Thanks for the link Eyeamhere
Some of the points/lines I liked from the article (by Rachel Dunphy);
Through the homogenizing fog of history, her obsession sometimes feels ridiculous—but when the options are marriage or destitution, and when you live in the countryside where well-bred men are scarce, and when at least two of your daughters are already past prime marriageable age, panic is understandable.
Love is lovely, but Mrs. Bennet’s mission is about survival.
...
Not all of her efforts are successful, to be sure, but marriage is a numbers game, and the Bennet matriarch is the sole, the necessary pragmatist in a house filled with idle dreamers.
...
Mrs. Bennet is revolutionary in her simple and abiding refusal to shut up, even as those for whom she chiefly advocates desperately wish for her do so....And that is remarkable given how highly reputation is valued in her world and how little it takes to destroy one.
...
Mr. Bennet, who sent the notoriously flirtatious Lydia to spend poorly supervised months with a bunch of soldiers in the first place, is content to publicly cut ties with his daughter and her husband solely out of spite....Lydia is oblivious and vain, obviously, but the small, selfish idiocies of teenagers are deserving of light mockery and forgiveness, not permanent condemnation. The youngest Bennet daughter’s girlish ridiculousness is timeless, but her mother’s decision not to ostracize her for her sexual misconduct—or even to acknowledge it as such—is quintessentially modern. It is a path few other Austen parents take.
That refusal to blame is not just kind but revolutionary.
...
Lizzie is an excellent woman of her era, but she lives within the boundaries of her place in society and doesn’t expect more for herself or from others. She succeeds in forging her path to happiness and prosperity, but it is a personal victory only, one that reinforces the oppressive system that she accepts without question.
The victories of her mother and sister are of a much more significant character. Though both behave in a way that is unacceptable according to the standards of their society, by simply refusing to care or notice these transgressions, they force those who do to go to extraordinary lengths to accommodate them. As much out of self-preservation as out of love, Lydia’s older sisters and their husbands spend the rest of their lives supporting her both financially and socially, frequently sending her money and hosting her in their mansions. Lydia has little regard for her own respectability, but as her status reflects on theirs, Jane and Lizzie must provide her with some of their own, and so Lydia continues to do exactly as she wants without ever sacrificing the comforts or pleasures she might have otherwise found.
This youngest daughter is thus Mrs. Bennet’s true heir, doing always what she wants over what she should, and using shame as a tool rather than allowing it to control or diminish herself. It is a bold, a risky path that can only be trod by those with the bravery and confidence to believe themselves worthy without validation, to demand what they want from life rather than accepting every injustice as fate. These are values Lydia learned from her mother, values she will teach to her daughters, and it is their legacy, their radical impropriety, that shapes the future.
Obviously, we can have a whole book club evening discussing the validity of those points but I thought they were very interesting.