Aibu to think in Pride and Prejudice Mrs Bennett is actually the good parent and Mr Bennett is the silly one?

[SuburbanFraggle]

Yes, she is shrill and annoying and he is chilled out and cool HOWEVER they have five daughters, unmarried who together with his wife will be basically destitute if he dies.

In those days a simple infection, broken arm or whatever could quickly kill you. Even if there was a small sum set aside for them they would end up like Miss Bates in Emma; a very meager existence, at the bottom of their social class and unlikely to marry, thus making it a lifelong situation unless they became governesses - the only respectable employment they could find.

The mother realises this and is trying to get them their own households ASAP before they lose the entailed property. There is not much of a dowry, split between five to make them attractive to suitors. Marriage was a BUSINESS DEAL in those days, and if you're lucky you'll be happy too. Mr Bennett just didn't GAF. All this follow your heart business is not helpful when the six of them (widow and daughters) are stuffed in a tiny cottage and relying on handouts.

It was not unreasonable to try and match one with Mr Collins SO THAT THEY COULD STAY IN THEIR HOME. The bookish one would have been a better match with hindsight but she was not unreasonable to expect Elizabeth to do her duty and save the family. For every story that ends with a Darcy there are a hundred more ending in the Workhouse.

Of course they would not end up with zero, probably some small allowance would be in place, the reality is that the women COULD NOT LEGALLY INHERIT Mr Bennett's estate because of the law at that time regarding entailed property.

AIBU to think Mrs Bennett was the better parent because she cared about the welfare of her children even if she went about it in a bumbling way?

Mrs Bennett should LTB.

YABU Not about Mr Bennett but it is not OK to force one of your daughters into marriage with a complete arsehole against their will just so you and any remaining daughters can live comfortably (and no guarentee that that would be the result, anyway). There was no reason to assume that the majority of her daughters couldn't have found reasonable, if not illustrious, husbands for themselves (they are aged bw 21 and 15 ffs) and if she was so worried about the future she could have bloody saved some money (JA is very clear that it she, not her husband, that has no turn for economy).

A d I disagree about Mary making a better husband than Elizabeth for Mr Collins. She may have liked him more, but would have done less to keep him respectable and moderate his stupidity. Charlotte makes him an excellent wife in that respect.

They were both flawed.

In the book towards the end Mr Bennet admits he failings wrt not sorting out inheritance better (assuming he would have a boy) and for marrying for looks rather than compatibility.

Mrs Bennet wants her daughters to marry well, but doesn't see that how she acts gets in the way of that aim.

Porcupineinwaiting

Those were very different times from now. Of course no one would condone that now.

If Mr Bennett died, the next day they would be moved to a small cortege somewhere. Where would they then have met husbands? How would they get to balls? How would they afford suitable clothes? Women were very very restricted as to what they could own? Saying she should save is problematic - Even if she had put grocery money under the mattress, how far would that have taken six people?

They would have to rely on the charity of rich relatives, who may or may not help.

Single t not double tt.

fans fan furiously

Her brother most definitely would have helped, at least with introducing her daughters into society. And she had all the household monies at her disposal and could have talked to her husband about saving - he was a lazy cynic, not a fool.

I really doubt being forcibly married felt any better then, than it does now. Elizabeth and Jane arent stupid . They know the state of the family finances, the uncertainty of their existence and they still dont want to be shackled to the twit. They'd rather take their chances. None of the others seem to want to take one for the team either.

I do feel there was room for some economy on Mrs Bennet's part... but it seems rather pointless given all six would be homeless should Mr Bennet die before they had secured marriages.
Are there other children that did not survive past infancy? (I haven't read the book to my shame)

TeenPlusTwenties I love you

Doyouwantanothercuppa thanks for the recommendation, that is now on my shopping list

SuburbanFraggle the snake dance!

I think they are both rubbish. At least she focuses on their main issue (need to marry), it's a pity her behaviour is so poor it would put some families off.

They’re both pretty crap parents. Mrs Bennet actually makes it harder for her daughters to find husbands by acting so inappropriately and Mr Bennet has just given up which isn’t really good enough either. It’s also not nice the way he winds up his wife so that she then takes it out on her children.

Mrs Bennet’s actions (negligently not prevented by Mr B) put Lydia at dreadful risk. If it hadn’t been for Darcy swooping in she’d have ended up like the two Eliza’s in Sense and Sensibility.

If Mr Bennett died, the next day they would be moved to a small cortege somewhere.

I think this is a wondrous witticism.

