A very good article on the problems (now starting to be addressed) with the romance industry, and the not always so romantic roots of some of our tropes.
The only thing I would say, and I wouldn’t disagree with her so much as add an addendum, is that there are very good, practical reasons to focus on the aristocracy or the rich when writing Regency and Victorian romance.
And that reason is basically that life sucked for everyone else. No, really, we’re talking slum living for the vast majority of people. The working classes in cities worked 16-18 hour days and could only afford 1 or 2 rooms. Children worked from the ages of 3-5, basically as soon as they could earn money,m they had to. They also often got the most dangerous jobs, down coal mines, darting under machinery, because they were small and could fit. Of course, this led to many accidents and deaths. The average life expectancy of a coal miner was as low as 15 at times. Some slum areas had an infant mortality rate of ovr 50%, so less than half of all children born in those areas lived to be a year old.
Now yes, the middle classes were growing and were spared some of these horrors, but while wealthy, they had no power. The aristocracy looked down on them, even when forced to marry the richer ones to improve their ailing bank accounts, and they tried to keep them out of areas of influence, such as running for parliament, or even just being able to vote!
The aristocracy were the only ones with both the money to lead some semblance of a happy life, and have the power to improve the lives of others (not all aristocrats or wealthy were selfish and some did push for change).
The Victorian age was an era of improvements and they brought in the first child labour laws, compulsory Sundays off, made education compulsory for all children for the first time, allowed more men to vote (just the middle classes but still), and many other reforms, some successful (like education) some less so (like the expansion of the workhouses).
So yes, many Regency and Victorian romance do have rich and/or aristocrats as their protagonists, because for at least 90% of people in that era, life was fucking miserable.
But it is worth remembering how many of these heroes earned their money.
Just the other day I was wracking my brain for a regency industry where my heroine could become filthy rich with a relatively small investment, but one that didn’t involve colonialism, slavery, or child labour. Mining, weaving, importing almost anything (cotton, tobacco, tea etc) railways, and sugar cane (or any) plantation all fail to pass the “is it humane” test and sadly, I have been unable to find one. Suggestions on a postcard, please?
Romanticizing White Supremacy | elizabeth-kingston
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