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?

Not sure about Anne Elliott, total snob, and the luscious Wentworth. I actually don't think they are particularly good together. But he probably drowns at some point, her sister Mary dies of undiagnosed coeliac disease and she'll get off with Charles and be the oppressive matriarch she was born to be.

IrmaFay - But John Thorpe is one of Austen’s comedy grotesques! He’s there to be made fun of, he’s small-minded, conceited and incredibly self-centred. The romance with Tilney never really gets started, I admit, but mainly because having made him an arty, sensitive type who’s in touch with his feminine side (ahem) it was rather difficult to show him feeling attracted to Catherine.

Let’s face it, she’s his beard. But probably dim enough to never realise and be perfectly content with married life.

The harsh reality is that at some point those girls would probably die in childbirth or of complications following child birth. I think I read something about this on the Claire Tomalin biography of JA.

Affectionate husband like Wentworth gets Anne pregnant every year or so. Eventually she gets an infection she can’t fight.

😳

Still think she should have stuck with the “comedy grotesque” ! Given a chance he’d have been a very devoted (and malleable) swain. That Tilney fellow’s number one is his sister.

I think at the time, marriage wasn't about happiness, or love in the modern sense.

That may be true in general, but for Jane Austen and her heroines it was. Austen herself rejected a proposal from a very rich guy and family friend because she was not in love with him.

I think the idea of what constituted happiness is different. We might see a life of complete adoration, constant give and take, support, and above all love as the ultimate thing. JA wanted love of course but steadiness and reliability were the main traits for happiness. Men and women lived such seperate lives and as soon as Elizabeth had children and got on with “running the house” she wouldn’t have seen her beloved Darcy for months while he was riding about the country “on business”. So much business in these books can’t be handled with letters!

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

This is like a balm for my soul. Why do people go on about him like he’s so nice? I always felt the moral of Great Expectations was “some bitches just need a good beating”. And then there’s his comments about Elizabeth Gaskell. shakes fist

I think Lydia and Wickham would have done OK. She reminds me of Becky Sharp. I see them always on their arse-end scrounging from one friend or another. They would turn a blind-eye to each other’s philandering, as long as the person was rich and they could fleece them or steal from them.

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!!

Austen says at the end that Darcy is NC with the Wickhams, and it's clear that Mrs Bennett is kept at arm's length. I don't think the Darcys spent Christmas with anyone except the Bingleys.

No way is Lydia like Becky Sharp. Becky is clever and very good at charming people. Lydia is definitely not either of these!

I imagine Edward and Elinor would be very happy together because of a shared sense of humour. He was under his mother's thumb, his entire family were obnoxious twats and he would be nc with them and happy with Elinor. Also he would be a lovely son in law to Mrs Dashwood and a great friend of Margaret.
I actually also thought Marianne and Col Brandon would be good together because he would be indulgent of her ahem "passionate nature" and she got her grand romantic gesture in how he found her and carried her home and then went to fetch her mum. Also she would have swooned over his tragic past as he really was a romantic soul.
Anne and Captain Wentworth I also see as being very happy. They were grown ups.
Elizabeth and Darcy not so much. Great in the sack but as a pp said imagine the godawful family Christmases

You have to look at the established marriages, rather than the central couplings to get her views on this.

And while happy marriages aren't the norm in Austen, they do exist. The Gardners being the best example, but the Moreland parents seem to rub along nicely and the Westons also do well (though it's early days).

I can imagine happiness for Jane/Bingley and Elinor/Edmund, possibly Elizabeth/Darcy if they keep the passion up.

I agree that Anne/Wentworth have an air of tragedy about them. They may be happy for a year or two.

Catherine and Fanny will get what they want out of their marriages even if their husband's don't.

Marianne/Brandon, Emma/Knightley, Maria/Henry are all disasters waiting to happen.

Great thread! I was going to make the point about the some of the heroines dying in childbirth.

I don't think anybody who's read a biography of Dickens would say he is 'nice'. He was a very complex character, badly damaged by his early life. His parents failed him badly and seem to have favoured his older sister. He had a particularly strained relationship with his mother. His own marriage appears to have been a disaster and he treated his wife shamefully. He wasn't a great father, either.

And then, in spite of his enormous success, he was very conscious of the snobbery that some other writers had for him, because he came from lower down the social ladder than they did. Thackeray and Trollope both guilty here, I think, although neither of them came from wealthy backgrounds. Their fathers were gentlemen in name only. Both families were struggling for money while William and Anthony were growing up - struggling in the sense of not having enough money to maintain their social position, of course, not on the breadline! Dickens' family, by contrast, were in and out of the debtors' prison and he was taken out of school and sent off to work in a factory while still a young child.

Anyway, in spite of all of that, for me Dickens is right up there with Austen. Persuasion is probably my favourite novel, but Bleak House and Little Dorrit are not far behind. Yes, he can't write good young female characters, but he does a lot better with older women. I love Betsey Trotwood.

I thought the statement about Darcy’s house was reflective. Meeting Georgiana and glimpsing how Darcy interacted with her was the changing point of Elizabeth’s understanding of Darcy’s ability to love purely with all his heart. The only people who crave big houses have never lived/owned one ! If I win the lottery paying a portfolio manager’s salary to do the dull stuff, lots of little hidey holes in exiting places for me - not one giant property.

