During the first half of the 19 th century the governess became an important figure, both in literature and in life, because they were part of a small group of women who were middle-class, independent, educated and single, in a society where the great majority of women of their class either married or stayed at home. Governesses occupied an ambiguous place in society, neither part of the families who employed them nor one of the servants. They were sometimes mistreated by their employers or the children they were supposed to teach, and often disregarded. Their salary was enough to maintain the appearance of respectability but not much more. The governesses in literature were heroines because they faced these hardships on their own and in many cases triumphed over them. That was the case with all three Bronte sisters who had served times in that profession, as had Mary Wollstonecraft who went on to become the most articulate advocate for sexual equality of her time. However, the governesses were also a threat to their society and their employers because they were unmarried and with few prospects of finding a husband, and therefore were not bound by the same rules as most women of their day. Kathryn Hughes’s study of the Victorian governess shows how problematic a governess’s position in an upper- or middle-class household could be, especially when seen from a mother’s perspective. In those days sons stayed at home until they married, so for them the unattached governess would present an obvious attraction; and since the governess did not have the protection afforded by her own family, nor the restraints imposed by their presence, she would be vulnerable to their advances. There was a real fear that a governess would destroy the family she served by being “the first to lead and to initiate into sin” those she was supposed to educate (qtd. in Peterson 14). Not only that, but a young and attractive governess might seduce the head of the household by “delicate and unnoticed flattery” especially when the wife “was homely, or occupied with domestic cares, opportunity was found to bring forward attractive accomplishments, or by sedulous attentions to supply her lack of them” (qtd. in Peterson 15). Employers tended to avoid attractive governesses for these reasons, but the threat was ever-present and accentuated by the most popular novels of the day. The most obviously threatening character among the governesses in literature is Becky Sharp in William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair . There is never any doubt about Becky’s intentions. She comes from an impoverished, unstable background, and is determined to use her education to gain entry into high society where she can meet and marry a wealthy man. When she meets her friend Amelia Sedley’s brother, Joseph, she immediately starts a flirtation with him that flusters the shy, overweight man to the point of panic. That is not only unconventional behavior but cynical manipulation; but the narrator excuses Becky’s behavior by saying If Miss Rebecca Sharp had determined in her heart upon making the conquest of this big beau, I don’t think, ladies, we have any right to blame her; for though the task of husband-hunting is generally, and with becoming modesty, entrusted by young persons to their mammas, recollect that Miss Sharp had no kind parent to arrange these delic