Moniker/Name
Ariella
Source of Question
Research
Your Question
I’m plotting a book where a widow in her mid-20s offers to serve as chaperon to a distant relation whose mother is dead. The widow and the girl in question (and her father) are not related by blood. All characters are aristocrats of varying ranks. If the widow did not have access to a London townhouse, would she live with the family of the girl she’s chaperoning? If not, where would she live?
Additional comments
In my book, the girl in question is the widow’s sister’s brother-in-law’s daughter (whew!). I’m mostly curious about the propriety of her being around (or living with) a single widower if she’s specifically there to chaperone his daughter. Would the answer change if her sister and her husband lived at the same townhouse?
Thanks for the question, Ariella, and for being a Regency Reader! As with all fictional based requests, I encourage creative license, even though I know you are subject to “Historical accuracy”! criticisms. I say that because there are a lot of variables for these types of etiquette scenarios that could make it more plausible for the widow to shack up with her brother-in-law-once-removed.
However, I am guessing from the tone of your question that you are wanting to understand not what was possible but what was probable. I have answered similar questions to this here: Regency Reader Questions: Young Widows and Chaperones and here: Regency Reader Questions: On Chaperones. As I shared in the first link, there were enough cautionary tales of “merry widows” that a young widow wanting to maintain respectability would likely be loathe to cohabitate with an unmarried man, regardless of the distant relation. They might solve the dilemma a few ways: she lives nearby with relatives, he moves out to rented room or with others, or an older Aunt, mother, etc. moves in to ensure proprieties. The second scenario, with her sister and husband in residence, would provide for many enough of a buffer to preserve the proprieties. But the two living alone, even with the daughter? Likely to raise eyebrows.
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