For women of the "genteel" classes the goal of non-domestic education was thus often the acquisition of "accomplishments", such as the ability to draw, sing, play music or speak modern (i.e. non-Classical) languages (generally French and Italian). Though it was not usually stated with such open cynicism, the purpose of such accomplishments was often only to attract a husband; so that these skills then tended to be neglected after marriage (Lady Middleton in Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility) "had celebrated her marriage by giving up music, although by her mother's account she had played those of several married women she knows). In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet displays her relatively detached attitude towards the more trivial aspects of this conventional game by adopting a somewhat careless attitude towards her "accomplishment" of playing the piano, and not practising it diligently.

Several quotes from Jane Austen's Juvenilia summarise this well; the first is from Catharine or the Bower, where Catharine sums up a new acquaintance:

"Miss Stanley had been attended by the most capital masters from the time of her being six years old to the last spring, which, comprehending a period of twelve years, had been dedicated to the acquirement of accomplishments which were now to be displayed and in a few years [i. e. After her probable marriage] to be entirely neglected. She was not... naturally deficient in abilities; but those years which ought to have been spent in the attainment of useful knowledge and mental improvement had all been bestowed in learning Drawing, Italian, and Music."

And in Lady Susan, the title character takes the entirely cynical view that the only purpose of her teenaged daughter Frederica's education is to increase her attractiveness in husband-hunting, and even thinks that some of the conventional "female accomplishments" are entirely superfluous for this purpose:

"I wish her [the daughter's] education to be attended to while she remains with Miss Summers. I want her to play and sing with some portion of taste and a good deal of assurance...--those accomplishments are now necessary to finish a pretty woman. Not that I am an advocate for the prevailing fashion of acquiring a perfect knowledge in all the languages, arts, and sciences -- it is throwing time away; to be mistress of French, Italian, German, music, singing, drawing, &c. Will gain a woman some applause, but will not add one lover to her list. ... I do not mean, therefore, that Frederica's acquirements will be more than superficial, and I flatter myself that she will not remain long enough at school to understand anything thoroughly. I hope to see her the wife of Sir James within a twelvemonth."

All this is not to say, by any means, that all women were ignorant; only that, since there was no requirement for academic education for women, and very little opportunity for women to use such knowledge (so that for women learning is only for "the improvement of her mind") --therefore it depended very strongly on what kind of instruction each woman's parents offered her in childhood, and on the individual inclinations of the woman herself (as in Bennet family) --intelligent girls could even have an advantage over boys in being able to more or less choose their own studies, and in not being subject to the rather mixed blessings of a more uniform Classical curriculum. [Notice in the two quotes above that the disapproving Catharine is Jane Austen's spokeswoman, while the cynical and even humorously overstated Lady Susan is definitely not.]

In the novels, Darcy makes the remark that besides the accomplishments, a woman "must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading". And Jane Austen makes fun of the opposite opinion in Northanger Abbey with her mock-editorial comment (on Catherine Morland during the walk from Bath to Beechen Cliff) that:

"Where people wish to attach [others to them], they should always be ignorant. To come with a well-informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can. The advantages of folly in a beautiful girl have already been set forth by the capital pen of a sister author [Fanny Burney in Camilla]; and to her treatment of the subject I will only add injustice to men, that though to the larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable and too well-informed themselves to desire anything more in woman than ignorance."

Jane Austen's more serious opinion as to the desirability of ignorance is probably expressed when Emma, in the novel of the same name, teases the sensible Mr. Knightley by professing sentiments similar to the above, and he decidedly rejects them.

And in any case, the conventional "accomplishments" were not totally to be despised --in the days before phonographs and radio, the only music available was that which amateur or professional performers could produce on the spot, so that the ability to play music did have a practical social value. Similarly painting, drawing and the ability to write a good long informative letter (itself also something of a "female accomplishment") were valued in the age before photographs and cheap fast transportation.

The following is a list of passages in Pride and Prejudice referring to "accomplishments", or to women's education:

• Mary is pleased with the Meryton assembly because she "had heard herself mentioned to Miss Bingley as the most accomplished girl in the neighbourhood."; "in consequence of being the only plain one in the family", she "worked hard for knowledge and accomplishments", and "was always impatient for display".
• Elizabeth does not play half so well, but had been listened to with much more pleasure than the pedantic and affected Mary.
• Discussion between the Bingleys, Darcy and Elizabeth at Netherfield. Bingley: "It is amazing to me, how young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are"; "I am sure I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time, without being informed that she was very accomplished".

Darcy's addendum:

• Lady Catherine inquires after Elizabeth's accomplishments, and thinks the Bennet sisters' education has been insufficiently systematic.
• Lady Catherine effervesees about herself and her daughter Anne: "There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient. And so would Anne, if her health had allowed her to apply. I am confident that she would have performed delightfully."
• Lady Catherine: "I have told Miss Bennet several times, that she will never play really well, unless she practises more".
• Elizabeth to Darcy: "My fingers do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women's do. They have not the same force or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault --because I would not take the trouble of practising. It is not that I do not believe my fingers as capable as any other woman's of superior execution."
• Lady Catherine again: "Miss Bennet would not play at all amiss, if she practised more, and could have the advantage of a London master. She has a very good notion of fingering, though her taste is not equal to Anne's. Anne would have been a delightful performer, had her health allowed her to learn."

 

* Feminism in Jane Austen  / * Marriage and the alternatives: the status of women / * Legalities of marriage /
* Money and marriage / * "Settlements" / * Entail and inheritance / * Male progeniture succession / * Legal motivation for entails / * Legal aspects of entails / * Attitudes to the entail in Pride and Prejudice / * "Sister" and "Brother"; "Alliance / * Return.