The older I get the less bad I think the Collins' marriage in Pride and Prejudice is

[BlackAmericanoNoSugar]

When I first read P&P as a teenager I was very caught up in the hatred to love romance of Lizzie and Darcy. I'm still a sucker for that sort of story arc. For a long time I thought Charlotte was cheated of a happy ending, I thought she deserved much better than Mr Collins. I still think that she deserved better but now that I'm much older I can see that it isn't an unhappy ending either.

I still wouldn't want Mr Collins for myself but I've been listening to Dr Octavia Cox on YouTube (she's great) on various aspects of Jane Austen's books and when she was talking about the nature of marriage and Austen's examples of good and bad marriages it helped to make it clear that, actually, Charlotte could have had a very much worse story arc.

Mr Collins, for all that he's annoying, isn't a bad husband. He clearly respects and listens to Charlotte, he allows her to direct him in a way that makes the marriage comfortable. For instance, she encourages him to work in the garden for his health, and he does. She has a lot of freedom to run the household to suit herself. I can't think of anywhere in the book that Mr Collins is rude or unappreciative of Charlotte, certainly not in the way the Mr Bennett often talks down to or is dismissive of Mrs Bennett. Mr Collins clearly feels that he chose his wife well, he likes his wife's family and gets along well with his father-in-law. She fits the advice of Lady Catherine, useful sort of woman and genteel enough to be in high-level company.

While she misses out on true love, there are lots of ways it could have been so much worse for Charlotte who didn't have good looks or a large dowry. She also seemed to have passive parents, for all that Mrs Bennett is a bit crude and pushy she is at least striving to get her daughters well-settled, Charlotte's parents don't seem all that bothered about her future. It would have been uncomfortable to be a spinster and reliant on her brothers for her whole life. She also might have ended up with a husband with a vice, eg abusive, a womaniser, a gambler, an alcoholic.

Has anyone been watching Ginny and Georgia and the “Lydia Bennet is hundo a feminist” episode?

Just stumbled upon this great thread and have ordered The Other Bennett Sister too.

I agree with you, OP.

I always assumed Darcy was named for his father (presumably William) given that "Fitz" means "son of".

I can't say I ever gave much thought to why Colonel Fitzwilliam was called so, but to me it's just a coincidence

In P D James’ Death Comes to Pemberley, Mary marries a clergyman with a living near, I think, the Bingleys, and at the end of the book the Wickhams go off to America to a ranch/horse farm, whatever. I like both those ideas.

What I love about this post is that it's a rare example here of discussing a tangential issue in a book and analyzing our views.

I normally wouldn't bother adding to a thread this long, but I just was reading an article about the challenges of living rationally, and I thought you all might enjoy this excerpt:

Why Is It So Hard to Be Rational?
The real challenge isn’t being right but knowing how wrong you might be.
By Joshua Rothman

In our personal lives, the dynamics are different. Our friends don’t have power over us; the best they can do is nudge us in better directions. Elizabeth Bennet, the protagonist of “Pride and Prejudice,” is intelligent, imaginative, and thoughtful, but it’s Charlotte Lucas, her best friend, who is rational. Charlotte uses Bayesian reasoning. When their new acquaintance, Mr. Darcy, is haughty and dismissive at a party, she gently urges Lizzy to remember the big picture: Darcy is “so very fine a young man, with family, fortune, everything in his favour”; in meeting him, therefore, one’s prior should be that rich, good-looking people often preen at parties; such behavior is not, in itself, revelatory. When Charlotte marries Mr. Collins, an irritating clergyman with a secure income, Lizzy is appalled at the match—but Charlotte points out that the success of a marriage depends on many factors, including financial ones, and suggests that her own chances of happiness are “as fair as most people can boast on entering the marriage state.” (In modern times, the base rates would back her up: although almost fifty per cent of marriages end in divorce, the proportion is lower among higher-income people.) It’s partly because of Charlotte’s example that Lizzy looks more closely at Mr. Darcy, and discovers that he is flawed in predictable ways but good in unusual ones. Rom-com characters often have passionate friends who tell them to follow their hearts, but Jane Austen knew that really it’s rational friends we need.

In fact, as Charlotte shows, the manner of a kind rationalist can verge on courtliness, which hints at deeper qualities. Galef describes a typically well-mannered exchange on the now defunct Web site ChangeAView. A male blogger, having been told that one of his posts was sexist, strenuously defended himself at first. Then, in a follow-up post titled “Why It’s Plausible I’m Wrong,” he carefully summarized the best arguments made against him; eventually, he announced that he’d been convinced of the error of his ways, apologizing not just to those he’d offended but to those who had sided with him for reasons that he now believed to be mistaken. Impressed by his sincere and open-minded approach, Galef writes, she sent the blogger a private message. Reader, they got engaged.

www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/08/23/why-is-it-so-hard-to-be-rational

I like to imagine her having kids and enjoying being a mother very much.

There is another novel about Mary Bennett that isn't The Other Bennett Sister, which I enjoyed enormously in which Mary becomes successful and celebrated, and eventually marries extremely well. Does it ring a bell with anyone?

