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?

She is an explicit example of precarious existence. Her hysteria at the lack of marriage for her daughters would have been a very real cause for concern at that time. Beyond the intermittent withering comedic portrayal, her fears are real. Mr Bennett is a man who likes to wallow in self pity over his marriage. Love the book.

I agree OP. I also thought it was interesting that the only money the girls would have in life was secured on them by their mother (presumably under her marriage settlement) and that Mr. Bennett had no actual power over his own estate.

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.

I always thought it interesting how similar Lydia was to Mrs Bennett and this is a good way of putting it. They didn't have shame to grab what they wanted and actually it turned out well for them in the end.

Maternal deaths at that time was 5 in 1000 births (roughly) and it stayed the same until the 1940s and now it is 9 in 100,000 so the difference is amazing.

I agree OP.

But I'm just coming here to say that I absolutely hated Longbourne. It sucks every last bit of joy out of the original P&P.

However, I did enjoy Jane Austen, The Secret Radical, which explains some of the things in her novels that modern readers might not get as well as What Matters in Jane Austen.

essentially is very happy to throw the other 4 under the bus to secure them good marriages

But he's not throwing them under the bus, they're already under it, really. If it was a matter of marrying or living securely as spinsters at Longbourn with their family, that would be one thing, but the fact is that their situation will disimprove inevitably anyway, whether they marry unhappily or sit tight and end up sharing a few rooms over a ship in Meryton with their widowed mother like Mrs and Miss Bates in Emma -- and by the time that happens, their prospects on the marriage market will have downgraded considerably.

Thanks VinceNoirsHair
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It's such a brilliant dynamic. Mrs Bennett is offered up for ridicule, but is acutely aware of the limitations of her daughter's opportunities. If the girls don't marry, they will end up as genteel poor. Unable to work and very dependent.
Women (and some men) did not always have the luxury of marrying for love.
Mr Bennett on the other hand is very likeable, but entirely complicit by inaction - especially by allowing Lydia to run wild.
Such a very clever, witty and socially incisive novel.

They are both flawed people, but Mr Bennet stands up for Elizabeth over Mr Collins when Mrs Bennet refuses to, and would have her married to a man she couldn't respect, let alone love. Clarissa Harlowe would never have left home if her family were not trying to force her into marriage, and in the Regency this probably still happened in some cases. I can't believe that this wouldn't have been significant to Jane Austen and many original readers.

While Mrs Bennet was correct in wanting to have her daughters married off well, and Mr Bennet was neglectful in largely having a hands off approach, he was better at following the protocols for introducing the family to the Bingleys.

Mrs Bennet's conduct and that of the younger daughters was very off-putting to securing good marriages for Jane and Lizzy, and Mr Darcy actively puts Mr Bingley off Jane for that reason. There is a comment about all daughters being "out" and avaliable for marriage. With 5 daughters close in age, it is a gamble to wait one by one, but more patience in waiting a year or two for Jane and Lizzie would have been prudent.

I am favourable to Mr Bennet, largely because of the BBC version that came out when I was being introduced to 19th Century classics, but he does have the grace and self-awareness to reflect on his errors and the peril that the family were in through Lydia running away with Wickham. The feminist angle of Mrs Bennet's attitude is interesting, but I don't think there is enough evidence to suggest that Mrs Bennet is bright enough to defy convention in that way, and if she was, her younger daughters would have been educated to conduct themselves better and avoid that situation anyway.

I love the way that my perception of the book has changed from first reading it as a teenager to reading it decades later.

I think a lot of us whose first exposure to Mr B was the Benjamin Whitrow portrayal got an unrealistically positive view of him!

The feminist angle of Mrs Bennet's attitude is interesting, but I don't think there is enough evidence to suggest that Mrs Bennet is bright enough to defy convention in that way

I don't think anyone is claiming Mrs Bennet is 'feminist', but she's aware that marrying is her daughters' only possible career and the only thing that will mean that she's not left, a widow on a tiny income, with five dependent daughters with no prospects. (Because that isn't going to be Mr Bennet's problem -- in his lifetime, they all have a home at Longbourn and the estate income, but it will be Mrs Bennet who has to deal with vastly reduced circumstances and five dependents after his death.)

