The sibling bond in the novels of Austen, the Brontes, Gaskell, and Eliot

Jane Austen; Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte; Elizabeth Gaskell; and George Eliot viewed the world from the perspective of a sister to a dearly-loved brother. The works of these nineteenth-century British women indicate that each observed the politics of nineteenth-century family life and understood what modern researchers avow: that sibling relationships do influence personality development and identity, that in understanding any human being---actual or fictional---sibling status does matter.;Twentieth-century psychologists see a close bond between a brother and a sister as laying the groundwork for the later romantic relationships between men and women. Nineteenth-century writers often depict romantic relationships as deriving from what is, at first, a bond with a foster brother or sister. The women novelists' works suggest that marriages grounded first in a sibling-like love enact the closest approximation possible in the nineteenth century to the marriage of equal partners envisioned by Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill.;Each writer treats the sibling bond in her own way. Austen presents groups of siblings intermixing in the process of selecting a mate. Three protagonists choose brother-figures as husbands, three do not; but all enjoy marriages that blend many qualities of the sibling bond with those of romantic love. The Brontes convey the varying degrees of intensity of the sibling bond, including, more than their contemporaries, the limitations of the bond. Their isolated protagonists do, however, acquire a "brother" in their quests for identity and for love, as if wholeness depends on first finding a brother-figure who sometimes, under the right conditions, eventually becomes a lover. Gaskell explores the theme of the lost brother; his absence puts the female protagonist "in the first place": strong, self-reliant, confident. Eliot's broad exploration of the sibling bond makes particular use of child pairs to symbolize the perfect harmony of male and female individuals who work together for a common cause.;Supported by their brother/lovers, the fictional "sisters" of Austen, the Brontes, Gaskell, and Eliot exhibit the emerging spirit of "the strong-minded woman" who would ultimately motivate the breaking down of political, legal, and economic barriers for women in the twentieth century.