What would ordinary people do in Jane Austen's time?

Answer 1

We have to distinguish between two different meanings of the word ordinary.

First we may be dealing with ordinary, in the sense of average or those who existed in greatest numbers. Speaking in terms of the average English people, in Jane Austen's time, most ordinary men worked in agriculture. Many worked as laborers in other types of work. many were household servants. Many worked in trade. A quarter or more of all the men of the time were in the military for some important part of their lives, because of the Napoleonic Wars, which were going on throughout the time Jane Austen was writing, except while Persuasion was being written.

Many poor women worked in agriculture, preparation of linen and wool fabrics, and other similar jobs. Much of this was done at home. Many women, especially young, unmarried women, were household servants. If women could afford it, they did not work.

The people Jane Austen wrote about were called ordinary, and they were, but in a different sense. They were ordinary in the sense that they were not heroic as characters. The people Jane Austen wrote about all had some contact with more money than most people had, or with the aristocracy. But they also had contact with farmers (some were farmers, but wealthy farmers) and occasionally with the aristocracy (some were related). They were ordinary people, of the sort that populated Jane Austen's life, and they lived their fictional lives in very ordinary ways. Their natures were interesting because they rose to meet ordinary challenges in interesting, but mostly believable, ways.

The people in the novels were or were in the families of men who were: wealthy farmers; successful tradesmen; members of the gentry, who had estates, but no title; members of the clergy; military officers; and an occasional baronet (who was not, strictly speaking a lord). We meet a few other people, but very few. Jane Austen treats these people in a wide range of situations, ranging from the wealthy and successful to the poor, who were raised in good circumstances but have lost their wealth.

She is dealing with the life she knew, since the people she writes about are people who easily could have appeared in her life. They are not heroic, whether in scale or in actions, but are faced with ordinary problems in life, and rise to deal with them. In Jane Austen's time, this handling of the realistic was unusual and fresh.