Regency Reader Questions: Unmarried and Orphaned

Regency Reader Question
What would happen to a young unmarried women who was left without a living relative? Would it be possible for a family friend to take her in or would she be forced to live elsewhere? If she was taken in by strangers what would need to be in place for it to be “proper”?

Thanks for the question, Jamie, and for being a Regency Reader!

I have another post about chaperones and the rules related to them which may address the propriety question: https://wp.me/p2FybJ-xP 

We also shared some information about a young widow’s situation here: Regency Reader Questions: Young Widows and Chaperones – Regency Reader (regrom.com)

The answer to the broader question of a young, orphaned girl or woman is a bit more complicated and varies depending on all sorts of circumstances.  Research shows between the 14th and early 19th century, singlewomen were about 30% of the adult female population (Froide, 2005).   One third of urban women were single (Froide, 2005).  Data suggests that women married later, on average, than many assume for the early 19th century or some romance novels would have us believe; marriage is assumed to be the “normative state” for women in the 19th century, against actual data (or because data was not explored by scholars until relatively recently).

In other words, the single, unmarried woman was a more likely phenomenon than might be supposed, leading to a variety of options for women to survive/thrive.  Here are some options that would have been likely:

1. Find shelter with friends or neighbors.  This would entirely depend on the kindness, relative wealth (ability to feed and house another person), and how the young woman could be incorporated into the family.  In this instance, it would likely have to be a household with a married woman as mistress, or a female head of household.  She might join the family as a caregiver, governess, or companion or simply be viewed as a charity case.  This would come with all sorts of constraints that would have to be weighed by the young woman.
2. Seek employment.  House maid, governess, seamstress, milliner, companion…depending on her skills and abilities she may seek some kind of employment that came with room and board or without and look for lodgings (Pollock, 2003).  If she was a lady, this would essentially mean leaving her class and the world she knew behind.  Sex work was another type of employment an unmarried woman might seek, whether on the street, in a brothel, or being “kept” as a mistress (https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/gender-roles-in-the-19th-century).  In many cases, unmarried women would migrate to towns or cities to find employment, housing, and access to resources (Froide, 2005).  It would also be easier to be anonymous and escape the public scrutiny an unmarried woman would be subject to.
3. Establish her own household.  This would entirely depend on her income/inheritance.  The post above about chaperones and young widows gives some data that shows unmarried women head of households were more common than it may be thought. Here is another paper on this idea: https://www.persee.fr/doc/adh_0066-2062_1981_num_1981_1_1507
4. Emigrate to another country.  This occurred more regularly in the Victorian era, but would have still been a possibility for a single woman seeking a situation or marriage (https://dumas.ccsd.cnrs.fr/dumas-00935238/document).
5. Seek employment presenting as male.  This was not a common occurrence, but there are enough examples of this occurring that we know it happened.  Whether a military occupation or not, women sometimes would adopt male identities as an opportunity or as an expression of their gender identity.

As the Western world became more industrialized, urban orphans would also see a significant uptick leading to the establishment of orphanages (https://merrynallingham.com/19th-20th-century/the-rise-of-the-orphanage/).  Women would also battle for more economic opportunities while continuing to be marginalized.  This article explores the concept of the Victorian “surplus” of unmarried women and how that impacted, contracted and expanded opportunities.

For a deeper dive into the topic, I recommend the works cited below as comprehensive places to start.

I hope that was helpful in answering your questions.  Thanks again for submitting your question and being a Regency Reader.

Do you have additional questions you would like us to research and answer?  Ask us here!

Froide, A. (2005).  Never Married: Singlewomen in Early Modern England.  Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Hill, B. (2001).  Women Alone: Spinsters in England 1660-1850.  New Haven, Yale University Press.

Pollock, L.A. (2003). [Review of the book Women Alone: Spinsters in England 1660-1850]. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 33(4), 616-617. https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/39393.