It also makes sense for Mrs B to concentrate her efforts on Jane, the best-looking, but also the one who is going to 'age out' of the game soonest. and whose beauty may mean she can 'marry well' and offer a home and increased opportunities to meet other eligible men to the younger ones.
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But yes, as others have said, the irony is that Mrs B sees the problem clearly the girls must marry but her method of trying to achieve that is completely counter-productive, whereas Mr B appears oblivious to the necessity for them to marry (maybe because if he thought about it, he'd have to acknowledge his own shortcomings), but his quieter tactics, like visiting Mr Bingley as soon as he arrives, and more respectable behaviour, are more effective than his wife's.

I always think it would be really interesting to have an adaptation where Mrs Bennet was the right age, probably forty at most, and beautiful. I think it would change the dynamic a lot not to have her played by an older actress as a kind of screamy pantomime dame.

I just went on Wikipedia. Sad to see he died a couple of years ago. I did not know he was married to Catherine Cookson.

I agree. And I remember reading Alison Steadman, whose portrayal I did really enjoy, basically saying the same thing about her age. She said she'd worked out Mrs B could be 40 or certainly early 40s quite easily. She herself would've been 48 when she played the role but she did pitch it a bit older, especially as Mr B was played as at least mid 50s too.

I enjoyed her portrayal v much!

I did too, but I'd like to see her played as more sort of hard headed, money focused vulgar sometime. More serious.

I don't think Mr Gardiner could have introduced the girls to "society" as a PP suggests, as although a well-off merchant, he wasn't well-off enough or well-born enough, to be part of high society in the first place. (The Bingleys were nouveau but had enough cash for a country seat, they too were buying themselves into the gentry/aristocracy.) Remember people were surprised at how well-bred the Gardiners were. Jane and Lizzie could probably have been married off to an up and coming merchant friend of Mr Gardener's. Given they were fairly well-born, if somewhat impoverished, it would have made-up for their lack of funds in the match; however given they were well-born, marrying a merchant might have been considered a poor match by Mrs Bennett.

Mrs B drives me nuts, but she was doing her best for the girls. Marrying for love was the preserve of the very rich and well-born, and even then they might have to go with whoever the family chose. I think a recent Lucy Worsley documentary said the the concept of marrying for love went mainstream only due to Jane Austen's novels. I think JA wrote both parents to be poor parents, but in different ways.

Another interesting point is that Mrs Bennett was probably only 39/40, though the adaptations tend to go for 50/60 year old actresses.

Mrs Bennet is not remotely sensible! Yes she wants her daughters married, but only because of the status that brings. She is a spendthrift, and it is only by careful management by her husband that they are not deeply in debt. She doesn't understand the entail, and has no wish to understand it. She is delighted that Lydia is married, even though her husband is a scumbag, and a penniless one at that. She just wants the girls wed, so she can look accomplished as a mother.

I dont think Mr Bennet is oblivious to the fact that his daughters need to marry, I think he's just more complacent about it happening in the general run of things. Certainly with Jane and Elizabeth there is no reason to think they wouldn't make good enough matches off their own bat - which is exactly what happens, they marry despite their parents not because of them.

His attitude towards his younger daughters is more bewildering. I cant decide whether I think he's just lost interest in them or truely thinks they are just silly and immature and will naturally grow out of it. The contrast between their education, manners and just common good sense and that of Jane and Elizabeth is quite striking.

I liked Roger Ebert's summary of Mrs Bennet in his review of the 2005 version:

"She may seem unforgivably obsessed with money, but better to be obsessed with money now than with poverty hereafter."

Although this quote about Mr Bingley is also really amusing:

"The crucial information about Mr. Bingley, the new neighbor of the Bennet family, is that he "has" an income of four or five thousand pounds a year. One never earns an income in these stories, one has it"

The Bingleys were also supposed to be a generation further removed from trade, I think. It was a grandfather who made the money, so passing out of living memory. And they were wadded. I was always surprised Caroline didn't find herself some hot, titled second son.

She doesn't understand the entail, and has no wish to understand it

She understands it very well. It means she and her daughters will be homeless when her husband died, which could be tomorrow as far as anyone knew.

I think she just rails against the injustice of the entail a lot. Which is reasonable!

She just wants the girls wed, so she can look accomplished as a mother. that they are not left begging for the charity of the Gardners and Mr Collins and his new wife, whoever she may be, when they are destitute

www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jan/26/pride-prejudice-200th-anniversary

Some interesting takes on the characters here - although Mr and Mrs Bennet are coming out about as this thread thinks!

I completely agree, OP. I’ve always thought that Mrs Bennett’s concerns were a perfectly rational response to the circumstances they were in.