Jane Austen's men. Who's top of the slap list?

[CurlewKate]

Not the obvious ones, like Mr Collins or Walter Elliott, but the slightly less obvious ones. At the moment, mine are:

Sir Thomas Bertram
James Moreland (although he is such a wonderful, completely timeless character!)
John Dashwood.

Yes, and Charlotte managed to live with minimal contact with him, while being mistress of her own comfortable home. Doesn't surprise me that she made that choice.

I think the uncomfortable truth is that even today, never mind in Austen's time, plenty of women settle for a man (and vice versa) they don't really love or respect (or they have a sort of benign platonic affection for them that grows over time) for the sake of a nice home, financial stability, companionship, societal and family approval and someone who will be a decent father to their children - not perhaps to the caricaturish level of Charlotte and Mr Collins but I think there's something universal about how Austen depicts the struggles of a woman who feels 'left on the shelf' and the fear and desperation to clutch at any offer that can set in.

Maybe in today's world the financial implications of long-term singledom are not as bad for a woman and society isn't quite as harsh on 'old maids' (although I think what Emma quite wisely says still holds, it's money that really makes the difference, a rich single woman may well still be respected and liked whereas a poor one will often be the butt of jokes or patronizing sympathy) and at least today it's easier for people to get out of these bad marriages - I like to think a modern day Charlotte Lucas/Collins would be advised by MN to LTB, would get a shit hot lawyer and make sure she got custody of the kids + her fair share of the Longbourn estate after Mr Bennet croaked (remorselessly kicking out Mrs B and any remaining unmarried Bennet daughters in the process), plus get a load of expensive therapy to deal with her toxic parents and chronically low self-esteem . Charlotte was a tough cookie though, Austen doesn't invite her to pity her even though she was stuck with Mr Collins for life, more admire her grit and ability to make the best of a bad lot!

Very true! Even since women of middle class or above have been permitted to work, our wages have not often been enough to live securely on, and marriage was the bargain many had to make. There's also the weight of expectation, the unsubtle messages that a single woman is a failure. "Spinster" was - and I would think still is - a pejorative in a way "bachelor" never was.

I agree Charlotte Lucas/Collins rocks. In her situation she made the best of a bad job. Imagine having to put up with both Mr Collins and Lady Catherine! But the prize would be Longbourne.

I have seen it and while indeed Bill Nighy is fabulous to me he was too overtly funny and Bill Nighy-ish, just too 'big' a presence all round, while in my mind Mr W is a little shrunken man always whining on perniciously from the corner about the too-rich puddings and the drafts, likewise I think Miranda Hart was just a bit too plummy and chummy and Miranda-Hart-ish for Miss Bates. Was a fun film though, I hate when people take Austen adaptations too seriously (although the recent Persuasion was indeed an abomination, as was the Billie Piper Mansfield Park in the mid 2000s). My favourite Emma adaptation all round was the Gywneth Paltrow version and of course as others have mentioned David Bamber as Mr Collins in the 90s P&P truly excellent and Alan Rickman as Brandon in S&S. I think Tom Hollander in the Keira Knightley P&P should get a mention though, he's definitely not as slappable as David B but he draws out the pathetic side of Mr Collins very nicely!

Lizzie is romantic and a bit of a risk taker - she won't marry someone she despises, even though he would ensure a comfortable future for her and the alternative if she doesn't marry is dwindling into a Miss Bates.

Charlotte is pragmatic. Yes he's a fool, but he's a fool she's intelligent enough to manage to her own advantage (and there were most likely a lot more Charlottes than Lizzies around when JA was writing). You don't get told too much about her but you get the impression she's not that pretty and lively and is a bit overlooked and talked down to in her family because she's female. Mr C is actually a pretty good match for her.

Sorry to fill up the whole thread with my witterings but I really feel obligated to mount a defence of Col. Brandon and the accusations of him being dull and staid and ought to have married Elinor - he's the reverse of boring and cold, and not just because of Alan in those boots . Brandon's live as it's told in the books is a whole series of romantic and reckless happenings, he's every bit as much driven by sensibility and sentiment as Marianne, just look at his life history:

