To think Charlotte Lucas had the right idea

[GreenPillows]

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?

Mr Collins was an irritating pillock, but plenty of women nowadays would happily put up with an equally irritating colleague or boss for the sake of an otherwise great job.

I do understand her choice at the time. I can see it may even be rational to settle in this day and age, but more in terms of putting intense sexual attraction second to a list of desirable qualities in a life partner.
But not Mr Collins! Never Mr Collins.
That's one of my rules.

I voted yanbu

She deserved better but she lived in a time when she couldn't really have hoped for better. She had the comfort of a safe and peaceful home and her parents had the comfort of knowing she was well looked after. In those days if she didn't marry she would really struggle.

He was an annoying, unpleasant man but he wasnt evil like wycombe and they would most likely have had a child or two for her to bring up in a wealthy household and he probably would have died sooner (as older) and left her in peace to enioy her old age

You are right op, I feel the same as you now I am older and understand the context better. You only need to think about Miss Bates in Emma to see why Charlotte made the decision she did.

As an Austen fan, I've read around the novels, about society at that time, and I think in that context, she made a considered decision; she herself was clear-eyed and dispassionate when explaining herself to Lizzie. Canny move to convince her husband that he was really interested in gardening, nice absorbing hobby to keep him out of her hair, and as PP's have said, not many better options for a woman of that class in that time.
Jane Austen herself, a published author with royal patronage, had to be very discreet about her female identity, and lived in accommodation provided by a kindly brother, after the death of her father.
Jane's clergyman father ran a small school, but there was no prospect of Jane and Cassandra receiving anything like that sort of education; however bright, they would only learn domestic skills and feminine accomplishments; little chance of forging their own way in the world. Jane Austen probably saw more than one good friend making this sort of compromise.

Charlotte made a sensible decision but Mr Collins is so awful, she is a braver woman than me! I think she knew she could cope with him, and she did, admirably so. Austen didn't approve of marrying without affection, she refused her own Mr Collins.

If I were CL I would be in prison for murder. The man was an idiot.

Hopefully she could masturbate while he was out.
I agree that it was a shame but YANBU. Things were different back then, she might have ended up on the streets.

At that time yes probably a good choice, given the family weren’t well to do and choices very limited.

However putting that in today’s context and marrying someone you don’t fancy is unreasonable. Get a dog or a gay best friend or join a badminton club.

I think Mr Collins was not as physically repulsive in the books as in the BBC adaptation (1995). He was meant to be ridiculous and unintelligent but not so completely repulsive.

I agree she made a sensible decision in hee situation. But that didn't apply in the same.way to other characters.

If they eventually had children

She gets pregnant in the book! She writes a letter to Lizzie where she references it.

Whilst he might irritate her and embarrass her at times, he would be unlikely to beat her or their children, rape her, have an affair, harass the female servants, gamble or drink their money away. She also seemed able to manipulate him to make her life easier, leading him to develop interests away from her. Really he wasn't such a bad option for that time. Once they had kids she could probably stop having sex with him and busy herself with her children.

And plenty of people would have been impressed by his connection with Lady Catherine and not seen his rambling about her second sitting room as ridiculous.

Sometimes you have to do what you have to do.

Given the social/economic situation I would have done the same if necessary.

Husbands can be managed.

She’s a clever woman is Charlotte. She married a man with good prospects & will end up mistress of her own substantial home near her family. Considering what her options were she did well.

Having come from a family that had arranged marriages till quite recently I understand exactly where’s she’s coming from.

Yes she has to sleep with him but I reckon it would have been on her own terms.

Austen made it clear that Lizzie loses all regard for Charlotte after she decides she can marry Mr. Collins. Lizzie makes the speech to Jane about Charlotte's decision being "insensibility to danger". When Mr. Bennett thinks Lizzie hates Darcy but is marrying him anyway, he makes the only speech in the book where he isn't joking, pleading with her not to marry someone she doesn't respect because of the misery it will bring her.
Charlotte is shown being able to get by knowing her husband is a dolt. Her ability to tolerate Mr. Collins is a flaw. Jane tries to convince Lizzie that it's a sensible thing to do, but Lizzie won't have it.
Austen's books are all about marrying for love to someone with financial stability: she considers it wrong to marry without love and stupid to marry without financial stability. Both Charlotte and Maria Bertram act wrongly in her books.

When Mr. Bennett thinks Lizzie hates Darcy but is marrying him anyway, he makes the only speech in the book where he isn't joking, pleading with her not to marry someone she doesn't respect because of the misery it will bring her.

