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?

Love the idea of giving the characters modern jobs!

I don't think Mary was clever enough to get to Oxford. I could see her as a vicar though, very earnest and well meaning. (Apologies to all vicars. I don't mean to imply that vicars are not bright. I just mean that Mary didn't have that quick intelligence I assume you have to have to get through the interview process. Mary seemed to be very adept at memorising other people's thoughts but not at analysing them.)

JA scraped by, yes indeed. She had no real control over her own life. Her father made a unilateral decision to retire and move the family to Bath. (He may have consulted his wife, but not his adult daughters, who were his dependents and couldn't decently live independently of an adult male relative.) When she was told this, she was so distressed she fainted. I always think of this when I read Anne's reaction to her father's decision to lease Kellynch Hall and move to Bath.

@SchadenfreudePersonified fantastic post!
Can't stop exclaiming 'hells teeth! What a pile!' at things. Getting slightly odd looks from DP

Oooh this is my tribe! Re P&P I think that Elizabeth and Jane will both be happy; J and Bingley made for each other; with Elizabeth there is the Austen joke about her answering Jane's question when did she realise she was in love with the tongue-in-cheek when she first saw his grounds at Pemberley - oddly enough it was only a few years ago that I noticed this joke on an umpteenth re-reading! But Elizabeth has a cheeky sense of humour, and remember that the way Darcy presented himself to Meryton society at first is quite different to the behaviour that she sees in other contexts; she's also able to tell him a few home truths after his awful first proposal and they gradually come to respect each other's characters; she sees quite a different side to him with his sister and people in Derbyshire.

Marianne is a bit of a puzzle - I reread S&S some time ago after seeing a thread here that reckoned she was pressured into marrying Brandon. Agree with poster upthread that she was a teenage pain and nowadays in real life her mum and Elinor would probably be posting furiously on mumsnet! However I felt that if she was railroaded into that marriage it was Jane herself who willed it - she was deliberately presented with no other option, and Jane mock-bewailed her fate as being born to marry against her prejudices i.e someone who had loved before...which come to think of it would have made Willoughby offlimits as well!

As well as seeing Darcy with Georgiana, Lizzie also sees how well his housekeeper thinks of him, which is important in her realising that he is a good 'un.

Anne and Fred have a good chance because they have friends who are very happily married and have a good laugh together - how many of the other couples have even seen a good marriage? Maybe Emma with her sister but I agree the loving you since you were 13 thing sounds very iffy to modern ears.

I don't think Mary was clever enough to get to Oxford.

Ok, she’d be one of those people always insists they could have gone to oxford bug didn’t, and would instead spend her time correcting people’s grammar on the Internet

I have a soft spot for Mary, she’s not clever or beautiful and she gets a bum deal. I’d like to think she found someone nice or a lovely fulfilling vocation in the parish as a single woman eventually

Things were very different in Jane’s day, there were very few means of employment for women. The upper classes had pretty much arranged marriages for property and the women had to produce a male heir and a ‘spare’ - also male ,at the very least. Once this was done many of them had ‘relationships’ with other wealthy people, the Duchess of Devonshire for example.

Lower down the classes property also came into it but the females were supposed to ‘behave’ themselves. Also with multiple children, many of whom died young they did not have much opportunity for anything else.

Poor people had no choice, become servants, gardners, grooms etc. You were probably better to work for someone in the big houses as you got bed, board and were well fed compared to farm workers etc.

Loving all of these imagined sequels!

Having reread S&S and P&P recently, I wonder whether Willoughby and Wickham could have been related!

Just read ‘The Rector’s Daughter’ by F M Mayor (pub. 1924). It chronicles beautifully the restricted life of an unmarried woman.

Gosh, another Gaspode! Welcome.

One comment from Charlotte Lucas is that Mr Collins isn't cruel - that he's of good character.
If you think that this is the same era as Georgiana Cavendish, when women could be locked up/made homeless for questioning their husbands, then Charlotte's comment is really quite frightening. There were enough rumours about just how brutally violent some men could be towards their wives that finding one with a comfortable home, and unlikely to beat her, is enough for Charlotte to marry him.
I agree that JA seems to question the romantic myth of some hero sweeping a woman away to a fairy tale life, but she also seems to suggest a more pragmatic resolution. Find a man who can be a friend/good company, and who has enough money to suit your own upbringing (she doesn't really seem to approve of people being social climbers) and then settle down to make things work.
If you use that as a possible definition of happiness, then many of her couples would work out. In fact, it's the pairings that are blind romance/lust that end the least happily.

Great post, KickAssAngel. Mrs Smith in Persuasion had clearly drawn the short straw in the marriage stakes. JA would have known other similar examples.

