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?

Charlotte Lucas is not young that should say.

Mrs Bennett always seems to be regarded as the silly parent, constantly trying to marry her daughters off, but she is doing what was necessary at the time. Mr Bennett has his head in the sand, refusing to make provision for them.

I discovered Jane Austen fan fiction a while back and read a book where Charlotte and Mr Collins fell in love. The hardest thing for me reading this book was trying to put ‘Mr Collins the actor for the BBC series’ out of my head and imagine a much less vile version of Mr Collins.
But yes, Charlotte did well to marry. Not sure what Lizzie would have done if she didn’t have a Mr Darcy.

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?

I think it was partly timing. Lady Catherine told him it was time for him to marry, he opted to check out his cousins from a family duty perspective and then when Lizzie humiliated him Charlotte was just there, and much more receptive. He didn’t think for a second that Lizzie would refuse them, based on their respective circumstances.

@FirstWorld didn't she catch him on the rebound. He felt humiliated by Lizzie as he thought he was doing a charitable act by asking her to marry him and was an amazing catch, I'm guessing CL paid him compliments and soothed his wounded pride and he ask her to marry him partly to save face as I'm guessing the rejection would have been all over the neighborhood. Also she fits the description Lady Catherine gave him of the type of woman he should marry!

FirstWorld

I read it that Lady Catherine had pretty much ordered him to come back from his visit to the Bennets with a wife, and Mr C. saw Lady Catherine as the fount of all wisdom - if she said it was time for him to marry, that was it.

Plus, he'd been humiliated by Elizabeth's refusal. Charlotte was (by the standards of the time) throwing herself at him, which would have restored his pride. Lady C. had told him not to get a wife who was 'brought up too high' and who could 'make a small income go a long way' so someone like Charlotte, a gentlewoman but not a rich one, would fit the bill perfectly.

"Charlotte was (by the standards of the time) throwing herself at him"

I don't remember that bit - and on another thread at the moment someone also mentioned that she schemed for Mr Collins to ask her. What does she do that's 'forward'? (Maybe I should go back and read it again!)

I agree with the pp who says Miss Lucas may deserve better but had no chance by her age of getting it - and she seems to be making a go of things when Lizzie visits. So let's hope for the best!

Interestingly my reread also made me realise Mr Bennet is an ass

She was level headed and practical. She knew she had very few choices and made the best decision to secure her a comfortable future. She knew Mr Collins was a prat but handled him very well.

Charlotte is a respectable wife for someone in Mr Collin's position and allows, nay, encourages him to carry out his duties to his parishioners.

Charlotte is very pragmatic about the opportunity and sees the disadvantages and discreetly manages the marriage from the start. It's easy to encourage Mr Collins to be busy through his work and about the grounds as well as paying attention to Lady Catherine.

There is more virtue in Charlotte's unromantic pragmatism than Mr Bennet marrying for looks to a person with little financial asset and realising too late that their personalities are unsuited.

Mrs Bennet is astute enough to realise the importance of marriage to secure her daughters' futures, however her conduct is offputting to the more desirous class of potential suitor. She rushes out the younger sisters far too soon and permits them to behave in an uncouth manner (Mary dominating the piano/ singing with little talent, Lydia being far too giddy and forward over the soldiers with Kitty following).

Lizzy and Jane hit gold; love and affluence but these are much less realistic outcomes.

Always admired her. Very brave.

The men don’t really come out of this book well do they? Mr Bennet is l self-interested and wilfully ignores the needs of his family; Wickham is a cad; Collins is Collins; Darcy redeems himself but says some awful things safe in his position of privilege. Bingley - might be the tv adaptation speaking but he seems a bit wet and easily led.

It's Mrs Bennett claiming that Charlotte throws herself at Mr Collins in high dudgeon that they will turf all the Bennett females out of Longbourne upon the death of Mr Bennett.

