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?

Referring back to Charlotte and Mr Collins, Anne Elliot turned down Charles Musgrove, and we see what kind of life she was living before Wentworth came back on the scene, which she had little prospect of changing.

Charles wasn't Anne's intellectual equal, but he was sincerely fond of her, as were his family, who valued Anne far more than her own family did.

Possibly the fact that Anne did know what it was like to be really in love, and wasn't willing to settle for less, whereas Charlotte didn't, was the difference between them.

Darcy probably would have got a knighthood eventually, if he'd wanted one. He probably held a lot of county offices, such as Justice of the Peace They were voluntary, unpaid, and knighthoods were given to recognise long service.

JA wrote what she knew, and the men she knew were mostly clergy or naval officers, or moderately but not hugely wealthy landed gentry. Her brother Edward Knight was a cut above, but I don't think Godmersham was as grand as Pemberley.

It might have already been mentioned but Lucy Worsley did a fab program on Jane Austen

Oooh - I wonder if it's available on catchup Susie.

Just reviving this fascinating thread to say that the BBC's Pride and Prejudice and North and South adaptations have both recently been added to iPlayer, in case anyone is as obsessed as I am