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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think Charlotte Lucas had the right idea

295 replies

GreenPillows · 23/07/2019 22:18

With marrying Mr Collins?

I reread P&P recently through less romantic/more cynical eyes after a bit of age and life experience. I used to think what she did was awful but now I’ve changed my mind.

AIBU?

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Merril · 25/07/2019 22:20

I feel that, as intelligent and quick witted as she was supposed to be, Elizabeth was surprisingly naïve about Charlotte's societal position.

And hypocritical, seeing as she no problem with Wickham getting engaged to Mary King for her £10,000.

ScreamingValenta · 25/07/2019 23:00

Great clip posted by Whitedust.

'We seem to have been designed for each other' is actually very apt - well done to the scriptwriter!

AnyOldPrion · 25/07/2019 23:33

She has made the most fantastic financial deal of her life. She and her kids will get Longbourn when Mr Bennet dies

This from Outrageous on page 1 is interesting. If Mr Collins dies before Charlotte produces a male heir, then potentially she’d be in the same position as Mrs Bennet.

But I bet Mr Collins (possibly guided by Charlotte herself) will probably put money aside.

It’s implied that she has him wrapped round her little finger isn’t it? Embarrassing as he’d be in public, I don’t think her life would be that unpleasant.

Mr Collins might not have been in her bed much either. Quite likely they’d have separate bedrooms.

ScreamingValenta · 25/07/2019 23:46

If Mr Collins dies before Charlotte produces a male heir, then potentially she’d be in the same position as Mrs Bennet.

That is interesting. I believe the entail means Longbourn goes to whoever (male) is nearest the direct line - if one of the Bennet sisters produced a male heir but Charlotte didn't, potentially it could revert to him. Could be a godsend for Lydia and Wickham if she can pop a sprog out quickly enough!

MidnightAtTheOasis · 25/07/2019 23:56

I don’t think it would go back to the Bennet sisters and their offspring no matter what - the net would be spread further in search of a direct male line. I strongly suspect that Mr Collins will make a big thing in 18 years time of how sensible he’s being in getting his son to break the entail - but fortunately by that time Mr and Mrs B won’t care. Mrs B will have an eye on the Pemberley Dower House for her widowhood.

Deadringer · 26/07/2019 00:49

There is always a possibility of course that Mr Bennet will be widowed and marry again, if he had a son with his second wife Mr Collins' nose would be severely out of joint!

GotToGoMyOwnWay · 26/07/2019 07:52

@Deadringer - I should think that was quite common. Marrying a second time for an heir.

Interesting perspective as well.

Enko · 26/07/2019 09:19

Great thread I have very much enjoyed all the ideas on here. Not being British I didn't read PandP until and adult and I have always felt Charlotte made the sensible choice.

Daisypie · 26/07/2019 09:25

Trying to imagine the discussion between Bingley and Darcy about who gets Mrs B to live with them.

IrmaFayLear · 26/07/2019 09:39

Thinking about this in the night when I couldn't sleep...

I decided (well, at 3am anyway!) that I would have very much gone for Mr Collins. As others have observed, he isn't love's young dream, but he is not a) haughty like Mr Darcy b) a sap like Mr Bingley c) a cad like Wickham d) a head-in-the-sand "I'm so above all this" like Mr Bennet...

I really enjoyed the point that Mr Bennet is not the genial fellow he appears at first. He sneers at his wife, has favourites, seems to be lazy (what does he do ?!) and is generally ineffectual, whilst all the time doing the nice, laid-back guy act. If this were someone's dh on MN, "LTB" would have been spat out after three posts!

GreenPillows · 26/07/2019 09:46

And Mr Bennet is a bully! How he talks about Lydia and Kitty is appalling.

Hmmm. I bet Bingley would lose the chat about Mrs Bennet. Unless his sisters got involved in the conversation of course

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CassandraCross · 26/07/2019 10:15

Mrs Bennett wouldn't want to live with Lizzie and Darcy, I reckon she'd already earmarked her rooms with Jane and Bingley!! Poor Jane she was always going to end up with Mrs B and any unmarried sisters.

probstimeforanewname · 26/07/2019 10:34

Mr Collins is ridiculous but he isn't mean or cruel; if you ever read Tenant of Wildfell Hall that is a good description of domestic abuse in an age before divorce, and I'm sure that happened to a great many women

Yes. Ossie in Poldark is an obvious example of that (and another vicar, so much for being a man of God).

