Pride and Prejudice - in the view of 2026 society is Mr. Wickham simply a predator?

Yes I think (and to be fair it's speculation, there isn't much in the text), the far superior education and moral sense of the older two Bennet girls comes from Mr B - I imagine he took quite a lot of interest in Jane and Lizzie, maybe their mother taught them their basic ABCs but once they were old enough to read properly it was their father who got them books, encouraged them, talked to them about what they were reading - as today I think it's parental interest and encouragement that makes the difference. I doubt he was having birds and the bees chats with them but he probably directed them to books that covered this directly/indirectly that covered it. By the time of Mary I'm suspecting his interest and energy was waning and she wasn't as quick at learning or interesting as the older two so she probably got a little bit of help but not much (the other Bennett girl was fun but made Mary way too clever, in the book she's not truly a lover of reading and music, just seeming accomplishments for the sake of attention plus pedantic and addicted to 'threadbare morality', just repeating maxims and truisms she's copied out or memorised from books rather than truly enjoying learning, the fact she finds Mr Collins interesting and insightful says it all). Poor old Kitty and Lydia didn't get any of his attention at all, he left them to whatever Mrs B and their older sisters could be bothered to teach them which wasn't much clearly!

And on the governess, although the Longbourn estate was a reasonable one, it is mentioned that they were near constantly exceeding their income as it was, so although a governess' salary wasn't huge and would have been viewed as essential by most mothers of 5 daughters, I suspect Mrs B wasn't prepared to foresake some of her ribbons-and-bonnets budget or give up one of her servants to afford it, and Mr B couldn't be bothered to push the point. It was also often a point of some botheration finding and then having a suitable governess in the house, it was an awkward thing because she occupied a sort of half-servitute position, not a proper servant who would eat meals in the kitchen or servants room like the housekeeper or maids, but not properly one of the family either, so it made difficulties about where she'd have her meals and sit in the evenings and so on, which in a medium sized and already quite full house like Longbourn was no small thing. I can well imagine some half-hearted arguments on the part of the Bennetta about it but the status quo of no governess eventually prevailing!

But after the initial bother of hiring her, she’d basically have had the five girls off in a schoolroom upstairs for much of the day from the moment they left the nursery, so his life would be easier and quieter. Also, given that he’s so aware of having married a woman of ‘mean understanding and uncertain temper’, you’d think he’d be wary of letting his daughters be raised according to the ideas of someone so disastrously limited.

And to be honest, given that Mrs Bennet had married above her sphere and was presumably exposed after her marriage to women who were more educated and accomplished than she was, you’d think the competitive mother in her would realise that their daughters would be the ones her daughters would be competing with in the marriage market?

Because even beautiful, elegant, kind Jane is getting on a bit by the standards of the time at 22/23.

Thank you all for this discussion. Because I have seen all the movies and tv versions I thought I knew P & P and Ms JA but I don't really know them so my resolve now is to read the books.
Are there any editions to either avoid or to seek out.

”I wonder if Mr Bennet was more involved when the older girls were young,”

Usually raising and educating daughters was the mother’s domain. Mr Bennet was also very lazy!

Can't be arsed is an explanation of a lot of Mr Bs behaviour I think.

”Though I’ve always wondered why the Bennets didn’t employ a governess. “

Mrs. Bennet did not value formal education or discipline.

Mr Bennet I assume, didn’t want to get involved with hiring a governess. It would have been his responsibility, but he was lacking in that department!

What did you like about it? I’ve not read the novel, as I nearly always hate contemporary sequels/retellings, but I watched the tv series and found it puzzling — the tone seemed all over the place. Mary’s character seemed to straggle about between being something vaguely recognisable as the Mary of the novel (pedantic, anxious for display, dull, tactless) and an entirely new proto-feminist adventure seeker, and other characters (her ‘suitors’, Lizzy, Jane ) likewise. And I simply didn’t believe for a second in Mrs Bennet being reinvented as such a black and white monster.

Plus I kept getting distracted by that terrible green and red dress, especially as the actress playing Mary looked absolutely lovely in the ‘plain’, pastel Regency dresses.

Plus I think I just stopped believing in any of it when the writer had the Merton optician’s assistant attending the Assembly ball!

I suppose that might make sense, too. He’s fond of the two eldest, particularly Elizabeth, but he treats the younger three more or less as he treats their mother — as irritating comic relief that he clearly doesn’t think is much to do with him, or anything he should do anything about.

