Sibling Relationships

“Will you give me leave to defer your raptures till I write again? At present I have not room to do them justice.”

“Oh! it is of no consequence … But do you always write such charming long letters to her, Mr Darcy?'

Extract from Pride and Prejudice, where Caroline Bingley is scrutinising Mr Darcy’s constant letter writing to his sister, Georgiana.

Distance, whether it’s due to business or pleasure commitments, will always put a strain on a relationship. For siblings today, who move away to university or to find jobs, emails, Facebook, mobiles and Skype make it easier to stay in touch. But for Georgian siblings, all they could rely on were letters. So what can we learn about sibling relationships? As seen in our case study families and Austen’s characters, letters were vital tools in maintaining relationships and were reminders of the affection they felt for each other.

Fanny Price and her brother William in Mansfield Park are separated by his naval commitments and had limited time together. So their constant correspondences throughout the book allow them to maintain what relationship they have and the affection they hold for each other. Likewise, Pride and Prejudice can be applied here, as Mr Darcy is constantly writing to his sister Georgiana during his time away from Pemberley. Their relationship, however, is somewhat closer than Fanny and William’s. Although their large age difference creates a more parental relationship, the fact he talks to her a lot about Elizabeth Bennet implies intimacy and confidence. Nowadays, his long winded description of her ‘fine eyes’ would be replaced with a quick log onto Facebook to check out her profile picture.

But how far can we use these as reliable sources on sibling relationships? Well, many of our case studies can easily be compared to these literary examples. Letters between William Roxburgh and his sister Mary Roxburgh from 1797 mirror the same affection between Darcy and Georgiana. Though we don’t know if they were separated by business or pleasure, we can still determine that they are keeping a regular correspondence and maintaining a close relationship. The fact that she asks

‘Remember me to Mama and Papa and our acquaintances in London’

suggests that she is the one away from home and possibly prefers writing to her brother more than her parents. Moreover, the content of the letter implies how much she is enjoying her youth and freedom away from her family;

‘We have attended countless assemblies and some nights not returned home [until] one o’clock in the morning.’

This suggests that she is telling her brother significantly more than her parents, emphasising again their closeness and the level of confidence she holds him in over her parents.

Although they are not letters specifically between siblings, we can still see close sibling relationships within the nuclear Temple family of Broadlands. While her eldest son Henry was away at university, the efforts of Mary to maintain a close relationship between her children are clear in her letters to him. She always mentions what his brothers and sisters are doing and even discusses their own correspondence. In one of her letters she mentions how delighted his brother Willy was with the letter and maps he sent him and how he looks forward to seeing his brother at Hanover Square. She later comments that



Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston

‘your sister and myself are extremely delighted at the thoughts of joining you'

in her letter sent on route to Edinburgh, again implying her efforts to take her other children to visit her son. She follows this with talk of their holiday, encouraging him to spend time teaching his sister Lilly to ride and entertaining his sisters with his play writing skills.

Likewise, such affection is mirrored in Henry’s replies to his mother. As seen in our previous posts on letter writing, Henry Temple always ends his letters with ‘Believe me ever your affectionate son’.This, however, was not before writing ‘Send my love to brother and sisters’. In later years, we begin to see Henry enclosing letters to his sisters within his other letters home.

Like most historical sources, we cannot take these letters as wholly accurate and dismiss limitations, one being that affectionate closing to letters could have been written out of routine and politeness rather than for affection. Nevertheless, they highlight what types of relationships were to be had and encourage us to think about the factors that affected sibling relationships. The frequency of their correspondence and the more intimate topics discussed suggest the closeness and affection within sibling relationships. Whilst we have mentioned physical distance, further investigation has uncovered more specific factors that influenced and altered sibling relationships which we will be exploring in further posts.

Broadlands House, Hampshire