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

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”

“Lizzie asks her father to stop the trip, but he couldn't be bothered.”

Mr Bennet wanted peace and quiet and mistakably thought Lydia would be safe.

"We shall have no peace at Longbourn if Lydia does not go to Brighton".

@whatwouldlilacerullodo “Everyone failed Lydia, also by not educating her properly.”

The Bennet sisters were left to their own devices. Jane, Lizzy and Mary were more disciplined in educating themselves than Kitty and Lydia. Kitty and Lydia had more frivolous pursuits! Their parents definitely failed them.

No mention of portly! We’re just told he’s ’silent and grave’, ‘on the wrong side of five and thirty’, and ‘not handsome’, though his face is ‘sensible’. And there’s a reference later on to him wearing flannel waistcoats and having rheumatism.

I think that the casting of the male characters is in part why the Ang Lee/Emma Thompson S and S adaptation works. That adaptation makes Edward much more charming, funny and self-deprecating, Brandon smoulderingly sexy and Willoughby more than just a cad. We see why the sisters would fall in love with them. Whereas in the novel, Edward and Brandon are dull though estimable, and Willoughby is a creep.

@whatwouldlilacerullodo — that’s my real question about Lydia. How is it she seems to have missed out on key elements of the moral education her three oldest sisters have clearly had? Did Mrs Bennet just slacken off by the time she got to the two youngest?

As @kxeilsaid, no one was parenting them. The girls went after whatever interested them.

That’s not really my point, though, it’s more that it never appears to occur to Lydia at any point that putting herself into the power of a man and sleeping with him while unmarried is either wrong or catastrophically dangerous in the context of her time.

That’s less like not paying any attention at her French lessons/refusing to practice the piano, than it is not having noticed gravity! 😃

I mean, JA just has to do it for the plot, obviously. We can’t be too distracted by Lydia because her actions only matter plotwise insofar as they affect the marital prospects of Elizabeth and Jane. She’s a ‘flat’ character like Mr Collins, who doesn’t change. If JA gave us a terribly remorseful, crushed Lydia, we’d be thinking it was awful she had to marry a predatory cad and it would darken the happiness of Jane and Elizabeth’s endings.

That’s not really my point, though, it’s more that it never appears to occur to Lydia at any point that putting herself into the power of a man and sleeping with him while unmarried is either wrong or catastrophically dangerous in the context of her time.

That’s less like not paying any attention at her French lessons/refusing to practice the piano, than it is not having noticed gravity! 😃

I mean, JA just has to do it for the plot, obviously. We can’t be too distracted by Lydia because her actions only matter plotwise insofar as they affect the marital prospects of Elizabeth and Jane. She’s a ‘flat’ character like Mr Collins, who doesn’t change. If JA gave us a terribly remorseful, crushed Lydia, we’d be thinking it was awful she had to marry a predatory cad and it would darken the happiness of Jane and Elizabeth’s endings.