Auntliness

In the good old days no family was complete without a spinster aunt to turn to in seasons of distress and grief, measles, whooping-cough, visiting, absence of parents, or unexpected company. More than any other woman, possibly, the spinster aunt has become New.[…]As a type of auntliness she is no longer plentiful, ubiquitous and tenderly considerate of a niecely sneeze or a nephewish whimper, of a brother-in-law’s slippers or a sister-in-law’s gruel or tea.

Rather, being the sole survivor of her own family, and sister of Mr. Branksome’s late father, she became “great” in her auntliness so far as the second generation was concerned, and adopted a grandmotherly attitude towards them, which aroused the enduring scorn of their maternal grandmother.

And the fact that [Jane] Austen was understood as unassuming and unaspiring, while it certainly speaks to the placidity of womenfolk in the good old days, hints at her very particular and marvelous self-sufficiency, a sufficiency that her sexlessness and auntliness together keep from being threatening:[…]