I've loved reading this thread, and like many of you, the long term commonsense of Charlotte in accepting Mr Collins is something that becomes much clearer with age.

Can I recommend Dr Octavia Cox on Youtube.

She is hugely interesting on topics like this. She has quite a few videos on Jane Austen in amongst other literary topics.

I loved her, 'Why does Mr Bennet Marry Mrs Bennet'

In answer to your question OP: I think Charlotte made the correct choice. How much nicer to be mistress of your own establishment than to have to be passed around increasingly resentful brothers and their wives as the spinster aunt.

I agree although was horrified by him as a teenager! She did alright and saw ahead she'd be mistress of Longbourn and she could manage him easily. Given her age (old maid status for the time), looks and social standing she did as well if not better than Lizzy as she was secure in her place. A woman only gained status with marriage and children.

I agree that Jane Austen was probably ahead of her time in advocating a love match for her heroines. Lizzy really did the equivalent of winning the lottery in terms of elevated status and a handsome husband love match.

We like to think Darcy was a softened character once he married Lizzy but that level of pride and aloofness may well have been hard to live with after the honeymoon period was over.

I can't disagree, @Rainbowsew. Also, as others have mentioned, reading The Other Bennet Sister was an astonishing insight into his putative character, which helped me reassess him considerably.

I'm looking forward to reading The Other Sister, I do have a copy ready to go.

I didn't think Longbourn quite hit the mark although I enjoyed it, I did think the possible causes behind Mr and Mrs Bennett's relationship was plausible and could explain why they were like they were. I have become more sympathetic to Mrs Bennett's plight as I've got older although she horrified me as a teen and certain elements of her character are reflected (as portrayed by Alison Steadman in BBC version) in my own mother which I found hard viewing hysterical hypochondria

Yes Longbourn was good in the sense of feeling historically correct, but some of the storylines left me cold. It felt too worthy, somehow, though it certainly got me thinking much more about how the household would have functioned. And the reality of keeping those pretty frocks looking that way .

@Rainbowsew

I agree although was horrified by him as a teenager! She did alright and saw ahead she'd be mistress of Longbourn and she could manage him easily. Given her age (old maid status for the time), looks and social standing she did as well if not better than Lizzy as she was secure in her place. A woman only gained status with marriage and children.

I agree that Jane Austen was probably ahead of her time in advocating a love match for her heroines. Lizzy really did the equivalent of winning the lottery in terms of elevated status and a handsome husband love match.

We like to think Darcy was a softened character once he married Lizzy but that level of pride and aloofness may well have been hard to live with after the honeymoon period was over.

Yes I agree - I’ve never been able to imagine a happy future for Darcy and Lizzy - the couples in the other books seem more likely to get along well enough.

I’m not sure this is quite how Austin would have viewed him..

@Peppaismyrolemodel

I’m not sure this is quite how Austin would have viewed him..

“Screamingbottom”

Had to come back and say how much I thoroughly enjoyed The Other Bennett Sister, did it in two days!

Just the right tone and even didn't mind the slightly modern take on Mary declaring her feelings first. Years ago I had a couple of sequels to P&P (pemberley and an unequal marriage) and I recall thinking it wasn't quite how I thought the characters would be but this one I loved seeing Mary grow away from the rest of the family and it was very believable as to how her personality may have been stuck in the middle of them all.

It’s great isn’t it, @Rainbowsew? I loved the description of her entry into London, and the later scenes in its streets, shops, etc. In fact, I wonder why Austen barely wrote about London though she knew it. Did she dislike it as much as she apparently disliked Bath (or at least, it’s Season)? Or did it not provide the sort of knowable community that smaller places did?

I don't know what JA would have thought but I find 17/18th C London fascinating would love to have seen it and walked all those streets like Mary did just seeing the sights.

I would be interested in how bad the general smell must have been. If our 21st-century pampered noses sniffed the air of Regency London we would probably keel over. Even the wealthy bathed infrequently, had no deodorant and no doubt had greasy hair, dandruff and acne.

I tried Longbourn on the strength of this thread - it left me cold too. Death comes to Pemberley…. nope. I agree with a pp that Mr Darcy would not suddenly turn into a warm new man; he would likely still be aloof and spend all his time hunting etc.

Interesting how our perspective changes with age (is it wisdom?!) as yes, now I think Mr Collins isn’t too bad, considering ! And Mr Bennet, rather than being a put-upon husband, I now think is a lazy so and so with rather a high opinion of himself.

I agree it was a good match, particularly for the time. Essentially being a charity case as the spinster aunt, pitied/condescended to by all and getting by on whatever allowance her brothers could spare would have been a future Charlotte would have been keen to avoid.

I have a suspicion that the posters on here might enjoy, as I do, the series by John Sutherland about puzzles in classic fiction - including 'Is Heathcliff a murderer?', 'Can Jane Eyre be happy?' and 'Who betrays Elizabeth Bennett?'.

Another vote for the John Sutherland books, they are so enjoyable

In the Keira Knightley film, the bit where Claudie Blakey exasperatedly explains to KK exactly why she's married Mr Collins, is the best scene in the film.