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?

I love this thread.

I liked the Keira Knightley P&P's portrayal of Mr and Mrs Bennett, it was softer and suggested they weren't just abusive/histrionic respectively, more human overall.

My MIL married a man twenty years older than her at 18. My kids were horrified when they found out! For women then, an older man may have meant stability and security. She would have wanted to have checked the inheritance requirements though, just in case the estate was entailed.

Emma is like the Mum at playgroup whose baby is sitting up first and who always looks amazing and says things like "don't worry, we don't all have tine to brush our hair every day"

In fact, Emma is Lemon Drizzle Cake Mum!

Bloody hell! You're right! I knew I recognised her . . .

I always thought the thing that first changed Elizabeth’s mind about Darcy was meeting his housekeeper. The way she spoke of what a wonderful and gentle and generous person he was showed her that the people who know him feel entirely different.

True - but it doesn't pay you to slag the boss off in public . . .

Charlotte isn't marrying just a parson. Mr Collins will inherit Longbourn one day. I haven't read P&P for years but I always had the impression that Elizabeth wasn't too happy that her friend would one day be the mistress of her childhood home.

Great thread! It’s given me the urge to re-read all these classics.

That was the important point about Lizzie rejecting Mr C - she was rejecting the opportunity for her family to hang onto its home. Very irresponsible by one reading. She was just as ‘proud’ as Darcy in her own way. It was obvious that Collins had been given to understand that he had the pick of the girls to go with the home - he needed a wife and they needed a home, it’s an obvious deal. He of course was too proud to pick another one once Lizzie rejected him. She of course hadn’t anticipated that there was another local option also in need of a home - Charlotte. Hence the extremely awkward situation in which a family of five girls fails to hang onto their home and a girl down the road gets to move in and take it over. From the mores of the time it would have looked like an extremely bad decision by Lizzie.

And Charlotte will eventually move back close to her family and out of the clutches of Lady Catherine de Burgh. She has to put up with Mr Collins foolery but it could have been a lot worse for her.

Charlotte was eminently sensible for the times. Lizzie not so much.

I always wonder why it appears to be completely understood in P and P that Mrs Bennett won't be having any more children. (So no chance of a boy.) She can't be more than 40.

I know women were often told (my Mum was!) not to have any more DC but frequently ignored this and the husbands would definitely have done so.

Early menopause? Or, I recently read that Queen Victoria had such a severe prolapse that she couldn't have sex at all - eek!

I've never enjoyed Jane Austen and THIS is why. I completely understand the books are a product of their time and constrained by the social norms, but it always felt like the heroines were compromised by marrying the men who had displayed major personality defects throughout the book.

Oh someone's just mentioned the knightley wright pride and prejudice adaptation. Even thinking about that shower of shite makes me extremely angry. Although I agree Sutherland and blethyn made good of their characters.

Bauble there is only one P&P adaptation, as for the pretenders, I do not bid them good day and I send no regards to their mothers.

@ElinorCadwaller
Indeed, for the shades of P&P to be thus polluted.....
I am ashamed of them.

I wasn't expecting to but I really liked the Keira Knightley film (and I'm not a fan of hers). I thought it was beautifully shot, with a wonderful overall cast. The creators made a few odd artistic decisions but I generally enjoyed them.

Another thing that I liked was that all the girls were about the right ages. It makes a big difference.

lways wonder why it appears to be completely understood in P and P that Mrs Bennett won't be having any more children. (So no chance of a boy.) She can't be more than 40.

That's what I think, too - hence my speculation that she would take to her bed with "woman's trouble's" and present the family with mid-life (hers not theirs) twin boys by teatime!

Unless, of course, Mr Bennet can't shut her up long enough to manage a shag. (I think her constant screeching could be a contraceptive in its own right - I can just envisage her , as he reaches "the moment" suddenly shrieking "And as for that Mrs Lucas and her exceedingly opportunistic daughter! Why, I shall hate them forever! You mark my words, Mr Bennet - if they have the unmitigated gall to call here again etc etc etc" and in a trice, the possible twins are consigned to history and Mr Bennet reaches for a good book.)

