because clothes were expensive, especially the sort of nice dress one would wear to be married in.

As for the reception, even very wealthy people usually didn't have huge wedding receptions. Renting a hall was unusual; you invited as many people as would fit in your home. There were no catering companies; if you were rich, you had servants to manage the decorating and cooking, and if you were poor your relatives would pitch in to help. In either case, you probably had experience throwing similarly-sized shindigs as part of your normal entertainment for yourself and your community. And that's it! That's all you need! It's not much to arrange. Four weeks gives people time to plan and time to arrange travel plans.

Now, there were things that took a long time to arrange. Namely, both bride and groom were supposed to have all the stuff they needed to set up a household. Grooms were expected to have the money and/or property/and or job that would support a family; if they didn't, they couldn't get married. Brides were expected to have all the things they'd need to set up housekeeping: all the linens and housewares and things. Some of that would be given as wedding gifts, of course, but fabric was REALLY EXPENSIVE up until the 19th Century, so most girls would start gathering (buying or making) things like sheets, towels, blankets, etc. fairly young and by their 20s they'd have enough stuff they could outfit a home. Wealthy women would sometimes get a whole new wardrobe when they married, but then, wealthy women would be paying other people to make those garments (and "a whole wardrobe" would be a lot fewer garments then than today), so it often wouldn't take much time from the moment the engagement was finalized to the time the bride's new clothes were ready.

In England, the most common time for a wedding was in the morning, before breakfast. This was so common that in Jane Austen's day the name for the reception was the "wedding breakfast." This allowed time for travel: remember that horse-and-carriage takes a looong time to get anywhere. Horses can pull a wagon or carriage between 10 and 30 miles in a single day, depending on weather and road conditions and how heavy the vehicle they're pulling is; they walk at about 3 miles per hour, and trot at about 9 miles per hour (but can't keep that speed up forever). Even if the groom's house is only ten miles away from the bride's house, that would take at least an hour, and might take as many as three hours.

Due to some thoughtless programming decisions at Costume College (the largest costume convention in the US), a group of BIPOC costumers led by Gigi (La Bella Donna) organized an online symposium on the Silk Road by costumers of color, drawing especially from the ethnic groups who originated along the Silk Road. You can find the videos on youtube.

There are a lot of good presentations, some costuming focused and some not. I'm not done watching them, but so far the most generally applicable is an excellent exploration/explanation of the differences between and nuances of appropriation and appreciation, and how to address it, by Jessica Van Hattem.

Watch on YouTube

Occasionally, I will come across a fic in which a female character (usually Elizabeth Bennet) in an Age of Sail or Victorian canon will decide that she needs to help out the family finances by  becoming a governess!

Me: uh, no.

I get why people do this! Family needs money, and so we think, obviously the solution is for someone to work, and the only job that was respectable and ordinary for a gentlewoman to do in that era was be a governess or a lady's companion, so that's the job we'll give Our Heroine so she can improve the family fortune!

The problem with this is that it ... didn't actually work that way. A governess or paid companion made barely enough to live on. She would get room and board (by living in her employer's house) and a small stipend that would be enough to cover other basic expenses such as clothing. She might be able to save a handful of pounds a year, which would not be enough to make much difference in the living situation of the rest of her family. About the only circumstances in which it would make financial sense for a gentlewoman to become a governess or a paid companion was if her family's finances were in such dire straits that not having to pay for her food and clothes would be a relief. And, you know, that happened! To a lot of women! But usually that's not what such fanfics are talking about. They're talking about "she'll be sending home money" and, just, no.

Being a governess was hard work, you were on duty 24/7 (except for your half-day off), and you had a very odd and vulnerable position in the household. You weren't a servant--you were above the servants, class-wise--so you couldn't socialize with them, and they wouldn't want to socialize with you. But you weren't equal to your employer, even if you would have been equals by class before becoming a governess. You wouldn't get chummy with your employer. And you didn't have time to go out and spend time with anybody else (usually only a half day off per week) so you would likely not have many friends at all. If you were lucky, and your employer lived in a city, and your charges were young, you might take them to the park where other children were playing, and then you could gossip with your fellow governesses, but that wasn't possible if your employer lived in the country. Even if you genuinely like young people, and you have good employers who treated you well and didn't sexually harass you, it's not a fun life.

The other thing we have to talk about is marriage. A governess had very few opportunities to meet suitable men and be courted by them, and she was also supposed to be setting a very high moral example for her charge(s) or she could be sacked. So very few governesses married. Which means, since they didn't have family able/willing to take them in, they effectively were trapped in that job for the rest of their life, once they took it up, moving from one employer to the next. Now, if their employer was a widower who was attracted to them, they might get him to marry them; but trying for that was just as likely to get them sacked with a bad character reference, which meant no more jobs as a governess ever, which is a pretty bad thing if that's your only means of supporting yourself.

The other thing about being a governess is what it meant for your social status, and that of your family. You were still a gentleman's daughter! but only barely, and any gentlemen or ladies you encountered would take precedence over you. It was a perfectly respectable job, but the fact that you had to take it would tell everyone that your family might be of gentle breeding but they were poor. So having a sister as a governess would make marriages harder to find for any siblings still at home, because it was saying plain as day "these people are poor, they have no connections who can help, they are holding onto their class status by the skin of their teeth."

