Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Jane Fairfax’S Choice: The Sale Of Human Flesh Or Human Intellect, Lynda A. Hall

English Faculty Articles and Research

"It is Jane Fairfax’s story rather than Emma’s, however, that exposes the grim reality of life for many women of the nineteenth century: the attractive and accomplished but penniless young woman is not rescued by a good man. She marries a man who in Austen’s other novels would have been rewarded by a mindless flirt (Lydia Bennet) or an adulteress (Maria Rushworth). Through Jane Fairfax’s story—her life-defining choice between selling herself in the marriage market or the governess trade—Austen subtly exposes the grim reality of life for many women who were handsome, clever, but not rich. Jane Fairfax, perhaps even …