I think Mr B has given up, um, trying, so to speak. And who can blame him. (I live next door to a Mrs B and her poor partner.)

Re the so-called Keira Knightley P&P, you’ll be envious to hear that it does not exist in my universe (just like everything else involving KK, in fact). So let’s hear no more of it.

Re the so-called Keira Knightley P&P, you’ll be envious to hear that it does not exist in my universe (just like everything else involving KK, in fact). So let’s hear no more of it.

We live in the same universe Jenny. It is a far better place . . .

Mrs Bennet was young enough to have children and was still having conjugals with her husband, the book states that she expected that some day a boy child might arrive. At the beginning of the novel it's been15 years since Lydia's birth and no heir so she has at last given up on the notion and was concentrating on marrying off her dds. Jane Austen suggested to a friend that Kitty would marry a parson and settle near Pemberly and Mary would do no better than one of her uncle's clerks. Darcy is a good man, he is kind, loving, and faithful, it is his manners that are at fault, not his character. He changes his manners, and wins Elizabeth's love. How can they not be happy?
Can you tell that I am an Austen nut? I love wuthering heights too tbf, and some of the other Bronte novels, but agree will a pp who said that the Brontes were inclined to melodrama.

always wonder why it appears to be completely understood in P and P that Mrs Bennett won't be having any more children. (So no chance of a boy.) She can't be more than 40

I'd say she's slightly older. Elizabeth is 20 in P&P and is her second child.

As for it being understood she won't have more children, she hasn't produced a baby for 15 years by the time of P&P, so that would colour people's views.

I always felt that when Caroline Bingley alludes to Bingley marrying Darcy's sister that she is in fact suggesting that Darcy marries herself. I've re-read the books numerous times but always come to the same conclusion. I know it would be overt but Caroline plays it clever, covering it by alluding to Bingley and Georgiana.

Sorry, I see I misunderstood your comment. I guess a gyne problem that went untreated. Lydia's birth may have been particularly hairy.

I thought that re gynae. Mrs B is almost certainly 40-45, so of an age when many women were still having babies. And even if she was perhaps 24 when she married, which id about as old as she could've been without it being mentioned at some point, she can't have been older than early 30s when the births suddenly stopped. So even if she's now late 40s, and she's probably younger, I always wondered if there was some gynae allusion in there.

I haven't read P&P in ages but I really think Darcy continues to mellow. Georgiana, on observing D&E, sees that a wife can take liberties with her husband that a sister cannot with her brother, which tells me D&E have an equal relationship. D tolerates Lydia in his home. Kitty lives with them for prolonged periods. D develops good relationships with the Gardeners which shows he has let go of alot of his prejudices.

I think JA believes D&E will be happy so I believe too.

And in Emma, I think Knightley moving into Emma's house would have been a huge thing at the time. It wouldn't have been the sone thing and real sign of his love.

You know, I know it's contrary, but because you've ordered me to shut up, I don't want to!

These pictures encapsulate the differences to me - family spirit arty film vs proper accurate period drama. The recent version made me think really differently about the novel, and the realism of the relationships in it, and I like to be challenged in that way.

I've memorised the BBC version after watching it four-thousand times or so as a young teenager, but it does miss out nuances, like moments of human affection, and the older I get, the more sense those make.

In terms of lack of male babies, as well as a plot device, I don't know if it would have been the done thing to write about miscarriages and so on? It would make sense that women with large families experienced at least a few.

In Emma I always felt she'd grow up, visit London a few times once she was married, and really see what she'd missed out by being effectively locked-up in a town with an ill dad, no friends her age, and effectively married to an older brother figure. She was definitely heading for a huge rebellion or breakdown one day!