Had Mrs Bennet been more practical, she might have more successfully directed Mr Collin's attentions to Mary who may well have been better suited. She was certainly staid and pious enough and probably sufficiently bookish as not to be unintelligent. Away from scorning at her giddy sisters she could probably have been tweaked into good wife material for him.
Elizabeth and Mr Collins were far too unsuited to even consider, and Mrs Bennett's folly is that any marriage opportunity will do.

To the PP who said Mr Collins is older, in fact he is younger. Charlotte is 27 and he is 25.

I see it differently now too. Charlotte made the right decision and expectations of marriage weren't the same as now. I did cackle loudly at that line from "Lost in Austen" though- "Ugh Mr Collins, just imagine his hands slithering all over your arse!"😂

She deserved better but did the best she could under the circumstances. Life as a spinster in those times would probably have been worse.

The Bennetts married for love and look what an unhappy marriage that was. Charlotte made a pragmatic decision, better to marry a fool who tries to be decent (after all he did try to do the right thing by proposing to Lizzie) than a sexy man who is violent or a drunk.

I don't really get all this stuff about "genteel poverty" . Does it mean that Charlotte and the Bennett girls would have had to find jobs if they couldn't find wealthy husbands? We're they not allowed to work? What would happen if Charlotte had decided to become, I don't know, a Potter or something instead of marrying?

Women of that social class generally couldn’t get a job and retain their social status. They might be able to become a governess or a companion to a wealthy lady. Otherwise they were dependent on the good will of the family to support them along with whatever small income they might have.
They could not be upper middle class and work which left them financially vulnerable outside of marriage but also vulnerable within marriage as they were dependent on their husbands.

IfNot - I am not sure that women like the Bennetts would have been able to get a practical job like being a potter in those days. They were not educated or trained for anything like that, it was in pre-industrial days so no factory jobs, artisan-style employment was mostly run by families and with an apprenticeship system, and even with a job, a woman could not really live on her own.

Even more than a century later and in the US, women were facing the same dilemma, according to Edith Wharton in "The House of Mirth" - the heroine needs to marry for money but fails, and gradually slips down the scale until she even fails as a hat-maker because she does not have the skills to do that and live independently.

The older I get, the more I realise that Mr Bennett is at least as stupid than Mrs Bennett, in many ways. Her appreciation of the position in which they find themselves is much keener than his, and in her crass way she is actually trying to do something about it. Whereas it was his duty to see that his daughters futures were secured too and he's not the most proactive.

I read the book around the same time as seeing the BBC adaptation, and was very influenced by the portrayal there where Alison Steadman camps it up like a panto dame but his irresponsibility is less in your face. He's funny and sarky and would be a right laugh to have a drink with, but his way of addressing the looming crisis situation is to come out with a few witticisms and piss off to his library.

I'd also agree Mr Collins' decision is in the same pragmatic vein as Charlotte's. She ticks a lot of boxes for him too.

That's a good point about artisan type jobs being family businesses.
I guess if you didn't have much school then teaching/tutoring would be out. So, yeah, service of some kind would have been your only option. Or some kind of farming? Beekeeping and producing honey!
See, I'm frantically trying to come up with ways not to have to marry Mr Collins
Could a woman really not live alone? They could live with elderly relative though, but no mens, surely?

"The men don’t really come out of this book well do they? "

Interestingly, the one who really does come out well is Mr Gardiner - he steps up when Lydia elopes, while Mr Bennet predictably collapses and is useless. I find it interesting because Mr Gardiner is 'mere trade' in Austenite terms, yet she portrays him as being a better man than the rest of them!

I agree that Charlotte Lucas made the only choice open to her - and Austen does give her quite a bit of space in the book to set out her reasoning.

It's clear that Lizzie doesn't agree - although later when talking to Darcy she makes the point that 'in a prudential light it's a good match for her'.

I think Austen knew that the outcomes for Lizzie and Jane were unusual. She was making the point about the choices or lack of that women had.

For all we know, Mr Collins could have been a fantastic lover and Mr Darcy a poor one.

Good thread OP.

I love Aunt and Mr Gardiner Sooner - lovely kindly people.