Though in fact once Mr Bennett died, it would have been rather messier than that, as things would have taken a while to sort, with Mr Collins having to arrange a curate to take over his parish duties etc before he and Charlotte (and the young olive branch or branches) moved to Longbourn -- chances are, it would have been like a less grandiose version of the beginning of Sense and Sensibility, where the Dashwood women are mourning the loss of their father/husband AND the loss of their home, while sharing it with the family members who now own it, and trying to find somewhere they can afford to move to on their new tiny income.

enforced Austen at school when P and P was just boring, a whole book in which nothing happened and all the female characters just ponced about in frilly dresses talking. Not my thing at all.

tried again fairly recently, because one ought to read 'classics'. Now it is a horrible story of an abusive marriage full of mutual contempt. The daughters are nice-but-dim Jane, Queen Bee Elizabeth, (I really hate her) Mary who is portrayed as not getting that is it is feminine to be thick and so is stuck in a house full of fools, sheep-like Kitty and Lydia who gets groomed by a paedophile, even though they end up getting married.

as of the times, all the girls have to prostitute themselves via marriage in order to continue to eat.

it's not my idea of a fun read!

Are there other children that did not survive past infancy? (I haven't read the book to my shame)

I've read it about a million times and it doesn't really answer this, but it does kind of raise questions.

Jane is supposed to be 21 or 22 at the start of the book. I can't see that Mrs B could've been anything more than late 20s absolutely tops when she got married, and could've been a decade younger. They have 5 surviving children in 7 years, and looking at the timeframes there probably couldn't have been any stillbirths or early childhood losses, unless they were pre-Jane. That's quite a rate of production!

Then all of a sudden there are no more or at least no more surviving, when she can't have been any more than mid 30s and could theoretically have been still in her 20s. Austen does talk about them not having given up hope of a boy for many years after Lydia, so I'm not sure if she was trying to allude to something there?

BoudoirPink

I wish I were that witty but it was autocorrect

as of the times, all the girls have to prostitute themselves via marriage in order to continue to eat.

Well, Jane Austen would not have recognised it as prostitution in those terms, but in all her novels she's entirely upfront about marriage being an economic proposition -- if you are lucky, you also get a companionate marriage with someone compatible, but that's not a given, and nor does she think that romantic love should be the sole or only basis for marriage.

Undercutting the romance of the Lizzy/Darcy plot is the much grimmer story of Charlotte Lucas, the plain, clever one who knows she has no chance on the 'open' marriage market any more, at 27, and who seizes her moment to make the only marriage within her grasp, which is for entirely economic reasons. It is the only way she will ever have a home of her own, and live a life other than a burdensome spinster daughter/sister at home -- and it's clear the whole family agrees from the way in which some younger Lucas brother is relieved he won't have the expense of her.

And the novel asks us to understand why she marries someone repellent and ridiculous -- because she has no other choice, other than living first off her parents and then off her brothers.

Like Austen herself, and her sister and mother, before she generated an income from her novels.

Exactly BoudoirPink

Women of their class had 3 options after adulthood. Burdensome Spinster; Wife/Widow; Governesses in an unknown home where you have no rights.

The choice of a 'lesser evil' is entirely reasonable.

I love both characters - my Dad always reminds me of Mr Bennett - lovely and caring but with a salty edge that could sting a little.

I don’t think he was lovely and caring at all. He was nice to Lizzy because he saw her as more of an intellectual equal but he treated the other daughters pretty badly and is definitely complicit in how badly they behave - he is constantly making it clear that he thinks they’re frivolous and stupid without making any effort to try to educate them. And he constantly undermines, mocks and belittles their mother in front of them.

Mrs Bennet is very annoying and fantastically un-selfaware but she has the best interests of her family at heart. Mr Bennet doesn’t give a shit about any of them except Lizzie.

I think it’s clear from the book that Mr Bennett is a rubbish parent? At the start of the book he is portrayed as the good parent as he is cleverer and Lizzie has more in common with him. But by the end she’s realised he’s a bit rubbish as he just retreats to his study and doesn’t do any parenting despite knowing his wife isn’t making good decisions. In particular over the Lydia episode where she thinks he sorted things and then realises it was Darcy and he’d done nothing. The scales fall from her eyes re her father being useless.

It’s been a while since I read it mind you but this is my recollection!

Sorry Teen - Mr Bennet. Single T.

I reread p&p last week and there’s a section where mr Bennett makes excuses for why they never saved any money (basically he was so convinced he was going to have a son he just didn’t bother and then it was too late). Made me think quite differently about his character to be honest, and how he just seems to shrug his shoulders at what will happen to them all when he dies.

Mrs Bennett though is her own worst enemy - who’d want a mother in law like that? Can you imagine the threads started on MN about her?!

You're not alone OP, I read a good article on this.. Plus Mrs Bennett isnt even afforded a first name like everyone else...

lithub.com/jane-austens-most-widely-mocked-character-is-also-her-most-subversive/

Mr Bennet certainly isn’t winning any parenting prizes. Nor is Mrs Bennet, but at least she is trying. Mr Bennet just has his head firmly buried in the sand.

Charlotte Lucas is a canny woman - she sees her chance and takes it, knowing full well what she’s getting into. I suspect she’d be well able to steer her husband into taking lots of long walks and gardening, and as long as they could conceive a child or three, she could probably keep him out of her bed too. Not much of a life by modern standards, but not too unusual by the standards of the time, I’d have thought.