So I am thinking. ....that I need to clean my laptop's keyboard as there are coffee stains on it.... seriously, or as serious as I ever get anymore, about how far we have come in the last 200 years. My conclusion, not far at all. Sure, we have electricity now which powers everything we do. We are more the Matrix then any of us want to admit to. Admit it you want to.
But at the same time, we are still living on the edge of the Regency era that my beloved Jane Austen lived in and wrote about.
Why do you think her novels have stayed the test of time? Why is there so many film and tv adaptions of her works, of which there were only 6 published, or why so many people have joined the revolution that is Austen sequels?
Because like Mary Shelley who wrote Frankenstein, Jane Austen's work is modern and timeless. Maybe even more so in the age of the Celebrity A-List (and B-List, and C-List, and D-List and you get the idea)
In Austen's day, a woman could not make a living unless she was completely poor and then had two main options, A) governess or B) cook
The ideal was to marry rich.
For a man who was born first in the family, it was smooth sailing all the way. A second son was usually given a choice of being a lawyer or a minister. Extremely lucky if there was a rich aunt and uncle to send him to live with in place of their not having a son. A guy born third or lower in the family usually turned to the military/navy. And if they could marry a rich wife, even better.
Have we come any farther really?
It's sad to think that in 200 years we are still picking our mates by what they think we can offer them in the form of security.
Half the planet still partakes in arranged marriages. My dad's parents were an arranged marriage and I think the worst idea ever. Whomever my soulmate is, he must be satisfied with the fact a Canadian writer, makes little to nothing, and that my disability holds me in my choices career wise.
I'm a hopeless romantic, and I can truly say boys, the size of your bank account does not impress me. The size of your dick does. (Holy Anne Rice Novels Batman she's at it again)
