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would be provided, and she would eat with her employer; and she would be paid a small salary, which would be called an "allowance" – never "wages". She would not be expected to perform any domestic duties which her employer might not carry out herself, in other words little other than giving directions to servants, fancy sewing and pouring tea. Thus the role was not very different from that of an adult relation in respect of the lady of a household, except for the essential subservience resulting from financial dependency.
142:, the companion is presented as a conventional feature of the life of the moneyed classes. However, it is after the Second World War that desperation begins to creep in. The companions after the Second World War are generally elderly women who grew up in Victorian times without the expectation of having to provide for themselves, but who find themselves impoverished due to the decline of the fortunes of many once well-to-do families as a result of the
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background similar to or only a little below that of their employer would be considered for the position. Women took positions as companions if they had no other means of support, as until the late 19th century there were very few other ways in which an upper- or upper-middle-class woman could earn a
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Lady's companions were employed because upper- and middle-class women spent most of their time at home. A lady's companion might be taken on by an unmarried woman living on her own, by a widow, a married woman who lived with her husband and sons but had no daughters and desired female company, or by
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The companion's role was to spend her time with her employer, providing company and conversation, to help her to entertain guests and often to accompany her to social events. In return she would be given a room in the family's part of the house, rather than the servants' quarters; all of her meals
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waiting on them. Along with the growing keenness of young middle-class women to take advantage of the broadening range of options available to them to have a career, this degradation of the status of the companion represents the closure of the era of the lady's companion in the United
Kingdom.
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This situation is complicated by the collapse in the supply of working-class servants due to changing labour market conditions and social attitudes, so that companions are increasingly asked to perform domestic duties which they find humiliating, especially since they at one point had servants
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The occupation of lady's companion has been made obsolete in the United
Kingdom and most other developed countries. This is primarily because upper-class women no longer primarily stay in the home, and also because of the many other employment opportunities afforded to modern women.
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of female members of the royal family. Ladies-in-waiting were usually women from the most privileged backgrounds who took the position for the prestige of associating with royalty, or for the enhanced marriage prospects available to those who spent time at
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Apart from marriage or a convent, there were precious few careers open to her, and some of those such as clerking in a shop or going into service implied a loss of social status. ... If educated, she could seek employment as a governess or companion or
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and the investment losses incurred during the War. At the same time, the women who employ them are often not so well off as they once were themselves, especially in net terms due to high rates of property taxation.
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living which did not result in a complete loss of her class status. (Employment as a governess, running a private girls' school and writing were virtually the only other such options; hence the formation of the
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For the unfortunate minority who did not marry and who had no male relative to support them, there was always recourse to the acceptably genteel and domestic positions of governess or lady's companion.
93:; at the time, it would not have been socially acceptable for a young lady to receive male visitors without either a male relation or an older lady present (a female servant would not have sufficed).
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an unmarried woman who was living with her father or another male relation but had lost her mother, and was too old to have a governess. In the last case the companion would also act as a
72:, but neither was she really treated as an equal; however her position in the household of her employer was notably less awkward and solitary than that of a governess. Only women from a
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hires Miss Briggs as a companion she describes as a sheepdog, thus allowing her husband to leave her with propriety in the company of other men with whom she is flirting.
48:, but lady's companions usually took up their occupation because they needed to earn a living and have somewhere to live. A companion is not to be confused with
176:, in the eponymous children's novel, is taken from her Swiss mountain home at the age of eight to become the companion of an invalid girl in Frankfurt, Germany.
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served as companion to a wealthy widow, Sarah Dawson, in the spa town of Bath. It was her first job, aged 19 in 1778.
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Josephine March (and later, her youngest sister Amy) is a companion to her wealthy great-aunt in
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cliffsnotes.com
Critical Essays Women's Roles in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain
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52:, a female personal attendant roughly equivalent to a "gentleman's gentleman" or
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Joyce
Annotated: Notes for Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
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There are numerous lady's companions in the mysteries of
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Dorothy "Dot" Williams is Phryne Fisher's companion in
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27:birth who lived with a woman of rank or wealth as
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188:Miss Taylor, one of the first characters met in
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79:Society for Promoting the Employment of Women
68:, a lady's companion was not regarded as a
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185:is a lady's companion as the novel begins.
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214:Sarah Woodruff works as a companion in
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261:-like, marrying a wealthy nobleman.
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138:. In her novels dating before the
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124:In the works of Agatha Christie
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221:The French Lieutenant's Woman
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97:End of the lady's companion
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247:The eponymous heroine of
301:Gissing, George (1998).
179:The unnamed narrator of
255:Frances Hodgson Burnett
329:Gifford, Don (1981).
396:Gendered occupations
386:Obsolete occupations
242:A Place of One's Own
112:Mary Wollstonecraft
106:Historical examples
276:Other meanings of
166:, the protagonist
203:Louisa May Alcott
135:After the Funeral
60:Status and duties
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163:Vanity Fair
50:lady's maid
370:Categories
285:References
259:Cinderella
119:In fiction
81:in 1859.)
278:companion
244:" (1945).
205:'s novel
192:'s novel
91:chaperone
66:governess
41:retainers
346:teacher.
272:Cicisbeo
266:See also
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233:(2012).
182:Rebecca
132:, e.g.
70:servant
64:Like a
33:archaic
25:genteel
391:Gentry
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174:Heidi
74:class
54:valet
46:court
335:ISBN
307:ISBN
240:'s "
195:Emma
218:'s
160:In
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19:A
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