Today the US celebrate’s Mother’s Day. As a social media lover, I’m always intrigued by the forms of celebration present within my facebook feed. Lovely posts from friends near and far celebrating their children, celebrating their mother’s, being celebrated. Amazing coworkers and friends who reach out to wish me a Happy Mother’s day. It is a beautiful time to share this digital space with so many others.
What struck me, both because of the coincidence of it’s order in my feed, and the surprising connection in content, were a feminist post and a fanfic post. The feminist posts argued for taking Mother’s Day back to it’s revolutionary roots. Supplying a labor calculator on the effort required to maintain a household with children, and the emotional labor of supporting families throughout lifespan developments, this pro-woman post offers a feminist celebration of women as mothers. In a post that seems to be far from similar, a Jane Austen fanfiction feed posted a meme of Alison Steadman as Mrs. Bennet from the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice with the line “you don’t know what I suffer….”.
Mrs. Bennet is an oft ridiculed character from P&P for her single-minded determination to marry off her daughters (with too little care about the ability of said groom to serve as a good husband), and for the suffering of her nerves (she owns this in self-proclamations). There are moments where her ridiculousness sparks enjoyment, but when juxtaposed to the labor calculator offered in celebration of mothers – her single-minded pursuit of a husband (THE most secure avenue for the future lives of her and her children if her husband were to die) and her nerve suffering are put into illuminating perspective.
Bear with me…..and my overly academic retitling in the middle of this blog post!
In defense of Mrs. Bennet’s nerves: a conversation of invisible labor calculations in P&P
As the story goes, Mrs. Bennet has five daughters. Five daughters that she birthed without the help of modern medicine, and epidurals. Five daughters that she birthed with little to no pre-natal care. Five daughters that she birthed in an era when daughters had no personhood. How would one even begin to cope with the emotional toll knowing the entire estate, servants and tenants, are impacted by the happenstance of gender in the child you produce? What strikes me, especially today seeing these two posts in a row – how does a woman suffer through child birth, only to give birth to a non-person?
At the time a girl was the property of her father until marriage, then she became the property of her husband. She had very little power – even Lady Catherine who seems to have the most obvious power within the novel schemes to marry her sickly daughter to the nephew who comes to care for her estate once a year.
To add to this burden of birthing non-people, Mrs. Bennet was responsible for the educating, schooling, and rearing of these five daughters. Mr. Bennet, while Elizabeth’s favorite parent, is indolent and little tolerates his daughters invasion of his library. While he probably contributed to the education of the daughters a bit, the majority of the rearing would have required Mrs. Bennet (and presumably a few servants, perhaps a Nurse or nanny – but not a governess as is mentioned). While the elder daughters also spent time with Mrs. Gardiner and improved their manners (yet more mother figures required to carry the invisible labor burden), only two of the daughters were regularly sent to London to visit. Until Lydia leaves for her disastrous trip to Brighton, it’s unclear if the three younger daughters were ever away from their mother.
That’s 19+ years of invisible labor laughed off as ‘the nerves of Mrs. Bennet.’ I suddenly have all the empathy for Mrs. Bennet’s nerves.
Invisible labor calculators often draw from Sarah Ruddick’s ‘maternal thought’ – pointing to the invisible pressures mother’s feel from society and communities on their role as mother. In a somewhat isolated community (although she argues with Mr. Darcy on this point), with few marriageable men for her daughters, the pressures of society influencing Mrs. Bennet’s thoughts are all too real. Her ‘friendly’ competition with the other mother’s of the neighborhood reflect the very real stress women in her position would have felt to find a secure situation for their daughters.
Mrs. Bennet has multiple roles within the household – a point often overlooked. The quality of the table Mrs. Bennet sets is praised within the novel. Mrs. Bennet’s ability to set a good table is a reflection of her ability to adapt to a new social sphere – Mrs. Bennet was not born into the landed-gentry, but is the daughter of a country lawyer. That’s right, Mrs. Bennet, a daughter of a country lawyer rose through social class differences, and became a landed-gentry wife and mother. Her ability to read and write were required for her social mobility. Her ability to manage a staff and work with a variety of people (servants and tenants) were required of her social mobility. Her ability to work with neighbors in her new role as landed-gentry were required for the benefit of her offspring (of which she hoped for a son who would then take over the estate).
These inspiring abilities are not discussed within P&P, while Mrs. Bennet’s nerves are mocked. Again, I have all the empathy for what Mrs. Bennet suffers. Her very vocal and flamboyant suffering her only method of pushing against the invisible labor load she carries in a household where her husband hides in a library. (On a side note, I’m really starting to worry about who Elizabeth sided with and favorited…….)
Returning to the five daughters. Mrs. Bennet birthed five daughters and taught them everything they would need to know. Then, as the matriarch of the house, she was responsible for the entertainment of the five daughters within the school room and drawing room. The time spent with these daughters in education and entertainment (here tea and needlepoint would be a huge labor of the entertainment part) would be all consuming. The majority of the hours of the day would be spent with her daughters, and in educating her daughters.
We spend about an hour a night helping my 6 year old with homework and we rejoice as much as he does when it’s done! Mrs. Bennet would have spent 8+ hours a day on the education of five daughters (7 days a week). When not working with her daughters, Mrs. Bennet ran the home. She would have managed the household budget (food, candles, servants wages, etc.), household menus (family and servants), and seen to the needs of the tenants, in addition to clothing herself and her daughters. Mrs. Bennet essentially held a job, as an accountant and manager, of her household. This is made very clear when Elizabeth looks at Pemberly while touring with her aunt and uncle and says “Of all this I might have been mistress” in both awe and nervousness. Elizabeth, while often read as having a somewhat contentious relationship with her mother, is fully aware (because she was taught by her mother) of the duties of mistress of an estate.
I also want to again note, Mrs. Bennet does all this while her husband hides in the library. While I could continue to raise examples from the novel, my main goal here was to point to the invisible labor assumptions underlying Austen’s beloved work. In posting an image of Mrs. Bennet and her nerves in tribute to Mother’s Day, the feminist tribute of this fanfiction facebook page is probably under recognized by far too many readers.
It should be noted that Mrs. Bennet is not the only mother who suffers from invisible labor requirements and restrictions. In most of Austen’s work, there are mother’s suffering the pressures. It could be argued, these characters that readers laugh at (Mrs. Bennet) and feel empathy for (Mrs. Dashwood – the elder second wife) are probably real reflections of Austen’s own material thought, her own struggles with what society expected from her, and the limited options she had available in her path. Despite never marrying and having children, in a society where she was seen as a non-person, Austen would have an important view of the work of women of her time.
So on this US Mother’s Day, as some celebrate the revolutionary roots of Mother’s Day as a day women gave up their home-based invisible labor to draw attention to the work of women, I draw your attention to the invisible labor that floats throughout a beloved novel. It floats so invisibly within the text that we recognize the joke, and why we’re laughing, without confronting the long history of powerful women.
Happy Mother’s Day, in all it’s feminist glory!
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