A week ago, I asked everyone what they would most enjoy if they were magically transported back to the Regency, and had tons of money and clout to ease the way.
This week, I’d like to ask the opposite question: What would you least enjoy about your new Regency life? What one thing would be most likely to stop you from going back and living a luxurious Regency life?
Would it be the antiquated medical care?
The non-existent rights that women (and many others) had?
Would you miss “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Harry Potter,” or “Lord of the Rings” too much?
Would you not be able to live without pizza, Thai food, or Godiva chocolate?
Would it be the lack of music by the Beatles, Tchaikovsky, Nirvana, George Gershwin, or Scott Joplin?
Would it be the poor heating? Or the poor plumbing?
The lack of free public libraries?
What would be the fly in the ointment of your Regency fantasy?
Cara
Cara King, www.caraking.com
MY LADY GAMESTER — out now from Signet Regency!!!
I’m an asthmatic, and I’ve also got horrible eyesight–so I’d have to say healthcare. I bet I wouldn’t have made it much beyond toddlerhood, what with the bumping into things and wheezing all the time.
Actually…yes, healthcare. I probably would have died before now! And considering that I would likely be of the working class, the drudgery of daily life. Laundry leaps to mind…no, ma’am!
Of course, in spite of a poor diet and lack of sleep/time to relax etc., I would probably have excellent muscles to lug the heavy loads of wash, buckets of water, you name it around. I am somewhat nearsighted though, and unless I had glasses, I might be carrying them into things, people, or in the wrong direction. (!)
Laurie
Oops. I didn’t quite answer that properly.
I would miss a washing machine. 🙂
Laurie
Oh yeah, healthcare. Where would I be without my meds???
Well, with tons of money one could still have influence as a woman, and of course if I were magically transported I’d also have a heroic husband who would support my rights. Also, he’d be my personal heating system at night (though come to think of it I warm my feet on my mundane-world husband often enough!) so that wouldn’t be a big issue.
So yes, it would have to be the healthcare, especially since I researched the history of pregnancy and childbirth for presentations I did at the Romance Writers of America conference last summer… perhaps I will not go into too much detail here!
Elena
Definitely the healthcare, not to mention I can’t see myself using a chamber pot!
Wow, we’re all in agreement for once! 🙂 Almost entirely. Health care, plus washing machines and chamber pots.
I think it would be health care for me too. I believe my siblings and I would never have lived to adulthood (or even survived birth, in some cases), so it seems an easy decision!
And I agree, chamber pots would be horrible!
Amanda McCabe, I notice you haven’t answered yet. Will you take an iconoclastic position, and vote for Godiva chocolate? Or Hello Kitty??? 🙂
Cara
Popcorn! Yep, I’m a sucker for hot, buttered popcorn, and would have a hard time giving up my #1 comfort food.
Two words–family planning. 🙂
And you’re right, Cara–a world where there is no Godiva or Hello Kitty wouldn’t be worth living in! Maybe I could go back and invent Hello Kitty, though…
If there is one advantage of living in the modern age that we can all get behind, I guess it is healthcare! I would probably have died in infancy, or if I had survived would likely have been deaf. Which, considering that my eyesight is also lousy, is a pretty bad deal. 🙂 I think life expectancy at birth has nearly doubled in the last hundred years or so.
Of course, some people did live to a ripe old age. So, as long as we are fantasizing, we can imagine that we’d have excellent health as well.
Todd-who-has-a-healthy-respect
Amanda,
Forgive me for going into Regency Research Nerd mode, but… there were methods of family planning. The thing is, they were not much talked of (and very little written about) and certainly not as reliable as what is available now. Also, many couples (or at least the husbands) wanted large families.
When I researched the history of pregnancy and childbearing I did find some information that hinted that couples who didn’t want a child every year could possibly have found ways to make that happen.
So in our Regency Fantasy we might be able to have just the 2.3 children most couples want now.
Elena 🙂
LOL! Also, I have noticed that when we see our romance novel couples later on (say, in a sequel), they seldom seem to have a herd of kids. Just two or three super-cute ones. 🙂
I noticed long ago that in Heyer’s Regencies, her characters frequently came from families that had only one (or perhaps two) children. To be honest, I think this isn’t terribly realistic… Sure, there were tiny families, but aristocratic families weren’t ALL tiny!
Though they had family planning in some ways, it was really not very good. NOT reliable. And many, I believe, would not use it, for a variety of reasons.
The most effective I have come across was that, in certain areas, the lower class women had a taboo which basically meant they wouldn’t sleep with their husbands (or anyone else, of course!) for about two years after giving birth to a child. That was very good for spacing births! But not, I think, without its side effects. 🙂
Cara
Okay, I’ve been thinking about this Hello Kitty thing, and I have it! Regency Amanda invents “Hello Kitty,” and it’s all the rage. Fashionable gentlemen have waistcoats made with little Hello Kittys embroidered all over them… Ladies forgo fruit and flowers in their hats, replacing them with little Hello Kitty figures… Instead of gargoyles, churches are made with little stone Hello Kittys…
(BTW, I recently visited the house of a friend, and learned she too has a passion for all things HK. She told me that when she was young she wanted more Hello Kitty stuff, but her mother put her foot down, saying “When you’re grown up, you can have all the Hello Kitty stuff you like.” And she does!)
Cara
I’m afraid I do not understand this “hello, kitty” thing. Is it a riddle? “Hello, kitty, why do you pretend to hate me, but secretly follow me around?” That sort of thing?
Or is it like those infernal “knock, knock” jokes you 21st century people admire?
“Hello, kitty!”
“Who’s there?”
“Little mouse.”
“Little mouse, who?”
“Little mouse, about to be eaten.”
Bertie, a bit confused today
Er, I’m just frightened by that medical kit . . .
Dear Bertie, Old Thing,
No, no, “Hello Kitty” is a quotation from a famous poem by Blake:
“Hello Kitty, burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal can of tuna
Calls thee to the kitchen suna?”
Todd-who-is-waiting-for-the-lightning-strike