Now and Then

I am watching "Becoming Jane" (quite enjoyable though inarguably a chick flick), and I'm wondering what it would be like if my friends and acquaintances and I were subject to the social rules of Jane Austen's era.

I can sort of imagine it with some of my girlfriends: our email exchanges would all be handwritten letters, of course, but I doubt we'd be any less cheeky in composing their content. Of course, it would be strange and rather terrible if our lives consisted of nothing more than writing those letters.... and reading, and doing needlepoint. No trips around the country by ourselves, no jobs, no crazy adventures.

It would also be a mighty shame if an unmarried girl weren't allowed to spend time alone with a boy to whom she wasn't related... though perhaps it would be less of a tragedy in a world without all-night IHOPs and good beer.

But it would be funny to watch the same relationships play out under a wildly different set of rules. Would they still be the same, I wonder? Or are even those parts of our lives dependent on our times and circumstances? Would my friends not be my friends if we couldn't have the same conversations, or the same experiences? Then again, would we ourselves even be the same people if we'd lived at a different time?

Idle speculation, I suppose. "What if?" with no answer.

I hope that our circumstances let our stories develop happily. We shall see.