Genteel poverty

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Illustration from an 1886 edition of Little Lord Fauntleroy. The book contrasts the genteel poor main character's more refined mannerisms with the true working poor Little Lord Fauntleroy - page 144.png
Illustration from an 1886 edition of Little Lord Fauntleroy. The book contrasts the genteel poor main character's more refined mannerisms with the true working poor

Genteel poverty is a state of poverty marked by one's connection or affectation towards a higher ("genteel") social class. [1] Those in genteel poverty are often people, possibly titled, who have fallen from wealth due to various circumstances. The term can extend down to the lower-middle class. [2]

Contents

Spinsters from wealthy families were likely to fall into genteel poverty during those points in history when women were barred from earning a living wage through work. Aristocratic families with a lack of male heirs risk falling into genteel poverty when the family money passes out of the household to the oldest male relative. [3] Those described as the genteel poor who do come from the aristocratic class may still retain one or more servants, and live off rental income or income from a country estate, although this money may not sufficiently cover daily expenses or the luxuries typical to those from a lineage of landed gentry. The genteel poor may also describe those on fixed income such as pensioners. Genteel poverty is often associated with vicars, who tend to come from privileged, highly-educated backgrounds, but earn an amount determined by their local parish. [4]

Working-class people who have a higher level of education or training such as teachers or skilled artisans may be considered members of the genteel poor.

Usage

The term genteel poverty peaked in usage in the late 19th century. [5]

Literary usage

Characters in genteel poverty are often seen in English literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The genteel poor as seen in these works are typically not working class. [6] Notable books containing characters which are members of the genteel poor include I Capture the Castle , Little Lord Fauntleroy , and many of the works of Jane Austen; [7] Austen herself faced genteel poverty due to the death of her father. [3] For example, in Emma, Miss Bates and Mrs. Bates have fallen into genteel poverty because of the death of Mr. Bates, who was Highbury's clergyman. In Sense and Sensibility , the main characters, the Dashwoods, fall into genteel poverty as their family inheritance passes to the family patriarch's son by his first wife.

The term can also describe people from working-class backgrounds who pretend towards a higher class through their interests and affectations, such as Leonard Bast of the 1910 novel Howards End: a lower-middle class insurance clerk who reads and attends lectures in the pursuit of self-improvement. Forster thus ironically alludes to the English fixation on the genteel poor:

We are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable, and only to be approached by the statistician or the poet. This story deals with gentlefolk, or with those who are obliged to pretend that they are gentlefolk.

Modern usage

Theodore Dalrymple suggested that the genteel poor as a phenomenon had disappeared by the 1960s and 70s due to the decline of the genteel social class (that is, the British gentry) as well as inflation. [6] In the book The Careless State, scholar Paul Graham Taylor characterized the British welfare state as including a pension sufficient to keep one in genteel poverty. [8]

Some writers [9] have described the state of many modern creatives as genteel poverty, including writer Cosmo Landesman, [10] who calls this group the "undeserving not-quite-poor": those who may have enough cash flow to afford small luxuries but have trouble saving for larger expenses like medical debt or retirement. Landesman attributes this to a laissez-faire baby boomer attitude towards money, driven by a distaste for conventionally responsible "squares" and a pessimistic view of the future, combined with an increasingly limited welfare state and uncertain economy.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Genteel", Oxford Learner's Dictionary, retrieved June 29, 2023
  2. ↑ Caroli, Betty Boyd (September 1980). "Book Review: Emigrant Gentlewomen: Genteel Poverty and Female Emigration, 1830–1914". International Migration Review. 14 (3): 429–430. doi:10.1177/019791838001400308. ISSN   0197-9183.
  3. 1 2 Herman, J. R. (2020-01-01). "The Materialistic Marriage Market: Intersections of Money and Matrimony in Pride and Prejudice". Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal. 42: 207–218.
  4. ↑ Mann, Rachel (6 January 2015). "Far from those dark, satanic mills". www.churchtimes.co.uk. Retrieved 2025-02-13.
  5. ↑ "genteel poverty, 1800–2019". Google N-Gram. Retrieved June 29, 2023.
  6. 1 2 Dalrymple, Theodore (2008-04-12). "A touch of class". British Medical Journal. 336 (7648): 837. doi:10.1136/bmj.39545.516551.59. ISSN   0959-8138. PMC   2292339 .
  7. ↑ Barchas, Janine (2020-02-04). "Jane Austen, Gritty Educational Reformer of the Working Class". Literary Hub. Retrieved 2025-02-13.
  8. ↑ Taylor, Paul Graham (2010). The Careless State. London: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN   978-1-8496-6001-3.
  9. ↑ Godsil, Gillian (2014-11-30). "I used to be an asshole – lessons in genteel poverty". Irish Independent . Archived from the original on 2024-09-04. Retrieved 2024-05-20.
  10. ↑ Landesman, Cosmo (2024-04-10). "My life of genteel poverty". The Spectator. Archived from the original on 2024-04-11. Retrieved 2024-04-11.
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