When writing about women in pre-20th century western history, the topic of domestic service is inescapable. Either you employed maidservants, or you were one, or your economic status was marginal enough that you fell outside these categories--which significantly affected your options. No matter which category your fictional character falls in, there will be a complex web of relationships with the other women in the household where she resides. Who are her allies? Who are her rivals and where to their interests still intersect? What are the power dynamics and how do those dynamics shift to confront male household members or outsiders? As I mentioned in the general introduction to this volume, too often when writing female characters in historic settings, they are depicted as isolated from other women, whether due to authorial extrapolation from modern household structures, or due to an unconscious misogyny that feels that women in general didn't do anything interesting (but your protagonists are *special*).
When I wrote the protagonist of Floodtide as a young woman in domestic service, it shifted the types of stories and outcomes she could have--but not always in negative ways. (Despite a lack of social power, Roz has a lot less scrutiny on her personal choices than Margerit Sovitre has.) And I tried hard to depict all the flavors of female alliance that Roz found in the various households she intersected with. Do not overlook housemaids as a source of story potential!
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