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?

Hahahaha, I had never thought about that ScrambledSmegs. Not to mention he expresses some pretty misogynistic opinions when he is out for a walk with Catherine and his sister.

Willoughby would have been a far from Ideal dh.
Col Brandon probably started getting on Marianne's nerves pretty soon after they were married - she did marry him on the rebound, after all.
Having said that, I find Marianne Dashwood the most annoying character in English literature so maybe Col Brandon found her irritating after the first flush of passion had worn off.

Love this thread. I have to say, I never thought Darcy was that much of a hunk, decent though he is, there's too much of a stick up his arse

Anyone else think Lizzie should have married colonel fitzwilliam? Seemed a good match to me.

Hadn’t Willoughby got Colonel Brandon’s charge pregnant?

Yeah, his ward, Beth.

Lol, with this I always think of ‘lost in Austen’ tbh

I don't think Marianne would have stayed content with Col Brandon (unless he was like Alan Rickman, sigh).

I think Elizabeth Bennett married Darcy for his house.

So do I! When she visited Pemberley, and thought "Hell's teeth! What a pile! All this could have been MINE!" (Minor paraphrasing here, as cannot recall Austen's actual words ) - she suddenly sees him in a different light.

I think Lydia Bennett and Wickham will pretty soon have fallen out of favour with each other - I'd give it six months. They are both too selfish, and she's too flirtatious - once he loses interest in her she'll be shagging Denny and any other officer she can get her hands on.

Mr Collins is an idiot, but Charlotte Lucas knew what she was taking on, and as someone else has said, made her own space in the relationship (though how she managed to bite her tongue with Lady Thingy, I don't know). I think the Collinses will have been fine. He's too stupid to see what she thinks of him intellectually, and she's to clever to let him know.

Marianne Dashwood was effectively sold to the highest bidder, and I think will have run off with the raggle-taggle gypsies-o within three hideous years - and Colonel Brandon, who is besotted with her because she is the image of his lost love, will get fed up with her, too, and be miserable before the honeymoon's over.

Fanny Price's life after wedlock doesn't bear thinking about - they are a creepy bunch in that family.

Elinor and Edward Ferrars will be happy, and will Jane Bennet and Bingley (possibly two of the most uninteresting and wishy-washy characters in the history of literature - I doubt that they will even be able to pick names for their children.)

Emma and Mr Knoghtley - mmm - I've never been too comfortable with his mildly paedophiliac tendencies. He'll mould her into the image he wants if she will let him. Either way, one of them will be disappointed.

I think Captain Wentworth and Anne will be happy enough together - they've both learned a lot over the years, and know what they are letting themselves in for.

The female I have most hope for is Margaret Dashwood - Elinor and Marianne's younger sister. It is my fervent hope that she never marries anyone, but becomes and explorer and travelling the globe by camel. She is such a free spirit that marriage would destroy her - she must bestow her favours where she will - on ebony-skinned African nobles and flinty-eyed Mongol warriors; on dashing Cossacks and exotic Bedouin princes with liquid eyes and cruel cheekbones; on proud Samurai knights and tawny Indian chiefs; on gorgeous men of her own choosing as and when she wishes (please God - don't let her settle for an English banker or a Dutch tulip magnate).

If that girl doesn't shag her way round the world on behalf of us all, I shall be sorely disappointed in her.

Compare Austen's women to Dickens' women. Austen's are flawed, real, bracingly conventional and annoying. They behave like humans not dolls.

Agree with this - but the best heroines are in Mrs Gaskill and Anthony Trollope.

I agree OP. Came to Austen v late and read Emma-the level of cruelty and compromise is brutal. Tried again with Sense and Sensibility-awful. Elinor (sp?) Dashwood basically ends up living at the bottom of her little sister's garden with a drip who lacks the courage of his conviction.

For the most part, they all had security, money and position - so I suspect would have had contentment, if not unbridled joy.

