How did Women live in the time of Jane Austen?

This question has come in from a Senior Student who is studying some of the novels of Jane Austen. She has been asked to take a look historically at how women lived, and to try and find other written examples. Some suggestions that I have found are:

• The Jane Austen handbook : a sensible yet elegant guide to her world - by Margaret Cox Sullivan
• Ladies of the manor : wives and daughters in country-house society, 1830-1918 - By Pamela Horn
• Good wives? : Mary, Fanny, Jennie & me, 1845-2001 - By Margaret Forster
• The friendly Jane Austen : a well-mannered introduction to a lady of sense and sensibility - by Natalie Tyler
• Governess: the lives and times of the real Jane Eyres - by Ruth Brandon
• The Politics of Breastfeeding - by Gabrielle Palmer
• Who cooked the Last Supper? : the women's history of the world - By Rosalind Miles

Louise, Youth Librarian, Manly Library