quantcompandthings t1_itwicv2 wrote
in Louisa may Alcott's Little Women, the March family rations food and wears hand me downs and is suppose to be very poor, but they also live right next to the rich Laurences and could afford to hire a servant. it's like property and domestic labor had so little value in those days that the Marches never thought of downsizing to a smaller place in a less posh neighborhood :P
In Dickens' Our Mutual Friend, Jenny Wren lived in her own house (along with the non-parenting parent) one room of which she was also renting out to Lizzie. So I guess she was making bank stitching up dolls because at the same time you had Engels writing about the london working poor living eight to a one room hovel or some such thing and that is with a working male.
thisizmypornburner t1_itxcc9o wrote
You forget that you’re reading about two different classes of people.
They are poor for being kind of aristocracy in the United States.
The homeless and the tenant farmers and the slaves and all of that would be the ones living the kind of poverty that you’re thinking of.
In today’s age the homeless in the attic’s and the people who will sleep on the streets or a different class of person, Then say a poor person who works as a waitress and has one child but somehow barely ekes out in existence in a studio apartment
It’s two classes of people also poverty mean something different for each of them
quantcompandthings t1_itxf27c wrote
"They are poor for being kind of aristocracy in the United States."
Meg and Jo were working as governess and companion at the ripe ages of 15 and 16. That's not what aristocrats do, even the poor ones.
Poor US aristocracy is Lily Bart in House of Mirth.
thisizmypornburner t1_itxft3y wrote
Lol yes they do, poor aristocracy ends up caring for children all the time
Literally fucking Diana Spencer who became princess of Wales was nannying
SinisterCuttleFish t1_itynbfi wrote
Diana Spencer was not poor, she came from a very wealthy aristocratic background.
She worked part time in a friend's childcare, she was not a full time nanny.
thisizmypornburner t1_ityo012 wrote
Lol 😆
She rode the subway, she lived ‘poor’ for aristocracy
Ergo your comment was stupid. As I said there’s two sets of classes within each class. The ‘poor’ for that class and the ‘rich’
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