Jane Austen was meta before “meta” existed. Look at this sentence from Pride & Prejudice:To be sure, it would have been more for the advantage of conversation had Miss Lydia Bennet come upon the town; or, as the happiest alternative, been secluded from the world, in some distant farmhouse.
“Come upon the town” means fall into prostitution. Now let’s forget for a second how horrible Meryton is being (Wouldn’t it be better for gossip if she was ruined forever?) Jane Austen just referenced her last book and teased her next one!
In Sense & Sensibility, Eliza Brandon, the divorced and disgraced love of Colonel Brandon, was found by him in a sponging house, probably dying of syphilis, after falling into a life of either prostitution or becoming several people’s mistress. “I could not trace her beyond her first seducer, and there was every reason to fear that she had removed from him only to sink deeper in a life of sin.”
Then, in Mansfield Park, Maria Rushworth, also disgraced and divorced, ends up in a distant farmhouse with Mrs. Norris, “It ended in Mrs. Norris’s resolving to quit Mansfield and devote herself to her unfortunate Maria, and in an establishment being formed for them in another country, remote and private, where, shut up together with little society, on one side no affection, on the other no judgment, it may be reasonably supposed that their tempers became their mutual punishment.”
All three women were failed by their guardians/parents and we see the three possibilities: prostitute/mistress, banishment, or married to an unworthy man.
I also get the feeling that Jane Austen couldn’t bear to leave a woman suffering. Even though Lydia is in a terrible marriage, we know that Elizabeth and Jane provide money and allow her to stay with them. She is safe. And as awful as it would be to live with Mrs. Norris, Maria has the benefit of her aunt’s income and the provision from her father. Both of them are in bad situations, but they will be okay. Eliza Brandon dies, but she receives the best care at the end. There is mercy for the fallen women in Austen.