Life was so much more uncertain then. Lots of young women dying in childbirth. Lots of young men dying in accidents or war. Lots of people of all ages dying from illnesses that nowadays could be cured (including JA herself). Not many people who married at 18 would still be married to that person at 68. You had to be prepared for widowhood (both sexes) and being a lone parent, with rapid remarriage probably being the best option to solve all sorts of practical and emotional problems resulting from that bereavement. Poor Mrs Copperfield is a dreadful example of the pitfalls that a lone widow might face if she had no family to guide her.

Ooh, interesting! I actually think that Elizabeth and Anne would have had great marriages, but the others, not so much. Colonel Brandon is terrible but Edward Ferrers (Eleanor's) is also awful. Mr Knightley is creepy and weird and Edmund is not in love with Fanny and is in some sense her brother. Very weird. Katherine and Henry is very undeveloped. She didn't want Northanger Abbey published - i think it was released after her death.

I read a couple of interesting books recently - Jane Austin the secret radical and what matters in Jane Austen. Well worth reading.

I have a soft spot for Mary, she’s not clever or beautiful and she gets a bum deal.

Same here - the only way she could compete with her pretty. clever, witty sisters was - not to compete! Instead she became a parody of herself - she was considered plain and dull, and became ferociously so without being aware of it. I think she was desperately lonely and unhappy - her two older (gorgeous) sisters were in each other's pockets; her two younger (flighty) sisters were inseparable - all she had left was to try to be clever, but sadly wasn't particularly bright.

Maybe the Bennets should have directed Mr Collins to her, but she wouldn't have suited him, because she wouldn't flatter his ego.

I think when her older sisters get married, and Catherine snags herself a soldier (as she surely will if Mrs Bennet gets her way) or an apothecary (if Mr Bennet can keep her under control), Mary may have a chance to become herself.

I like to think that when she stops being so fiercely competitive with her sisters, she will accept that she is a pleasant though nor very bright young woman, and marry a local draper ("Mmm - that's a nice bit of muslin, Miss Mary . . . ") and turn out to have practical skills as a Milliner to the Stars. It will be a step down for her socially - her father is a gentleman, and her husband would be in trade - but she would probably be happy to find someone who listened to her ramblings, and to get rightful praise for her hats and bonnets.

The Rector’s Daughter’ by F M Mayor

Thanks for the tip - that's the joy of these threads - we share wonderful authors that we have never heard of, and are reminded of wonderful authors we'd forgotten about.

I wonder how many modern books will still be being read in three hundred years time? Not a lot, I suspect.

Mary couldn't have been a teacher or governess without suffering a huge drop in status but that might have suited her otherwise. She might have made a good companion to a wealthy older woman too.

I find Marianne an insufferable character. Think she should have been killed off. Next best thing is her married to Brandon. She doesn’t love him. Yes she’s definitely pushed into it.

Anne & wentworth Will be happy.

Lydia & wickham not.

Charlotte makes the best of her situation I think.

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

Whilst obviously Elizabeth says this tongue in cheek in the books, having visited Lyme Park itself this past weekend - I can see why!!

BTW if you get to visit, I'd say please do. And visit the dressing room : they have a wide range of outfits to try on and then spend the rest of your time flinging around the house and gardens in costume - women, men and children alike. Fabulous. Teen Dd loved it!

tried p and p again recently for the first time as an adult.

abusive marriage where Mr bennet holds Mrs bennet in contempt. Possibly because he didnt father sons and blamed her, as consistent with the times.

Jane is a fool but seems to have married another so should be ok. Elizabeth is marrying for money ( i.e. prostitution) although a girl has to eat, if she doesnt get on her back she wont. Lydia gets groomed and has a lucky escape as he marries her, although as she will bore him rigid I dont think she will much of a life , probably dead early from syphilis as he screws around. Kitty is an idiot. Mary lives in a house full of idiots who hold her in contempt for being intelligent, but as only dumb men come by I suspect she will never marry.

happy endings....

Elizabeth does say when she’s looking round Pemberley “and of this place I might have been mistress” but then realised that she wouldn’t have been allowed to have Mr & Mrs Gardiner to stay and so had made the right decision. It was only after she’d met the reformed Mr Darcy and spent some more time with him that she started to change her mind.

I was just trying to remember how old Mr Bingley is, thinking about Brandon and Marianne. He was lined up for Miss Darcy and she was only sixteen. I can’t find it in the book but I always think of him as late twenties.

I like to consider myself as Marianne and DH as Colonel Brandon. I like twatting about outside and dh likes playing chess. I also had an incredibly romantic prick of an ex boyfriend who dumped me and married an heiress. FWIW I’m deeply unhappy, as is dh.

Mary is NOT intelligent. She's trite. More diligent than her sisters, but Lizzie is the clever one. I always thought Mary would be perfect for Mr Collins.

I like to think that Lizzie found a room somewhere in the rambling depths of her new abode for Mary, who could enjoy herself by boring on to the local curate and sometimes keeping a stern eye on Lizzie’s offspring.

Fedup

And generally turning into ‘great aunt Mary - bit of an old battleaxe you know but she’s a good ‘un really’.