Rational love is equivalent to loving within your own class? (Farheen's post)

Jane Eyre narrates the story making certain claims which were troublesome in the times when the novel was published. That she was an orphan, poor and a governess decided her inferiority within social classes. That she loved a man of social standing and presumed to have a claim on him, even more so than his own august guests such as Miss Ingram, was preposterous. The author deliberately uses such a character as a satire on the idea that it is rational to love someone as long as they are within one’s own social class which is determined by wealth. Although, the author herself ends up endorsing a union of similar circumstances, the approach varies.

Jane was an orphan living on the charity of her Aunt Reed and the implications of this are obvious in the insult John Reed throws at her (Chapter 1): she did not belong to the genteel class and she must be submissive and subservient to the wealthy, patriarchal forces. She does not even belong to the servant class which sees her as undeserving of any generosity such as when Bessie says: “No; you are less than a servant, for you do nothing for your keep.” The governess played a very ambivalent role in the imagination of Victorian England: it was a popular mode of employment for young women but their youth was seen as a threat to males especially when the wife was absent. However the elite did not want their children to be educated by servants so they were as much on the periphery of the household, treated underhandedly. The guests speak of how they treated their governesses, and the Dowager says specifically about Jane that she saw “all the faults of her class”. (Chapter 17)

It is suggested at this point that governesses are commonly understood to liaison with tutors and could have been thought to be suitable for each other. Instead Jane Eyre falls in love with master of the house and claims him under the references of equality such as when she thinks while watching him converse with his guests, “He is not of their kind. I believe he is of mine” and goes on to lay a claim of kinship on him that “assimilates me mentally to him.” This she knows to be “Blasphemy against nature!” Even when Jane announces their marriage to Mrs. Fairfax, the elder lady while congratulating cautions, “Equality of position and fortune is often advisable in such cases”. (Chapter 24)

The book struggles to fight the class system but eventually Jane only manages to marry Rochester once she becomes his equal in wealth and social standing. However, Jane is the suitable mate because she is the intellectual and social equal of Rochester and from destitution, weakness and orphanhood she moves to a position of independence, strength and kindredship. This, Bronte believes, is the situation in which love is justified and “perfect concord is the result”. (Chapter 38)