woman of means

Not that Marron is quite like most of us; an editor at Vogue, she’s a woman of means with a vast estate in rural Connecticut who thinks nothing of popping in a thousand tulip bulbs with the aid of her personal landscape designer.

As long as The Spread Eagle paid her a dollar a column for her ‘rubbish’, as she called it, Jo felt herself a woman of means, and spun her little romances diligently.

She's also clearly a woman of means and leisure; as one housekeeper points out, she's too busy earning her keep to write about other people's lives.

Living in a boardinghouse, working part time as a governess, earning a dollar a column for her “‘rubbish,’ as she called it, Jo felt herself a woman of means, and spun her little romances diligently.”

It was easier for a middle-class woman of means to carry out research or to do so alongside teaching, one of the few respectable careers for women.