Was Jane Austen a feminist of her time?
It's a subject of debate as to whether Jane Austen was a feminist of her time. The definition of feminism according to Google (and Wikipedia) is as follows:
Jane Austen created many strong female characters in her novels. The one commonly used as an example of this is Elizabeth Bennet. She exerts her own opinion "decidedly" and even rejects two proposals, because only the deepest love will induce her to marry. This went against the common social norm of marrying for status. Jane herself was engaged for a night to Harris Bigg-Wither, who went on to inherit the Manydown estate, and had she not turned him down the following morning she would have found herself in a comfortable financial position. Her niece Caroline highlighted that this went against societal norms in a later letter:
"Having accepted him, she found she was miserable and that the place and fortune which would certainly be his, could not alter the man ... I have always respected her for the courage in cancelling that ‘yes’... I beleive [sic] most young women so circumstanced would have taken Mr Wither and trusted to love after marriage."
All of Jane's novels end with marriages but she promotes the idea that women's decisions and opinions are just as important as a man's in entering the marriage state. In this, she also promoted the idea that women and men should be companions to each other as well as spouses.
Jane was well educated for a woman of the time, and thanks to her father's extensive library, she was also very well-read. Although supported by the men in her family, she remained anonymous as "a lady" when her novels were first published as it was not considered proper for ladies to pursue writing as a career at the time. This exchange between Captain Harville and Anne Elliot in Persuasion is quite poignant on the topic of man and literature:
"..Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men."
"Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything."
Those who argue against Jane being a feminist note that the women in her novels that are outspoken or who don't behave the way a proper lady should, such as Marianne Dashwood, are often "punished" of sorts. Marianne becomes more sensible, Catherine Morland stops running away with her imagination, and Emma gives up her career in matchmaking and learns controls her tongue.
Jane doesn't treat her ambitious women kindly, with Isabella Thorpe pursuing Captain Tilney, only to lose James Morland in Northanger Abbey, and Mary Crawford doesn't fare well either in Mansfield Park. Though she doesn't treat male fortune hunters any differently, as Willoughby ends up in a marriage with a woman he despises because he married for money in Sense and Sensibility.
A recent poll on my twitter found that 86% do think Jane is a feminist but I think that whether or not Jane is a feminist is down to personal opinion. The word feminism didn't even exist in Jane's day and so she is sometimes described as a protofeminist, which means someone who lived in a time before the 20th term of feminist existed but they conform to modern concepts of feminism.
Although in the minority I personally don't think that Jane was a feminist. She treated both sexes with the same amount of respect or ridicule in her novels and didn't push the feministic ideology. She wrote about love and companionship, and both sexes had silly characters, neither sex favourably portrayed over the other overall. I can imagine Jane being a supporter of the right for women to vote to be considered an equal had she been born later, but not an active participant in the extreme suffragette movement.
Image taken from The Guardian.com
