Jane Austen For Dummies (50 page)
Read Jane Austen For Dummies Online
Authors: Joan Elizabeth Klingel Ray
Following Religion and Morality for Jane Austen and Her Times
In This Chapter
Getting to know Austen through her religious affiliation
Judging the men of the cloth
Understanding the characters' ways of sin
Overcoming your bad behaviors by doing some good
I
n Austen's Georgian England, spiritual life was, for the most part, a private matter. Many clergymen walk in and out of the pages of Austen's novels, but for Austen, herself, she's quiet about her specific religious beliefs and rarely, if ever, preaches to her readers. Austen is a moral writer who uses her characters to comment about human choices â choices that we still make every day.
Members of The Church of England were and are also known as Anglicans. When Austen mentions her characters attending church, you can assume that the place of worship was Anglican. Jane Austen, her characters, her friends, and her gentry neighbors were all Anglican members of The Church of England.
In this chapter, I discuss the evolution of Anglicanism to Austen's time, Austen's brand of Anglicanism, and her presentation of religion and morality (or immorality) in her novels.
Austen, herself, was an Anglican and was surrounded by folks who also followed Anglicanism: Her father and two of her brothers were Anglican clergymen, her sister, Cassandra, was engaged to an Anglican cleric, her cousin Edward Cooper, and her niece, Anna, married an Anglican priest. Rumor says that Austen had a brief seaside courtship with an Anglican priest. Being the national religion, Anglicanism was the most practiced religion of the day in England. To understand Jane Austen's religious life and how it affected her writing, you must understand the basics of Anglicanism. (For more on Jane Austen's life, see Chapter 3.)
Remember Henry the VIII (1491â1547, reigned 1509â1547) and his six wives? Instituting the Church of England is how he managed to marry wives numbers two, three, four, five, and six. Henry's main desire was to have absolute authority over the Catholic Church in England so that he could annul his marriage to his first wife in the hope of producing a son and heir with a subsequent wife.
The Anglican Church's organization and theology was really a compromise between Roman Catholicism and non-Calvinist Protestantism.
The
liturgy
(the service and rituals of worship found in the
Book of Common Prayer
) was said in English rather than Latin. The Austens used the 1662 edition of the
Prayer Book
.
The Anglican Church retained the medieval Catholic organization.
⢠Bishops and archbishops governed the church.
⢠Church-taxes (tithes) were paid by landowners.
⢠The church contained a parish structure (ecclesiastical districts had their own church and clergy and determined the structure of the local government).
Anglicanism held that salvation came from faith, good works, free will, and God's grace.
The Test Act, passed in 1673, required holders of public office to take the Holy Eucharist according to the Anglican rite (denying the Roman Catholic belief in transubstantiation that at Holy Communion, when one takes the bread and the wine, these substances miraculously become the body and blood of Christ). This act remained in effect until 1828 and greatly affected English education and politics because to attend Oxford or Cambridge University, to hold a government office, or to be a military officer, you had to be Anglican. Therefore, Anglicanism permeated all walks of public life in Austen's day.
The Anglican Church was and remains a living structure that witnessed change in its fabric. By the late 17th century
The High Church group within Anglicanism emphasized its Catholic or apostolic nature and denied toleration to Dissenters (religious sects that weren't Anglican, such as Methodists). High Churchmen held to the sanctity of the Scriptures and the
Book of Common Prayer
.
The Low Church element stressed the Church's Protestantism, tolerated Dissenters, and supported
Latitudinarianism
or latitude within the church.
Latitudinarians respected reason and allied themselves with progress in the intellectual world. They worked to harmonize Scriptures with reason and emphasized practical morality assisted by society's institutions, including both the government and church. This attitude led to a more secularized Church of England in the 18th century and during most of Austen's lifetime. The Church of England had become “enlightened.”
For many people in Austen's time, being an Anglican meant being one in name only. People skipped church or slept through the sermon when they did go. The worst offenders in this category were the city dwellers of London. In fact, in Austen's day, many people who lived in the country considered London a place of corruption, while many Londoners deemed the country boring and boorish. The attitude was known as the city versus the country debate.
Attendance was normally better in the country, where Austen's characters resided and where she, herself, lived. But living in the country didn't guarantee attending church or even attending services in one's private chapel. While Austen, as the daughter of a clergyman, went to church every Sunday (two services in one day), she knew that for as many fellow parishioners sitting in the church pews around her, some people only made it to church for Easter and Christmas. She shows that even a family of the gentry, who should be setting an example for their tenants, thinks so little of religion that they have discontinued services in their family chapel. In
Mansfield Park,
a group of characters visits Sotherton, a large country house, which like many other great country houses had its own chapel. At Sotherton, the chapel dates back to 1685â1688, but it has lately fallen to disuse: “âPrayers were always read in it by the domestic chaplain. But the late Mr. Rushworth [i.e., the speaker's late husband] left it off'” (MP 1:9). Hearing this, the worldly Mary Crawford, a Londoner, quips, “âEvery generation has its improvements.'” While a case could be made that the Rushworths closed the private chapel in order to attend their parish church, the future Mrs. Rushworth is delighted that the previous generations of Rushworths who saw to the church's construction didn't have it built near the Great House, where they lived: “âThe annoyance of the bells must be terrible,'” comments the future Mrs. Rushworth (MP 1:8). Judging from the future Mrs. Rushworth's later adultery, the reader may assume she would've done better to obey the bells and head to church!
Even if Austen's age showed a lax attitude about religion, among the gentry, at least, going to the parish church was something they regularly did on Sundays. When the master and mistress of a country estate and their children and household staff went to church, they set a good example for their tenants. Austen's characters are shown attending church with varying degrees of religious feeling. Many, like Jane Austen and members of her family, went to church with sincere hearts. When Austen doesn't comment in the novel about characters at church, readers can make educated inferences about the attitudes with which her varied characters attend church:
Persuasion
's Anne Elliot goes to church, and judging from her conduct throughout the novel, she must be thoughtful and devout (P 1:11).
Northanger Abbey
's Catherine Morland goes to a chapel on Sunday morning while in Bath, and judging from her good and innocent nature, we can assume she devoutly prays (NA 1:4).
Emma
's Mr. Knightley is active in church business, and as the largest landowner in the area, surely attends church regularly.
Pride and Prejudice
's Jane and Elizabeth leave Netherfield Park “after morning service” (PP 1:12). It is reasonable to assume that everyone in residence at Netherfield, the Bingleys, the Hursts, and Darcy, attended morning service together. But witnessing these characters' behaviors throughout the novel, readers can assume that Miss Bingley dropped her handkerchief to get Darcy's attention and Mr. Hurst dozed through the sermon!
Persuasion
's Mary Musgrove attends church just to look at people (P 2:11).
Isabella from
Northanger Abbey
undoubtedly prays only in a materially devout way for a rich young man to cross her path (NA 1:4).
Pride and Prejudice
's Lady Catherine de Bourgh attends church on Sundays, and Mr. Collins, being the clergyman of that church, advises Elizabeth Bennet that she will be impressed when she sees her (PP 2:5). Knowing Lady Catherine's controlling personality, readers can assume she will find something to criticize about everyone else in attendance!