To think that most Jane Austen's heroines didn't find happiness in marriage?

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I am a big fan and I must have read the books a hundred times, but I am starting to realize that most heroes in her books are either assholes or idiots and towards the end of the book they stop being assholes or idiots and become worthy of marrying the heroine. I am not talking only of Mr Darcy here, but most others too. AIBU to think that this transformation didn't last very long and they went back to their usual ways shortly after the marriage was consummated? And that the heroines were miserable and were told to LTB at some point during their lives?

Absolutely. War meant advancement and prizes.

The problems of aristocratic families having too many children comes up in Trollope's "Small House at Allington". The earl has three sons (two too many in his opinion for the inheritance) and four daughters. He and his oldest son “hated each other as only such fathers and such sons can hate,”. Only one daughter had married (below her station) and the url was a miserly skinflint, never paying his bills and giving a miserly allowance to his children - never a penny more that he had to.

The only one who could rely on getting anything was the eldest son - and that was begrudges by his father and brothers.

I came on to say that Wickham wasn't the son of a gamekeeper but I see a pp has beaten me to it. Darcy said that Mr Wickham was the son of a most respectable man, who gave up his business to run the Pemberley estate. I always got the impression that he was a gentleman, probably a second or third son who had to earn a living. Iirc, Darcy says that he married a woman who was not his equal, and I think the implication was that Wickham got the worst of his character from his mother. I don't think JA approved of people marrying outside of their own social class. She definitely didn't approve of people marrying without affection, or even worse, without the means to support themselves.

Wickham was the son of a gent, albeit a poor one. Being an estate manager has always been a posho's job.

Does anyone actually go to war in a JA novel? I mean I know there's a lot of posing around in uniform, but what about the actual business of war?

If the answer's no, or not much, it really adds to my impression that the lives of men were basically incidental to her. They matter plot-wise because they effect women, but really they don't ever seem very important beyond that. She's much, much more interested in the women themselves. I'd go so far as to say that despite some father/daughter stuff and the obvious romance, the real emotional depth of her work is in womens' relationships with each other. Does that ring true do those of you who've read more of her?

Good point! She's writing at a time when tens of thousands of British troops were fighting Napoleon in Europe but the soldiers she writes about spend their time faffing around the south of England. I'm trying to think if she ever mentions anyone having been on active service in the past? The furthest I can think of her placing any of them is Newcastle after Lydia and Wickham get married.

I’m sure I read once that JA never wrote about anything that she hadn’t witnessed for example she never writes about conversations between men with no women present.

Ive just watched the 2009 bbc version of Emma and I’ll admit I can’t watch versions of Emma without comparing them to clueless!

I wish they would make clueless-type adaptations of all JA’s works.

Not just because it's boring subject matter then Robin

Yes I'd heard that too Robin. It's interesting though, because she could quite easily have witnessed a conversation that referenced someone actually having fought in the Napoleonic Wars. She might well have met soldiers who did and who referred to it. I don't mean showing off about how many people they'd killed or crying about the horror of it all or whatever, but just a quick offhand remark about fighting in the past or future. I don't think she ever does though, does she?

www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/06/clueless-oral-history-20-anniversary

Did you read this Seven? It's a delight

I’m sure I read once that JA never wrote about anything that she hadn’t witnessed for example she never writes about conversations between men with no women present.

Except maybe that conversation between Darcy and Bingley at the first ball when he disparages Elizabeth but she overhears.

Doesn't she say she chooses not to write about misery? Reckon war comes under that.

She could reference someone having been recently back from war without writing about misery, it wouldn't be any more detail than some of the other unhappiness she alludes to like Maria and Mrs Norris. So I think it's interesting she doesn't.

She was dissembling a bit there Flask. Misery is very near in a lot of her work! I think that was a cover for writing romance-the only genre that was allowed to just be about women.

I like the idea of Clueless style versions @Sevendown I love all the adaptations inc the Bollywood version of P&P.

Think a decent version of ‘Northanger Abbey’ is long overdue.

On soldiering and men, JA writes with great wit about the militia, who were a sort of civil defence force comprised of citizen soldiers. As a member Wickham was very unlikely to see active combat. By Austen's time the masculinity of the militia was being heavily critiqued, and P&P picks up on that. They are all preening and polished, engaged in fripperies like dancing: in implicit contrast to the real army in France.

I see this as a clue to Wickham's character - he's all surface and no substance. For me JA is centrally concerned with men, on what it means to be a real man and live up to manly moral responsibility.

Wickham's Dad - as estate manager more likely to be the son of a professional than an aristocrat. Many came from legal backgrounds or were themselves sobs of stewards. They occupied an ambiguous place in society - socially above the tenants but not on a par with the gentry.

Thanks Elinor

I love all things clueless

She wrote "let other pens dwell on guilt and misery" I think at the end of Mansfield Park but I don't think she meant it as an insight into her own writing and subject matter - it was more part of the novel.

Anyone remember the film version of Mansfield Park about 20 years ago that dealt up front with the slave trade as well as some other things that may not have been envisioned by JA?

Sorry to bring this so late to the conversation: www.theguardian.com/books/gallery/2017/jul/18/jane-austens-facts-and-figures-in-charts
"Although Austen's novels always end with the heroine's marriage, the majority of marriages in her books are portrayed as either unhappy or functional"

Thanks OP - that was fascinating.

Thanks jeangenie I would never have picked up on that. There is so much context we miss.

Yes it was - I love a good infographic! Have also loved this thread - it's like being back in an English lit class, but without the haters.

I see this as a clue to Wickham's character - he's all surface and no substance. For me JA is centrally concerned with men, on what it means to be a real man and live up to manly moral responsibility.

I like that observation genie. you make an excellent point.

On a different note, I think that the enduring popularity of the stories, and the way they have been almost seamlessly updated and applied cross-culturally, shows what a very keen observer of human nature JA was. These aren't just novels - they are almost sociological textbooks!