-Falls madly in love at 16 with his cousin, tries to elope despite the mutual financial and social disaster this will be with them both. Gets caught and exiled to India.
-Remains enduringly in love with Eliza despite many years of exile, and as soon as he can return he immediately dedicates his life to tracking her down, despite the total futility of this endeavor and the physical dangers and social disgrace involved in locating and caring for a consumptive prostitute - he also remains desperately in love with her despite the fact that (sorry, I know she wasn't necessarily to blame!) she hasn't remained remotely faithful to his memory, she's run off with multiple different men at the drop of a hat - by the standards of the time she was a totally disgraced and wicked woman yet his love for her is if anything increased.
-He is devastated when Eliza dies and spends the next 15 years mooning around and gloomily comparing every pretty lively young woman to her and dedicating himself to the care and raising of little Eliza despite (again) this exposing him to ridicule and negative assumptions and gossip from pretty much everyone (the sublime Mrs Jennings makes it clear that it's an 'open secret' that she is his illegitimate daughter and everyone laughs at him/disapproves accordingly)
-He's clearly a total softy and indulgent guardian to Eliza the younger, who is allowed to racket around with whoever she likes with disastrous results. When she is hurt/abandoned by Willoughby he gallops off in a mad rage without a thought of concealment or social nicities, and virtually kills Willoughby (I know in Georgette Heyer duels are a penny a piece but for the upper-middle class world of Austen this was a really shocking/dramatic thing to do, and people really could be killed in a duel, it wasn't a joke/bit of a lark)
-If he really was just cold and dull and respectable and wanted a pretty young wife for shallow/societal reasons he absolutely could have had one at any time. Mrs J. makes it abundantly clear she was after him for her own daughters and the dovecotes and fruit trees at Delaford are a powerful attraction , he turns down all advances due to still grieving Eliza. He would only ever marry from the deepest love, he is contemptuous beyond all measure of the shallow characters in the book, Willoughby, Miss Grey, Lucy Steele etc.
-He also clearly is absolutely madly in love with Marianne (but also a bit creepily, with Marianne as the re-incarnation of Eliza) and prepared to (again) be the butt of jokes and even contempt from everyone around for marrying a girl who everyone well knew was so openly in love with someone else not 6 months ago she nearly died of a broken heart...
-Marianne and he have loads in common, music (particularly sentimental airs), poetry (especially romantic poetry), walking, long discussions of hopeless doomed love - on the contrary he'd have driven sensible Elinor mad with his charging off to right wrongs at a moment's notice and damn whatever else he was meant to be doing, Elinor cares about housekeeping and animal husbandry and managing the household budget properly and being a good wife and daughter and having the respect of everyone around her whereas objectively speaking Brandon should be an absolute social pariah for all his transgressions of social norms (he only isn't a total outcast because of being (a) a man and (b) rich...

I think this shows I need to read more Jane Austen so I can track down these bad boys. For literary purposes of course

Some fabulous observations on this thread. Also always amazes me that Brandon has £2000 a year and is seen a wealthy & the Bennett’s also on £2000 a year are ‘poor’ I suppose that’s what 5 daughters does!

Well I think the point is the Bennetts aren't poor, not at all really. That's Mr Bennet's prime slappable crime, hand wringing and acting helpless with regard to the family's pending financial ruin. At least Mrs B exerts herself albeit vulgarly to do so!

£2000 a year was quite wealthy by Austen's standards, especially if that was money that came as part of a landed estate with a house and land with capacity to keep your own animals and grow your own crops on it which was quite valuable (cf the Bingley obsession with making a 'purchase' of a house/estate rather than leasing which was much more lower middle class and less 'naice'). With proper management and restraining Mrs B's tendencies to fritter money on ribbons and carriages and the like, the Bennets absolutely could have saved enough money to settle a reasonable figure of say £1000 or £2000 each on the daughters (plus they were entitled to a further £1000 each from Mrs Bennett's own marriage settlement) - not a huge amount but enough to either contract a reasonably equal marriage to a young clergyman or soldier or attorney, or to live respectably if they remained unmarried. £1000 each is the sum John Dashwood originally meant to give his sisters before Fanny so masterfully haggles him down to occasional presents of meat and game , so clearly pegged by Austen as about a bare minimum financial provision for a respectable young girl of that class - the trouble as Mr B ruefully acknowledges is that he never did make any economies and assumed they'd have a son to break the entail - the son could then either have agreed to sell or mortgage part of the estate to make a settlement on his sisters, or kept any unmarried sisters living with him (this is the fate the young Lucas brothers are relived to have avoided when Charlotte marries). So that's why the sisters were thrown onto their own merits and wits to make a good match with little enough help from either parent to do so (Mr B can't be bothered to do anything at all and Mrs B is actively unhelpful and off putting with her vulgar desperation), if they'd been a bit less pretty and charming (as Charlotte Lucas is explicitly said to be compared to Jane and Lizzy) there would have been no room for romantic picking and choosing, it would have to have been marriage to a Mr Collins or whoever would have them, or near-penury and being entirely reliant on the good will of relations (as the Dashwood sisters and Jane Austen herself experienced) or being forced to become a governess a la Jane Fairfax. Those were about their only options and it really was quite staggeringly irresponsible of Mr Bennet to condemn his daughters to that when by a little exertion he could have prevented it (by means other than continuously impregnating his wife in the hope of a son and thus creating more and more daughters to dilute the available resources further!)

Excellent post!

I seem to remember a line in Penmarric (Susan Howatch) that an unmarried sister will always have a home in her brother’s house or words to that effect.

Thanks Maxelly, really interesting!

It reminds me of one of the film version scenes I always found so moving, in Ang Lee's Sense & Sensibility. When Marinne is unconscious with a fever and Elinor is begging her to recover – "Please .... do not leave me alone". Only a few lines but Emma Thompson really gets it across how unmarried women in that era faced the prospect of increasing isolation as they got older, left only with ageing parents, if that. Chilling.