IrmaFayLear · 26/07/2019 10:35

Oh, yes, she'd be sat at Netherfield but wistfully wittering about what "merry" company Lydia and Wickham are...

Spudlet · 26/07/2019 11:03

Being a clergyman didn’t necessarily mean much in terms of faith back in the day. It was seen as a nice respectable career for a second son and one that gave a good comfortable living. Lots of scientists were clergymen, you could even buy books of prewritten sermons so they had lots of free time to pursue their own interests. There’s a Bill Bryson book (Home, or The History of the Home I think it is) that talks about this a bit as he lived in an old vicarage at the time.

Abhann · 26/07/2019 11:24

Yes to being a clergyman just being a respectable career for a younger gentry son with no need for undue religious faith. Austen would have thought that the evangelicals later in the 19thc were fervid and ungentlemanly. We're clearly supposed to think of Edmund Bertram in Mansfield Park as doing all that could be required by actually planning to live in his parish, visit the poor, and preach his own sermons, rather than hiring a curate to do the donkeywork and continuing to live and hunt at Mansfield, as dashing, amoral Henry Crawford thinks he will.

And to whoever asked about breastfeeding for women of Jane Austen/Charlotte's social class -- wet nurses were usual. We know Jane Austen's mother nursed her at home for a few weeks, possibly because of the weather, then sent her down to the village to be nursed there, visiting her regularly but only bringing her home again when she was about 18 months old, like all the Austen siblings.

Jane's disabled brother, George, was never brought home to live when it became obvious he wasn't developing normally, but was sent to live with an uncle, Thomas, Leigh, who had some unspecified mental or physical health issues and was unable to live independently, under the care of a family in another village.

LaurieMarlow · 26/07/2019 11:30

Austen would have thought that the evangelicals later in the 19thc were fervid and ungentlemanly

Actually her letters demonstrate her growing admiration for the Evangelical movement peaking during the writing of Mansfield Park.

Abhann · 26/07/2019 11:44

I meant the much later Evangelicals, long after JA's death -- I can't imagine Edmund getting involved in Christian Zionism or obsessed with Biblical prophecy.

Abhann · 26/07/2019 11:45

And Mary Crawford wouldn't have fancied him if so... Grin

GreenPillows · 26/07/2019 12:18

That breast feeding point is interesting. Given what we know now about attachment theory I hate to think what affect it would have had on generations of people

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NewSchoolNewName · 26/07/2019 12:19

Trying to imagine the discussion between Bingley and Darcy about who gets Mrs B to live with them.

I suspect they’d come to an arrangement that involved Mrs B being set up in a comfortable home near Longbourn, under the pretext of not wanting Mrs B to be taken away from all her friends.
Probably with Mary encouraged to live with Mrs B and care for her in her old age, given that Mary’s portrayed as the least marriageable of the sisters.

GreenPillows · 26/07/2019 12:20

Also am very impressed by how much some of you know! I’m learning so much I feel I ought to be taking notes ...

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GotToGoMyOwnWay · 26/07/2019 12:42

Also wasn’t Wickham due to joint the clergy? Can you imagine him as a vicar!

Spudlet · 26/07/2019 12:48

Lol, I can imagine him cutting a swathe through his younger, prettier female parishioners 😮

Abhann · 26/07/2019 12:58

But there are lots of very ordinary clergyman characters in JA -- Edmund 'Dull' Bertram, Henry 'I know suspicious amounts about women's clothes' Tilney, Edmund 'Dull' Ferrars, Mr 'Sex Pest' Elton. Darcy does say that he knew a man like Wickham shouldn't enter the church, and paid him off instead, but I don't think there was any expectation of particular piety in clergymen. Even Mr Collins, who is shocked by the Bennet sisters reading a novel, still attends dances like any other young man.

Two of JA's brothers become clergymen -- her favourite, James, became a priest as his third career, having been in the militia and in banking first.