Elizabeth Bennet, Unschooled

“Lady Catherine and Elizabeth,” by C.E. Brock, 1895

Elizabeth Bennet, heroine of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, was, by the standards of her day, unschooled. The daughter of a gentleman could usually expect a governess, or at least a watchful mother, to teach her the skills considered necessary to land a husband. According to Margaret C. Sullivan’s The Jane Austen Handbook, a young lady might be taught by her parents until she was ten or so. After that, a governess was hired, or, in some cases, the girl was sent off to school. Girls who remained at home with a governess might have had their studies supplemented by visiting masters, who would instruct them in music, language, dance, or drawing. From The Jane Austen Handbook:

A good governess taught a young lady history, geography, and languages; to write in an elegant hand; to draw, sew and do fancy needlework; to play the pianoforte and possibly the harp; and to carry herself with confidence and elegance.

Elizabeth Bennet, though confident and musically accomplished, had neither governess nor involved parent. This is revealed in a conversation she has with the imperious Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who inquires about Elizabeth and her sisters:

“Do you draw?”

“No, not at all.”

“What, none of you?”

“Not one.”

“That is very strange. But I suppose you have had no opportunity. Your mother should have taken you to town every spring for the benefit of masters.”

“My mother would have had no objection, but my father hates London.”

“Has your governess left you?”

“We never had any governess.”

“No governess! How was that possible? Five daughters brought up at home without a governess!—I never heard of such a thing. Your mother must have been quite a slave to your education.”

Elizabeth could hardly help smiling, as she assured her that had not been the case.

“Then, who taught you? who attended to you? Without a governess you must have been neglected.”

“Compared with some families, I believe we were; but such of us as wished to learn, never wanted the means. We were always encouraged to read, and had all the masters that were necessary. Those who chose to be idle, certainly might.”

In the case of the Bennet girls, unschooling was a byproduct of neglect; it was not the deliberate, child-centered choice made by modern home and unschooling families.  In that sense, Elizabeth’s experience is difficult to compare to that of present-day unschoolers. Still, she gained all of her knowledge and accomplishments through her own curiosity and her own wish to access the resources available to her. She was led by neither teacher nor parent.

Arguably, Elizabeth’s being unschooled led to her to make the choice that is pivotal to the novel: her refusal to marry her silly, pompous cousin, Mr. Collins. Mr. Collin’s proposal is important to the Bennet family not only because it would mean one girl securely married. The Bennet’s estate is entailed upon Mr. Collins; after the death of Elizabeth’s father, the family home will belong to Mr. Collins, and he will have the power to turn the Bennet women out. Elizabeth’s marriage would secure her own place and likely that of her mother and unmarried sisters. The full weight of familial and societal expectations fall on Elizabeth to accept a man she does not and cannot love.

Elizabeth’s refusal of the doltish Mr. Collins might seem like good sense by today’s standards, but Elizabeth was jeopardizing her own future as well as that of her mother and sisters. Had Elizabeth been raised with a more traditional education, that is, had she been carefully trained to be wife material, would she have been more likely to accept Mr. Collins, or at least to consider his offer? Perhaps Elizabeth’s independence from the wife-producing industry left her free to decide that remaining unmarried (at least temporarily) was preferable to marrying someone she could not respect. Certainly, her refusal of Mr. Collins stemmed from the same willfulness, the same strength of purpose, that allowed her to oversee her own education, pursuing the subjects that interested her and avoiding those that didn’t.

Of course, Elizabeth’s gamble pays off; she ends up marrying the dreamy and exceedingly wealthy Mr. Darcy. Had she been raised under the watchful eye of a governess, had she been schooled rather than unschooled, perhaps the novel would have ended—far less satisfactorily!—many chapters earlier.