Col Brandon was only 35 or something like that - hardly an old wreck. Personally, I thought Marianne was supremely annoying, so I think if anything he got the raw end of the deal.

baubbletrouble he never asked her and she couldn't have taken the first step

Schaden - I'd read that Margaret Dashwood sequel!

schadenfreude great post!

Ooh - I'd forgotten Henry Tilney and Catherine. Any man with an eye for a fine muslin and a decent income would make most women happy (as long as he didn't mind his wife entertaining the milkman every now and then . . . )

I'll tell you who's a great (anti) heroine - Becky Sharpe in Thackeray;s "Vanity Fair". What a bee-atch. I love her! Much more interesting a character than the "heroine", that wishy-washy, butter-wouldn't-melt, please-may-I-have-permissio-to-breathe Amelia. What Dobbin sees in that wet lettuce I don't know.

The fact that marriage didn't provide a happily-ever-after is the point, imo. Austen's women all live very narrow lives - largely because they do not have enough money to be anything other than wife material - and marriage to someone that they may or may not be happy with is just another aspect of this. Austen did, I think, by the end of her life have enough money not to marry and do what she wanted which was often be rude about other people. There's a fantastic scene in S&S in which the Dashwood girls are at a relative's house having to listen to the mothers and grandmothers of two families speculate over whose son is the taller for his age - the level of polite tedium as they listen in dutiful silence is really quite exquisite.

@ScrambledSmegs I must admit the muslin threw up a warning flag for me too on Henry Tilney! And much too close to his sister!

I always thought Fanny Price and Edmund would do quite well. They had lived together for years before getting married, and truly knew each other very well, unlike all the others, except Emma and Mr Knightly, who were also already practically family.

I always thought Charlotte lucas would be ok too, as she had such low expectations "I ask only a comfortable home" etc.

@SchadenfreudePersonified love your theories on Margaret Dashwood!

@FiddleFigs yes I never thought Marianne would make Brandon happy, or her him... definition of a rebound!

I think the Darcy marriage would have been difficult. There were a lot of objections to them marrying - the Bingley sisters, Lady Catherine - who probably would have continued to make Lizzie uncomfortable. And Darcy would have to put up with his overbearing, fawning mother-in-law and Wickham as his brother-in-law. Quite a strain on both of them, imagine the Christmases!!

I've just finished re-reading Sense and Sensibility and my goodness, Marianne is a right royal pain in the backside - typical teenager!

I think the Darcys would have been quite happy, and the Wentworths.

Harriet Smith and Robert Martin would have been perfectly suited and had a raft of children and grandchildren.
My favourite couple are Edward Ferrars and Elinor Dashwood - he was a bit of a wimp, but only because he wants to keep his word to Lucy Steele. I feel they had a long and happy marriage and ended up nc with Mrs Ferrars senior!

But Charlotte Lucas is a terrible warning in more than one way. She thinks she can marry Mr Collins but remain her own self. But living with someone like that changes you. By the last time she appears, she is also getting twitchy about Lady Catherine's favours. And that's after she'd been married less than a year. I think as an unmarried woman Austen experienced what many of us do - the external view of most relationships is a horror show.

Yes, dd is reading S&S at the moment and chortling over the bitchiness. Such polite bitchiness, too !

I was having a think regarding an article I read the other day in the Telegraph about egg freezing (bear with me!). It was saying that this was necessary these days because women “need” to start procreating in their 30s but a lot of men are mentally calculating 40s for settling down. And then I thought of Jane Austen and specifically Colonel Brandon and realised that perhaps women are meant to go a decade or two older? Perhaps we’re out of step nowadays...

Persuasion is my least favourite of all the Austen books, but I'm feeling like I need to read it again! I feel like their marriage would only have survived if they moved a long way away...

I felt sorry for whossisface in Northanger Abbey - the brother of her friend who keeps organising the day trips. He’s boastful in a bit of a failing way - but that’s only because he’s trying to impress Catherine. Her romance with Henry Tilney is very underdeveloped and the novel sort of runs out of steam.