Now, being a paid companion was a little better. Since it meant you were attending an adult, you would go with them into society. You had a very precarious position making about what a governess would, but you had the opportunity to sit and talk with people and make friends and possibly marry. Mrs. Annesley and Mrs. Jenkins in Pride and Prejudice are paid companions, as is Mrs. Clay in Persuasion. You will note that all three are widows; this is because they are companions to young, unmarried ladies. Therefore, they would act as chaperone when the young lady went out in public. (An unmarried woman could not serve as a chaperone.) So while being a companion was a better gig than being a governess, most governesses couldn't aspire to that role because they'd need to be widowed, which would necessitate getting married first, which they were unlikely to do.

Unmarried women could act as paid companions, but only when the woman they were employed by was herself a widow and/or past the age of marrying, and thus not in need of a chaperone. In this case, however, the most likely companion would be a poor relative of the woman in need of a companion, who would usually hope to inherit at least part of her employer's fortune. Obviously, anyone with enough money to pay someone to sit and talk with them all day and run their errands is going to have money, and a woman with children of her own to leave her fortune to wouldn't usually need a companion, so "keep me company in my old age, and I will leave you my money" was a fairly common arrangement. Because of this, a young unmarried lady becoming a companion to an elderly aunt or whatever was not a sign the family was in dire straits. Especially if the family had more than one daughter. It was just good sense--you have to keep all that lovely money in the family, after all, and taking care of elderly relations is a good thing.

If a woman somehow got a bit of money, she might open a business; there were businesswomen in those days, rare though they were, but that would mean a slight step down, class-wise. But if you're looking to have her realistically doing something to support the family, that's a better option than becoming a governess, in that if it was a successful business she'd actually make money at it. But in order to start a business you usually have to have resources, which a gentlewoman in dire straits probably wouldn't have.

So if your character is in the gentry and looking for a way to better her family fortunes ... there's really only two ways. Marrying well, or inheriting from a distant relation. Being a governess or a paid companion isn't going to do it.

I love Regency romances, but I am also quite picky about them. It's a well-known period with LOTS of resources, especially these days, so especially for professional work I don't give a lot of slack.

Which brings me to Bridgerton. I'm enjoying it!

Except that one of many issues is that they seem to think the Season--the pinnacle of London's social life for the nobility and upper gentry--was in the summer. Everyone in gauzy dresses outside on beautiful sunny days. The Duke marries Miss Bridgerton, and the new Duke and Duchess spend lots of time having sex outside at his country estate.

The problem is, that the season was winter. As in, the time when the weather was bad so you couldn't go out hunting, shooting, or fishing on your estate, and there weren't any agricultural decisions to make, so the Lord of the Manor didn't need to stay there to oversee them, and the weather was also too bad to travel far to visit your neighbors or go to house parties. There was nothing to do in the country during the winter, and so people who could afford it flocked to the cities, particularly to London, where even when the weather was bad you could still do things because you were only traveling a short distance across cobbled streets, not many miles across unpaved dirt which turns to mud when it rains.

So the Season stretched from November to May ... and even if we assume they got married at the very end of the season (which they didn't because it continues after they leave) May in England is still, um, a bit chillier and rainier than I would personally prefer for sex al fresco.

Just saying.

Welcome to my next installment of the Period Fic Primer, where I talk about stuff that period fic often gets wrong! Today we're going to talk about how people think about marriage. Because about 90% of the time, when I read a period fic with a romance in it, it's pretty obviously modern people with modern ideas about love who just happen to be wearing funny clothing. And, I mean, if that's what floats your boat, go for it! But if you want to write something with characters who feel they might actually come from the time period the story is set in, here are some things to think about.

Stop me if you've read this fic/watched this movie: Our hero and heroine are In Love. But there is a problem! There is a class difference! Their families have other ideas of who they should marry! The hero and heroine don't understand how anyone can stand in the way of True Love! What kind of monsters could want someone to marry without being in love with their new spouse?

( That reaction is extremely modern. )

Over on the Yultide discord (which, by the way, goes year-round, and so does the hippo pool, if you need help finding a beta) raininshadows asked for help with economic/labor worldbuilding, and since worldbuilding is my jam, I ended up writing a LOT of stuff, which I have cleaned up and presented here. (I sometimes write stories as an excuse to share my worldbuilding with people. I'm the person sitting in the theater going "wait, that makes NO SENSE." Unless I am busy, I will pretty much always be up for infodumping about worldbuilding. I may not know anything about what canon you're looking at, but I can usually at least give some pointers about things to think about, feel free to ask.) (Well. I don't really like dystopias, but aside from that.)

Before I begin, if SFFnal worldbuilding is something you want to build chops in long-term, the best thing to do is to read social histories from all over the world (i.e. the stuff that focuses on ordinary people, not Great Men) and watch for both overall patterns and interesting details that you can crib from. The more you know about "how different groups of people have thought, acted, and handled things over long periods of time" the greater your toolkit is.

When I want to do worldbuilding, especially with fanfic where I'm taking existing canon and extending it, I always start by asking a lot of questions about the world of the text and thinking about possible ways to answer those questions, and everything flows from there. Figuring out what questions to ask (and what the range of possible answers are) is easier the more you know about how various cultures handle such questions today and how they've handled them in the past and how things changed over time, which is where studying history comes in, but even with a relatively limited knowlege base, asking questions and coming up with a variety of answers to the questions is probably going to yield interesting results.

Rain wanted to know about how to build a realistic worker safety history, and especially how to do that in a theocratic society. I'm going to start with worker safety, and branch out into the larger economic picture and the eternal tug of war between classes, and then finish up with some things to think about when dealing with a theocracy.

( Worker safety and economic power )

( General economic questions )

( General pointers on how theocracies work in practice (as opposed to how they think they work) )

Please feel free to comment and ask questions!