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

[bgmama]

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?

Has anyone read "Eligible" by Curtis Sittenfeld? (Modern retelling of P&P)

It looks potentially amusing (an American Mrs Bennett eyeing doctors/dentists as target suitors).

For me JA is centrally concerned with men, on what it means to be a real man and live up to manly moral responsibility.

Ye-es... but on the most basic level Jane Austen's "manly man" has to have a fat wallet and a stately pile. Would Marianne have entertained settling for a Colonel Brandon who was simply kind ? JA's personal feelings about wealth and security are laid bare in every book.

Irma - yes, excellent point. Having huge tracts of land certainly seems to help, doesn't it! Certainly true that JA thinks women should ensure their financial security before marriage, which was a very sensible attitude to take. I can't think of an example where JA makes her heroine choose between a rich man and a man who is moral but relatively poor. Elinor marries Edward, who as a clergyman would not have been all that rich but still comfortable. The ideal man for JA seems to be financially secure + manly + moral.

I think we can reconcile the focus on land and wealth with the focus on men. Having land gave a gentleman responsibilities to fulfill - to tenants, to the poor, to the community, to servants and so on. Showing the landed elite fulfilling those responsibilities was a way of showing that they were capable of acting manfully. So, for instance, Elizabeth Bennett is impressed by the testimony of Darcy's housekeeper. It's notable that JA was writing at a time when, in the wake of the French revolution and amidst a religious revival, a newly confident and often evangelical middle class was critiquing the luxury and vices of the aristocracy and using this to push for political reform. One counter to that was to show that the aristocracy was capable of good leadership grounded in good moral values (leadership of their estates and communities, and thus by extension the nation).

Bgmama - great link to the Guardian. Some really interesting context there. I've really enjoyed this threat and have been inspired to go and re-read Mansfield Park, which I feel I don't know well and haven't read for ages.

Aaaah I love this thread - wrote my dissertation on Austen and don't have anyone to discuss it with!

One thing I always thought was interesting was that a mere 'Mr' Darcy would own an estate as huge as Pemberley without being at least a 'Sir'. Can any historians on here say whether that would have been likely, or is it just that Austen didn't want to have a member of the peerage as a love interest but still wanted him to be filthy rich?

I think that's exactly it mind, I think she wanted Darcy to be wealthy and of noble birth, but not so high as to make his interest in Elizabeth preposterous. I think Elinor would have accepted Edward on any income but Austen was keenly aware that people needed something to live on, otherwise they would be a burden on their family. A modern day equivalent would be people not bothering to work and relying entirely on benefits.

Irma - I've downloaded Eligible. Sounds like a good read.

Mind - I believe Coke of Norfolk was a commoner - he only became Earl of Leicester much later in life

MindatWork - Darcy being a Mr means that his father didn't have a hereditary title such as Lord, Duke etc. These were typically either very historic or given for military or political service. Darcy's wealth puts him in the top 400 families in the country. It wasn't typical for these families to not have a title, but not impossible either. It isn't clear how his father acquired his wealth. Perhaps he was a younger son or some such, or the land and wealth came through the mother who wouldn't have inherited the title.

Incidentally, Darcy's income, though clearly very, very good, isn't by any means top of the pile. The Dukes of Devonshire at Chatsworth, on which Pemberley is thought to be modelled, were worth far more than £10,000 a year.

Darcy's related to an Earl isn't he? And to Lady Catherine. So only a degree or so away from that status. I thought it was supposed to be written like he's from a noble family himself but is one of the ones who's only filthy rich rather than titled. Hadn't really considered the possibility that she'd had to carve him in this quite narrow niche so the plot would work.

It's funny reading the stuff about being burdens when so many of them were basically freeloading parasites themselves! We have probable slave owners, people living off rents from land they own and have done nothing to deserve other than be born etc. Someone made the point upthread about the Bingley sisters being snobby about trade but clearly expecting to live off the profits of it themselves and do absolutely fuck all.

www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/on-charlotte-lucass-choice

This is good on Charlotte Lucas’s choice.

She was 7 years older than her friend Lizzie and it does appear that her age helped her make a wiser decision than many of JA’s characters.

Her association with the de Bourgh’s may have helped her own children into good marriages.

One thing that's just occurred to me is the extent to which we bring our own prejudices, from our own era, to bear on reading. We laugh at the Victorians, for instance, for writing a more "moral" ending to King Lear. But when we critique JA for always setting her heroines up with men with a reasonable income as well as with whom they're intellectually compatible, aren't we making the mistake of projecting our own "love conquers all" romanticism of our own age onto JA's world?

For JA's heroines, marrying well wasn't just about finding someone you wanted to be with; it was your career choice. There was no independent way for a middle-to-upper class woman to earn a living, so unless you married well, you would be living on a pittance. JA's heroines couldn't afford a "love conquers all" attitude, and it would have been the height of stupidity on their parts to pursue such a choice (and one thing none of her heroines are, as opposed to the heroines' sisters/friends, is stupid).

Spot on FERMAT - we can't read the stories in the light of our own age. When you read Austen (and Trollope, and Thackeray etc) you have to take into account everything that was happening and the mores of the time. One of the things that struck me was how quickly marriages occurred in middle-class and upper-class families once the finances were sorted.

If things were straightforward, and both families ere happy with what was offered, couples could be at the altar quite literally within weeks of meeting, and after having seen each other only a few times (and always chaperoned).

