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?

For all Lizzie knew beforehand too!

The only job open to Charlotte would have been a governess. Not ideal, especially as she got older.

In reality she would have lived off family charity.

Marrying Mr C gave her independence, status, wealth. It was a smart move.

The thing that modern readers don’t necessarily get about P&P is the big risk Lizzie took in turning him down. It paid off spectacularly for her, but it could just as well not have.

Charlotte made a great match and hugely improved her situation. Before Mr Collins arrived I'm sure she scarcely dreamt about such a good marriage.

And she does scheme a little to get him - when Lizzie turns him down, she invites him to dinner, supposedly to give the Bennetts a break. But he arrives back engaged to Charlotte.

Reading as a more cynical adult, I now think Lizzie was foolish to turn Mr Collins down as quickly as she did. She was younger and prettier than Charlotte, but long-term her prospects weren't that much better and she also needed a good marriage to secure her position. Jane and Lizzie seem unbelievably clueless about the precariousness of their own situation. Of course it all works out marvelously for them, but it could easily have been very different.

I'm much more sympathetic to Mrs Bennett these days too.

It is the oldest profession, just comes in many forms. At one point it was requirement for survival, now it is a life choice.

Could I marry an odious man that I didn't love for money? No but thousands do every year.

I'm much more sympathetic to Mrs Bennett these days too.

She was probably only mid 30s.

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

Yes I wonder if that is Jane Austen's comment on the snobbery of 'gentlemen' who think that traders are beneath them. Though (sorry, cynicism here), the terrible reality may be that Mr G's trade involves exploitation. Do we know what he trades in?

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

Can someone write that fanfic?

I've never fully understood the "entail".

PP are assuming that Mr.Collins would inherit, but if any of the Bennet girls had a male child before their father died, wouldn't it go to them?

She was probably only mid 30s

Since Jane was probably around 22 and Elizabeth was 20 then I doubt mid 30s. They did not marry quite as young as Lydia, Austen shows this is an unusual marriage.

I would guess that if she had Jane at 20-22 then she would be mid 40s by this point.

She was probably only mid 30s

Well Jane is about 22 so late 30s at the very youngest.

X post

Yes, Mrs Bennett was annoying in her anxiety but it was not unfounded. I hate how Mr Bennett just gave up on any parenting of his girls after Lizzie. Agree that Charlotte's pragmatism is to be admired. I hope Mr Collins spent many happy hours in the garden.

PP are assuming that Mr.Collins would inherit, but if any of the Bennet girls had a male child before their father died, wouldn't it go to them?

Not necessarily, each entail was set up differently where some might go to the eldest sister until she had a boy whilst others like Mr Bennet's would go entirely to the male cousin. It was often set up many years beforehand and passed down the male line until failure of issue occurred.

Charlotte and Mary are my heroes. They are the voices/faces of women's real lot during that period. I liked the way each of these characters went their own way and negotiated their individual circumstances with some presence and independence of mind.

Mary was my favourite. In an equivalent 21st-century context she'd have been an EMO - probably looking and dressing like Emily the Strange!

I love a Jane Austen thread!
I voted YANBU and I would have done the same if I was her. However, let's not forget that Jane Austen herself chose spinsterhood and poverty when faced with exactly the same choice as Charlotte.

I think better Mr Collins than Wickham. He was gorgeous, but clearly would end up with gambling debts, affairs all over the place. Poverty with a bitter man (which he already was in P+P) raging against Darcy, drinking, bit of wife bashing?? Terrible life for Lydia who is awful but only 16!

The other choice is becoming Miss Bates. I think Charlotte made the right decision. When I read as a teen I couldn’t understand. But I do now. I think Lizzie would as well as she aged.

I think it is worth understanding Jane Austen's novels abasing the backdrop of her own life. She appears to have been very much in love with Tom Lefroy, but to have known that this would not lead to a marriage. After that, none of her other suitors were good enough and she never settled for less in the way that Charlotte did. It is impossible to know whether she ever regretted this. In P&P I think Lizzie shows some maturity towards the end of the book when she observes that Charlotte's decision has worked for her and that she was content in her marriage. I think it implies a realisation that everyone is different and that she had, perhaps, been too quick to judge.

typo - against not abasing.

People didn't akways marry very young in those days. In fact poorer people often married later because they had to save to set up a home. I guess the "genteel" poorer ones had to get the daughters married off asap. But I think Mrs Bennett would have been mid 40s.

I have voted YABU because it is the oleginous Mr Collins! Although even Charlotte herself in the book explains her reasons, and as PP have said her options were limited.

But still - the combo of Mr Collins and Lady Catherine make it a BU for me Charlotte is a stronger woman than me, all those evenings with the pair of them ....

I think we are all very lucky to be living here and now tbh.

Women in other parts of the world probably still have to make this kind of decision, and I'm sure women in Europe did too within living memory.

I'd have settled for Mr Collins too.

She was absolutely right to marry Mr C. God he's dull, but he was unlikely to beat her, torment her, lock her in an asylum, abuse her children, or flaunt his mistresses. By marrying him she gets status, the brand of independence that being married brought in those days, and she will never have to watch her children freeze or starve to death.

When you read first hand accounts of life back then (or a little later, in the Victorian era- Mayhew for example) there's dozens of stories of decayed gentlewomen who are essentially starving in attics because, somewhere along the line, things haven't gone well for them and that's where they end up. If you've been bred to run a household of staff, be an ornament in the drawing room, and produce children, you're good for nobody if you don't do just that. These women probably couldn't boil an egg, they were meant to be helpless and dependant.

Charlotte, if unmarried, probably would have been OK in that she'd go to live with a brother and be free babysitting - a depressing life, but she probably wouldn't have starved or lost caste. The Bennett sisters on the other hand, would have been absolutely fucked if they'd got to old maid status. No brother to take care of them. No independent fortune. The elder girls would have married shopkeepers or impoverished vicars if they were lucky, and the youngest would have ended up selling themselves to the regiment. Mrs Bennett was a shrewd woman in her way- if she lived now, she'd be hothousing those girls with extra tuition for scholarships to private schools and mandarin classes on a Saturday.

the toss-up for a woman like Charlotte (who, don't forget, was quite a few years older than Lizzie) was - which is better - being a spinster with no status whatsoever, or being married to a man she doesn't love but who can provide for her and give her status. She, after all, will be the mistress of Longbourne.

I think, for the time, she made a good decision.

And I certainly think that whilst marrying for love is the right thing to do, marrying imprudently (to someone who is feckless, for example) for love is never ever a good idea.

I would put up with it for two children then would tell him that Lady Catherine had said it was common to have more than two children. He'd shut up shop himself immediately.