She says it herself. "But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley." It's obviously meant tongue in cheek but I think there's an element of truth in it too. She has seen the life she could have had and coupled with the realisation that she misjudged Wickham very badly she is now rethinking all her hasty conclusions. Darcy provides her with firsthand evidence, as mentioned above, when he behaves impeccably to the Gardners and his sister and she also hears good reports about him from all sides. Life at Pemberley with a man she couldn't stand would not have been an attraction, but let's be honest, given a choice between living as a spinster with her mother, Mary and Kitty in furnished rooms in town after Mr Bennet's death or life at Pemberley as Mrs Darcy, who wouldn't go for the latter? He'd have had to be a monster for her to turn him down.

Damn. I'd fight for Mr and Mrs Darcy at least. Once you've got past a reserved person's shyness they don't go all proud and silent on you again. Seeing Darcy at home, Elizabeth got to see him with those he knew well and he wasn't proud with either his sister (equal status) or servants (lower status). They're both equally mortified by various relatives. And he won't have to be all stiff to fight off Bingley sisters any more.

I think Marianne will be okay too. Alan Rickman aside, Brandon isn't that old, he shares her interest in music and literature and is educated and interesting and kind. I think they'll get along just fine.

I always cringe to think about poor old Charlotte with Mr Collins, but then, 'I ask only a comfortable home.' In those days presumably even a Mr Collins could be better than ending up an old maid with not much money, and being shunted between relatives who didn't really want you.

Whoever said Anne Elliot was a snob, I can't say I agree - especially not compared to her ghastly father and sister. Why would she have bothered with the poor, disabled ex-school friend Mrs Smith, instead of visiting titled relatives, if she was?

An evidently thoroughly happy marriage in Persuasion was that of Admiral and Mrs Croft. But then they had no kids, which could certainly have been a factor in JA's mind, given that she witnessed at least one SiL having one baby after the other, not to mention one of them dying after giving birth to the 11th, IIRC.

It's a later era than Austen, but for my money Trollope wrote the best female characters - all sorts, but for a Victorian, relatively few, if any, of the cliched-clone type.

I think part of Elizabeth's point, though, is also that when she sees Pemberley she realises perhaps Darcy did have some right to feel pride and feel he was above her socially?

I think the best 19th century female characters are in Mrs (Margaret) Oliphant. Checkk out Hester, in which the heroine never marries but runs a bank. Miss Marjoribanks is a bit of fluff, but the Carlingford novels also show women we'd still see as normal nowadays! (apart from the fact that in that series most of them are related to parsons I mean)

Making allowances for the age difference between Mr Knightley and Emma ( autres temps, autres mœurs ) I think they'd be fine. He is the only person in Emma's life who actually expects her to behave like a decent human being. Everyone else - especially her father, Mrs Weston and poor Miss Bates - indulges her to a horrible degree. Neither Mr Knightley nor the narrator do - look at the opening lines. This is not a novel where the heroine is set up to be an admirable human being.

Austen actually lets Lydia get away with a hell of a lot. In a Victorian novel she'd have died in the gutter.

And I know I'm in the minority but I love Fanny.

It must be terribly difficult to make a life changing decision about whether to accept a proposal when you only get a few meetings with someone, never alone together and never kissed. Also no second chances. (I know there were broken engagements but it’s not like you could date several people and get relationship experience).

There’s a bit in Emma when someone asks her about what Frank Churchill is like and Emma replies that he has perfect manners. The implication is that she doesn’t get to see his real character because his manners mask that. She quite likes him at this point but she doesn’t really know him.

I wonder how Franks marriage to Jane Fairfax works out. They’ve had a secret engagement for some time. Do you think that will have implications in the marriage?

So happy to see another Oliphant admirer! These two short stories are excellent - the main characters are credible, complex women (who should both be on the MN Relationships board).

I love her too, Ann! Most people seem to hate Mansfield Park but I've always loved it, far more than S&S or NA.

She says it herself. "But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley."

Thank you for the quotation Gaspode. I see that I had remembered it well and was almost word perfect!

Personally, I thought Marianne was supremely annoying, so I think if anything he got the raw end of the deal.

I agree fiddle.

given a choice between living as a spinster with her mother, Mary and Kitty in furnished rooms in town after Mr Bennet's death or life at Pemberley as Mrs Darcy, who wouldn't go for the latter?

I've always liked to think that after the book has ended, Mrs Bennet discovers herself to be up the duff, and presents an astonished and delighted Mr Bennet with a brace of boys!

David and Jonathan Bennet would really put Mr Collins' nose out of joint, but the fact that they were twins would leave plenty of room for shenanigans and intrigue.

for my money Trollope wrote the best female characters

Totally agree, MOTHER, and I made a similar comment earlier - his women and girls are so real, and they are intelligent and have a sense of humour. Of course, he's a product of his age, and their tendency to obey their husbands and think of the as their "lords" (the "Small House at Allington" springs to mind) can grate a bit.

Agree also that Mrs Oliphant is an amazing writer (I'd forgotten her - thank you standandwait)

Austen actually lets Lydia get away with a hell of a lot. In a Victorian novel she'd have died in the gutter.

There's still time AnnDerry - she was only 16 when we left the novel . . . . And I wouldn't be surprised if Wickham gets transported.

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