Quite. In one of those ironies feminist historians are forever pointing out famous women etc. Proving in fact the "patriarchy" was in fact rubbish at oppressing women. The real point is that these women, like the men, were generally aristocratic and so lived lives entirely unlike the vast majority of men and women who were subsistence farmers. The point being that "society" was an entirely different thing prior to the industrial revolution, certainly here in England. At the dawning of that revolution only 6% of men had the vote (it was based on property ownership) and the sort of people in the Austin novels made little more than 7% of the population (gentry and aristocrats). The rest scraped a living, got bossed about and were luck to live to 50.