and never-married female to live by herself, even if she happened to be a heiress (Lady Catherine: "Youngwomen should always be properly guarded and attended, according to their situation in life"). So Queen Victoria had to haveher mother living with her in the palace in the late 1830's, until she married Albert (though she and her mother actually were noteven on speaking terms during that period). Only in the relatively uncommon case of an orphan heiress who has alreadyinherited (i.e. who has "come of age" and whose father and mother are both dead), can a young never-married female setherself up as the head of a household (and even here she must hire a respectable older lady to be a "companion").When a young woman leaves her family without their approval (or leaves the relatives or family-approved friends or schoolwhere she has been staying), this is always very serious -- a symptom of a radical break, such as running away to marry adisapproved husband, or entering into an illicit relationship (as when Lydia leaves the Forsters to run away with Wickham);when Frederica Susanna Vernon runs away from her boarding school in Lady Susan, it is to try to escape from heroverbearing mother's authority completely.Therefore, a woman who did not marry could generally only look forward to living with her relatives as a `dependant' (more orless Jane Austen's situation), so that marriage is pretty much the only way of ever getting out from under the parental roof --unless, of course, her family could not support her, in which case she could face the unpleasant necessity of going to live withemployers as a `dependant' governess or teacher, or hired "lady's companion". A woman with no relations or employer was indanger of slipping off the scale of gentility altogether (thus Mrs. and Miss Bates in Emma are kept at some minimal level of"respectability" only through the informal charity of neighbours). And in general, becoming an "old maid" was not consid...
