I agree with you, Kate!
Posted by Diana LB on July 31, 1998 at 16:28:47:
In response to true but..., written by Kate on July 31, 1998 at 14:31:14
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] I do think there were a few better things about life back then. (and I'm sorry Mist, I didn't meant to imply at all that you were stupid! a ball is fun...) But I also know that I would probably have been one of those women like Mary Bennet who rarely got asked to dance, and was looked down on for being too smart, and end up living a miserable existence as someone's maiden aunt or as a governess (if I had the good fortune to be born into the upper classes). At least in this day and age, even if I'm not gorgeous, I can get respect and earn a living from my intellect - and know that I will NEVER have to depend on any one else to keep myself alive.
] That to me is worth all the balls, afternoon tea parties and strolls in the orchard you could give me.
] Oh, and the contraceptive pill and modern sanitary hygiene products weight fairly heavily in the balance too! ;-)
I'm with you. Give me good old antibiotics and doctors who don't bleed you - though I have heard they ARE using leeches for some things now!
I would definitely have been considered a bluestocking if I"d lived then - if, as you say, I knew how to read, because I don't think my British forebears were more than working class and may not have taught girls to read. I believe there are a lot of things about the life in the 19th C. that we would do well to emulate now though. (Incidentally, my grandmother in old Salem, MA area still dressed for tea every afternoon even in my girlhood.)
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