Is that a trick question? Well, I am calling myself The Well-Turned
Lady (WTL), but if I am thinking in Jane Austen’s time (Regency Period) then it
is a tricky question, indeed. In our
more democratic era, the standard for being lady is…well more liberal. Now we can all be ladies if we call ourselves that. However, in Jane’s time it was very clear
that most women were not Ladies.
Being well-turned did not happen by accident and did not
happen overnight. A Lady was cultivated.
This was the great dividing line in
English culture. Her Ladyship’s work was
becoming a Lady. The rest of them were
hoofing it for her and pulling it together for themselves when they could.
In training to be a Lady, it was a given that you would work
on your embroidery, your painting, your languages, your dancing -- this was
your work. Even In the softening of the class system in America, this did not
die completely. Young women who wanted
to be respectable wives had their lessons as well. This was the new work of middle class women. It was a matter of course that a young woman
would work on these skills. They might also
may marry a bully or die in childbirth, but we can’t have everything can we,
Dears?
Why does being a Lady even matter? Why should you or I care? For me, the artful life that I desire is not
pulling itself together on its own. Nor
do I believe it will without a conscious effort to see that happen, and I do
not know how to make that happen in my current manner of living.
As a feminist, I am not harkening back to a time of
“traditional womanhood” kicks and grins.
I am hearkening back to a time when roles were bounded by cultural
expectations. Yet, in that boundary a
lot of creativity and cultivation could happen.
That was a boon, I think. It is a
great struggle for me to make this happen in any other way. In having it all, I am too unbounded. I have too much to do in vocation, chores, avocations
and self-care. In managing me there is
just too much to “just happen” any other way.
You can disagree with me on this, but for some reason the
Well-Turned Lady Model makes this all very real to me. To live the model one must know, what
constitutes a lady? I can’t say that I
have encountered any women who would not
be considered ladies now-a-days. However,
in the true cultivation model, I know of only one or two women who were actually
raised in such a way that their patronage, wealth and lifestyle would actually make
them part of the “ton.” Knowing them and hearing about their lives is
to meet someone who breathes extremely rarified air.
Beyond the pure, pure air of that world, the model of the
Well-Turned Lady became most real to me in fictional worlds. First in learning more about the world Jane
Austen lived in, which fascinates me to no end.
Second in watching a woman who models what a true lady most likely was
-- Lady Mary in Downton Abbey.
Yes, there are issues in the show: too much of a soap opera, too liberal in its
depictions of class relationships, etc.
However, Lady Mary’s demeanor was something that I had never really understood
until “my study” of her. Has there ever
been a more entitled woman depicted on television? She acts with true (perhaps selfish) self-regard. In her is a depiction a woman whose sense of
what she needs and what she wants is a matter of fact. Her wants supersedes everyone else in her
orbit -- no apologies or qualifications.
Why would there be? She has been
raised to know that what she wants matters and is important; therefore, she
need not apologize for wanting it.
For this reason, I am really beginning to think that sense of
entitlement is what is ultimately necessary in order to carve out the time to
create. Entitlement is very difficult
for me. In my life, I have been raised
to be a servant and not a lady. I do not
know how to give myself the time to cultivate me without feeling like I have to
ask permission for it (to no one but my own highly developed super ego). At 46 years old, I am a little tired of it.
The Well Turned Lady has a confession to make. She has not managed her time well since she
last wrote to you, thus the gap of many months since the last post. Her creativity, the very thing she is
attempting to nurture, is thwarted in a stream of work, chores, fatigue, and
frittering time away on the Internet.
She confess this to you because she needs this transparency
to really see what she is doing and because daily work versus creativity was no
less a struggle for women historically, though it looked different. In order to cultivate this creative life, The
Well-Turned Lady is attempting to understand how other ladies in the past who
labored still managed to create. And all
who create must reach an agreement with themselves and their spouses on how
much Domestic Servitude is required of each of them.
WTL warns you not to make the mistake she did. In looking for a tasty baked French toast
recipe one day, she came upon a blog focused upon Domestic Servitude. “Perhaps this was some ironic spin on the
topic of housework,” she wondered. The WTL was flummoxed to find it was an
(ahem) S & M site...with recipes.
Apparently the Domestic Servant of said site had entered into a
Master-Slave relationship. She even
posted pictures of their (non-wedding) bands with the words “Master” and
“Slave” engraved upon them. How quaint.
She did have excellent baked French toast, though.
While home maintenance can at times feel like a
Master/Servant relationship, the WTL reminds herself frequently that having a
place to lay one’s head is a blessing, still.
However, it can seriously impinge one’s creative time – at least it does
to her. One reason for this, she had
read, was that with each technological innovation in the domestic arts, our
standards of cleanliness rose to meet them.
Thus, Labor Saving became Labor Expanding.
One more distinction must be raised. Given England’s class system most respectable
houses had servants. In Pride and Prejudice,
Mrs. Bennet huffily defended that they had a servant, too. It showed their social status. The Colonial woman of this nation - less
so. Anonymous was a Woman
references that most of the girls and young women in the book were preparing
themselves to care for their home. One
mother even exhorts her daughter:
Oh,
you life will go so much easier if you know how to bake and roast!
The WTL lady is in the Colonial category. Daily work is done by the WTL and The
Well-Turned Hub (husband). She receives
some help with deep cleaning every few weeks as The WTL has arthritis,
Fibromyalgia, and a host of other chronic pain issues. She does not even attempt to deep clean
anymore as it will set her back, and she will need several days in bed to
recoup. Day-to-Day is another
matter. Clothes, dishes, picking up,
vacuuming, general cleaning and litter box cleaning (oh joy) falls squarely on
the WTL and WTH.
The trouble is that the WTL feels pulled in a million directions. When cleaning, she wishes she were doing
something fun. When doing something fun,
she might be reviewing that endless to do list in her head. She rushes from one place to another from
the start of the day until the end when she pours herself into bed after
watching the Daily Show and the Colbert Report.
Quell Domage! What is a WTL to
do?
Have ideas to solve this quandary? Share, please, in the comments
section.