Though I can’t see Mr Bennet giving them a lecture on the birds and the bees and keeping their knees together till they have a ring on their finger!

I completely agree.

I find, even today, with a family with either a big age gap, or with several children; there’s a sort of the novelty/effort of parenting has worn off attitude.

And, when no son materialised, Mr B, just threw up his hands, plotted up in his library; and left the rest of the parenting (such as it was) to Mrs B.

Austen speaks about bringing up your children poorly and the impact it has on your character (the Bertram sisters in Mansfield Park are a good example) but I think she also thinks of personality as being hereditary. In Persuasion Elizabeth & Mary Elliot have inherited Sir Walter's narcissism but there's no suggestion that this is the fault of their mother's parenting. IIRC Anne is described as being very similar to her mother. I think we are supposed to see Lydia to an extent as being naturally hard to govern, in conjunction with the poor parenting. Kitty is depicted slightly differently - she is led astray by Lydia's dominant personality but she benefits from different influences after Jane & Elizabeth marry.

You’re right. Lydia is absolutely oblivious to the trail of devastation she’s left in her wake, and not just for her own life, either, of course.

This is summed up, when she gets into the coach, slips and says: what a lark if i should fall and break my head!

Silly mare.

Another hearty recommendation for The Other Bennet Sister. Their book was imo dreadful, but the TV series exceptional.

I wonder if Mr Bennet was more involved when the older girls were young, perhaps still retaining some degree of affection for his wife and interest in the life he had chosen. This was probably on the wane all along and by the time Kitty and Lydia came along, had waned altogether and by that stage he'd retreated to his library, his only interest in continuing marital relations with Mrs B.being in pursuit of the elusive son to claim the entail, and having no interest in forming a relationship with his younger daughters and no influence on their education or conduct.

Yes, but I’m not talking about about the education Lizzy describes to Lady Catherine, when she explains that they didn’t have a governess or go away to school, but were encouraged to read and had visiting masters, though ‘those who chose to be idle’ certainly could — I mean the basic reputation/sexual morality/ ‘don’t have sex until you’re married’ stuff.

Which Jane, Elizabeth and Mary seem to have imbibed from somewhere, presumably their mother, but Lydia not at all. I mean, she appears to have literally no consciousness at any point of having done anything wrong, or that she came within a hairsbreadth of wrecking her own life.

Is it simply that when Jane and Elizabeth were young, there were no older, marriageable daughters as distractions, so they got more of their mother’s focus in terms of basic sexual morals and self-preservation etc? But with Jane seven years older than Lydia and Lizzy five, by the time Lydia (and probably Kitty) were at the stage when they should have had that training, Mrs Bennet was already distracted by her eldest daughters being ‘out’ and on the marriage market?

Though I’ve always wondered why the Bennets didn’t employ a governess. On £2000 a year, a governess on c.£20 a year, plus her keep, was entirely affordable, and would probably constitute a good investment across five daughters, especially with a nervous, irritable, uninformed mother not best fitted for teaching the basics of manners and behaviour.

Mary’s got me there. I’d prefer a book to a party, as well.

I haven’t watched it as I refuse to pay for a TV licence.

“balls "would have no charms for me—I should infinitely prefer a book" “

The Other Bennet Sister was great but uncomfortable watching - too close to home for me!

We danced every dance, and Mary: none!

I always identified with Mary more than the others, I'd have been her had I been born 200 years earlier than I was.

I hope you can get it! If you read the translation first, it might make it less tiring to read the original English version afterwards, as you'll remember it when it comes to things like the 18th Century references to clothes, carriages, livings and entails which most modern readers have to look up the first time they encounter them, even if English is their first language.

Poor Mary, she is the overlooked, plain, pedantic middle child!

"Mary had neither genius nor taste".

And poor Mary never gets any credit for this - because not only is she plain, it seems she has less natural intelligence and talent than her older sisters.

Hopefully Marianne was happy in her marriage.

“Marianne could never love by halves; and her whole heart became, in time, as much devoted to her husband, as it had once been to Willoughby”

There is but I’ve never read them. I just looked and apparently there was a new, updated (?) translation done in early noughties and it seems to get good reviews.

Due to brexit none of the bookstores send orders to UK but I’ll try to remember to pick up a copy when I’m next there!