Austen makes it brutally clear how poorly suited Mr and Mrs Bennett are with the other courtships occurring with their terrible marriage as a backdrop. In fact, she’s very unsympathetic to Mrs B as a whole. Lizzie seems to have no real affection or respect for her.

I think Charlotte was actually one of my favourite characters in the book. She was sensible and practical. Mr Collins might not have been that bad and at least once they inherited Longbourn they would have been away from Lady Catherine. Mr Bennet was an idiot, he had saved nothing for the support of his children after his death and then told them to marry for love. So there would have been all of them, no home and a small income at a time where there was almost no social support.

Austen's books are all about marrying for love to someone with financial stability

But surely she’d have known that this simply wasn’t possible for some women?

Does anyone remember what happened to the “plain” sister, Mary, in the book - did she ever marry?

Mr Collins is awful - boring, judgmental, snobbish, cowardly and cynical.

But being married was almost certainly better than not being married, and gave Charlotte Lucas status and a level of independence she could never have had as an unmarried woman. It therefore probably was the right decision.

Charlotte’s story (like Lydia’s) is a foil to the happy ever afters of Lizzie and Jane. Austen was well aware that not every woman gets the marriage she would have wanted, and was well aware that for someone like Charlotte, marriage was the only way out of a life where she felt a burden to her parents and was the subject of local gossip.

Women had few choices. Imagine, a world where Mr Collins is the best choice. Poor Charlotte.

Nothing is hinted of Mary’s fate, but since her sisters are affectionate and married to wealthy men she’ll be fine. She’s what, 19? so still has a couple of years where she could realistically meet a nice dull curate and settle down, (with a dowry provided by Darcy) but even if she doesn’t there will be a place for her at Pemberley.

They do talk about Mary- basically when all the other girls have gone and married she is no longer seen as the plain one and doesn't have to continually demonstrate her accomplishments- I think the implication is that she might meet someone.

As for Charlotte- I don't think she had an alternative. Its not as if her birth family is particularly intelligent- her father seems a prat along similar lines to Mr Collins. I'd always hoped that away from lady Catherine maybe Mr Collins would be more tolerable. Even so , unlike Mr and Mrs Bennett, Charlotte goes into the marriage with her eyes open- she knows what Collins is like - Mr Bennett appears to have been deluded/misguided until after his marriage

Charlotte made a pragmatic decision based on her lack of options. I suspect Mr Collins knew very little about the workings of the female body and was quite fastidious so it would be quite easy to avoid having sex with him. I suspect that it wouldn't have been that difficult to get Lady Catherine to lecture him on the need to refrain from exercising his conjugal rights on a regular basis. She could prove to be a great help if you played her correctly.

I'd have done the same. The alternative was growing old as a dependent spinster, at the mercy of whichever of her family members would give her a home - having no say in anything, having no status, probably being shunted from place to place.

Mr Collins was annoying and idiotic but he was also financially stable, not abusive, respectable and well-connected.

As a husband, he'd probably have done anything in his power (within the limitations of his understanding) to secure his wife's comfort. He'd undoubtedly have doted on their children.

Charlotte was already enjoying looking after the house and their 'poultry' so I imagine children would have absorbed her even more - she was PG at the end of P&P - and in those days, a husband would keep a respectful distance from the upbringing of small children, so the good times were just round the corner as the book finished.

@crumpetytea you make a very interesting point there about her father, he is very obsessed with station (all the talk of St. James) and has a habit of sticking his oar in and not reading the social situation. She may have seen her father in Mr Collins and that her mother had managed to make it work.

I almost married a Mr Collins when I was younger, was going through a bad patch with a dead'end job, little social life and a feeling that everyone had grown up but me, also I had a huge emphasis on marriage being the be all and end all of life. He came for an upper middle class family with plenty of money and wanted to be a vicar, he also was a social buffoon and a massive snob. I was blinded by the fantasy of escaping my dull life for one of comfort in the countryside as the wife of a county vicar in a lovely old parsonage, thankfully the engagement went to pot as we would have never made each other happy and that fantasy was just a fantasy, a friend of mine said I probably would have run off with the curate in the end. I do understand how and why Charlotte did what she did, I often wonder what happened to him and if he met his own Charlotte Lucas better suited than me.

YANBU but this leads me to wonder what was it in for Collins? In financial terms that is? Charlotte Lucas is not going, plain and poor. He has money, a living and a good inheritance. Surely there would have been more well off if not very wealthy families who would have seen him as good marriage material for their younger daughters?

It is decades since I read the book so perhaps this is referenced? Was he so awful (yes) that literally no one who didn’t absolutely have to have him, would?