I'm sure that lust played a part, but love, which comes with knowing a person, would be less influential (though lucre, of course, probably trumped everything).

Absolutely, FermatsTheorem. A whole topic (nay, a whole sea change) is trashing the past - and its literature - because we are now not only different, but better . Gosh, just think how perfect we shall all be in another 200 years' time.

Regarding finding a suitor, I'm not sure that much has changed. I read an article the other day (can't remember where!) in which it was suggested that women can't continue to hope to marry up (or partner up) or even marry equal, as there simply aren't enough intelligent, manly, moral and, above all, financially secure men for all the Lizzie Bennetts out there.

If I had a penny for all the women I know who've moaned about the lack of men... In fact the only women I know who have married "down" are those who married "foreign" men where, ahem, class is less apparent either in appearance or accent.

And possibly it worked out for them. I'm suddenly reminded of a fascinating experience I had about 20 years back in America. I was getting a "shared ride" from the airport to a friend's house (best part of an hour). The driver, a guy from Detroit, turned out to be Nation of Islam, while one of the other passengers was a Mormon up from Utah to check out the law school at the University of Michigan. They got into this amazing conversation comparing their arranged marriages, with occasional explanations to me to bring me up to speed on how things worked.

The driver in particular was very clear that it was arranged, but not in any way forced. I remember him joking "it's a bit like you think 'I'm about ready for marriage', so you let the elders know, and she's let the elders know the same thing, and you check out her resume, and she checks out your resume [this was delivered very tongue in cheek] and see if you like what you see." The other thing he said was that he felt the chaperone system was actually a really positive thing, because it took sex out of the equation, so you were forced into a platonic situation where you had to assess whether you actually got on with the person and could form a friendship with them.

I have to admit I sat through this conversation thinking of friends I had who'd ended up marrying people they had overwhelming sexual attraction towards and a dynamite sex life with, only to realise a few years down the line that aside from sex, they actually had nothing in common. It made me think that this sort of arranged marriage wasn't such a daft thing after all.

You are absolutely right, Fermats.

You to everything Fermat, especially your last reflection on arranged marriage. You only have to glance at the relationships boards to see what colossal cock-ups can occur in so called love matches. Surely your chances are as good with an arrangement. I'm pretty sure my family would have matched me up with DH given the option, and vice versa...whereas they wouldn't have seen me anywhere near the very poor options I worked through in my 20s!

I'm just re-reading the chapter in which Charlotte accepts Mr. Lucas (was looking for a specific quotation) and came across this gem: "Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want."

JA herself sums up our lengthy discussion in a single, beautifully crafted sentence

The bit I was looking for, but can't find, is a line of Charlotte's to the effect of "Be the dispositions of the two parties ever so well known to one another beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the slightest." Now, JA has put this into Charlotte's mouth, so we don't know whether it's simply Charlotte being cynical (and heaven knows she has reason to be cynical - on Mr. Collins: "The stupidity with which he was favoured by nature, must guard his courtship from any charm that could make a woman wish for its continuance..."), but part of me has always realised whether that's also JA's own view - that even the most companionate seeming of marriages is a huge leap into the unknown. You just don't know whether it's going to work or not, and who's to say a carefully chosen pragmatic match might not work out as well in the end (though of course marriage to Mr. Collins would be toe-curlingly awful).

But Charlotte enters into the marriage knowing that it will be toe curlingly awful. It must mean that for Charlotte remaining single is even worse. Which says it all as far as I’m concerned

Yes, well, precisely. Presumably a single life may mean an old age of not enough food to eat and no coal for the fire. Truly terrifying prospect.

Think this is the bit you’re looking for, Fermat (thank you, my trusty searchable Paperwhite)

“Well,” said Charlotte, “I wish Jane success with all my heart; and if she were married to him to-morrow, I should think she had as good a chance of happiness as if she were to be studying his character for a twelvemonth. Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life.”

“You make me laugh, Charlotte; but it is not sound. You know it is not sound, and that you would never act in this way yourself.”

But, of course, she did....

It’s not in the bit where she accepts Mr Collins, by the way, it’s earlier on, in Chapter 6, when Lizzie and Charlotte are discussing Jane’s prospects with Mr Bingley.

Oh thank you Rusty (I had got as far as thinking... it's not in this chapter, I don't think it can be later... The Folio Society edition I was given for a 21st birthday present is beautiful, but is not easily searchable!)

Fascinating discussion.

I was good friends many years ago with an Indian woman who had an arranged marriage. She and her husband were living in the US (separately), went home for holidays and their families (possibly using a matchmaker) had them meet - they married by the end of their month's holiday and came back to the US together. Their marriage was pretty good - of the seven couples who were in out group at the time, 4 of the marriages split within 5 years and hers wasn't one of them. What struck me was she was intensely practical about her marriage and her husband. She took him as he was - didn't have any stars in her eyes about him - and called him on anything she didn't like but was never really disappointed by him. I thought Charlotte handled her marriage quite well and when eventually chataleine of Longbourne with a couple of sons, I think she'll think she made a very good bargain.

Did anyone read Longborne - P&P written from the point of view of the maid - quite interesting.

I enjoyed Longbourne. I've read a lot of books based on classic books and most of them are terrible.

marriage to Mr. Collins would be toe-curlingly awful

It would Fermat - but surely financial security, her own home, her beautiful children (because Charlotte would think her children were beautiful, even though she had only contempt for their father) are worth 40 years of "Saturday Nights"