AIBU to wonder if Mr Bennet was having an affair?

[Whatsleftnow]

I’m leaning in to Jane Austen to get through a tough time and no one irl understands my desire to obsess over fictional characters, so I’m hoping to find a few kindred spirits online.

Reading P&P as a middle aged, perimenopausal woman has changed my perspective of MrsB. She’s relatively young yet unable to bear more children, and suffers from a nervous disorder. Given that anything to do with women’s health was taboo, reading between the lines as a modern woman, I’m very concerned for her.

Mrs B is clearly unwell, and Mr B just doesn’t give a flying fuck about anyone, with the possible exception of Elizabeth (and even then ignores her entreaties to step in with Lydia). He’s downright nasty to his wife, and negligent towards his dc. It’s a pattern that you see over and over on the relationship board.

Of course, it is a truth universally accepted that any man’s flaws can be laid at the feet of the nearest female relative, and Mrs B’s silliness is the accepted root cause of Mr B being a bastard.

I suspect if she posted on MN we’d suggest he had a bit on the side.

Mrs B is from a lower social class but reasonable money, based on Mr Gardiner's affluence, which doesn't seem recent? I suspect she wishes she'd married a businessman rather than someone from the lower gentry - where the hell does Mr B's money come from? Does the estate have land elsewhere that he receives rent from? Or just income from capital?

Isn't Mr Gardiner 'trade' so recent money? Wasn't Darcy a bit snobby about them until they met and he realised how sensible (and naice) they were?

Mr Bennett is gay and married Mrs Bennett for convenience. Jane and Lizzy are his daughters (he tried gallantly to produce an heir and gave up after two girls) but the other three are the illegitimate offspring of the coachman, hence Mr B doesn't really give a damn about them.
Mrs Bennett knows about Mr Bennett, they keep each other's secrets and it's the cause of Mrs B's anxiety which skyrockets once the girls reach marriageable age...

Or not really

I’ve always been uncomfortable about the treatment of Mary too, PJs. Both Mrs B and Mary fail in their different ways to perform appropriately socially and this is a bigger hindrance on the meat marriage market than lack of fortune/looks.

interesting points about how the estate entailment would have been priced into Mr Bs eligibility on the market too. I always imagined they assumed sons would arrive and they wouldn’t have been much concerned at first, then panicked as daughter followed daughter.

Yes, Mr Gardiner is definitely in trade <fans self at sheer horror of this idea> but I didn't get the impression he had exactly come up from the workhouse - according to the Jane Austen Wiki his and Mrs B's father was an attorney.

He was, but a small-town common-law solicitor (or what we would now call a solicitor) 'trade', rather than 'profession' his own 'superior' son, who clearly got the brains and opportunities of the family, didn't follow him into the business, and Mr Phillips, Mrs Bennet's rather common brother-in-law, is the one who succeeds in the business, having been Mr Gardiner senior's clerk.

But he's awful!

He just ostriches about his daughters' situation and he's constantly rude to his wife - and she is extremely annoying and embarrassing, but he did marry her and she is at least trying to make sure that they won't all be homeless once he carks it!

Yeah, Mr B is dreadful - okay he can't dump Mrs B but he doesn't have to be gratuitously rude to her, not to mention such a shit father. I wonder if the comparison with Charlotte Lucas and Mr Collins is also actually a criticism of Mrs B; she should be managing him effectively in the way Charlotte does to ensure marital harmony.

Surely the whole point of mrs Bennets vapours, was that there was nothing wrong with her and they were the attention seeking behaviour of a perfectly healthy woman?

I think it’s different. Charlotte ‘manages’ Mr Collins to ensure she sees as little of him as possible, by ensuring she sits in the ‘duller’ room that doesn’t face the road, and by encouraging him to garden for exercise, but Mr Bennet more or less lives in his library, anyway, and clearly doesn’t seek out his wife’s company. Charlotte also tries to minimise her husband being ridiculous in public by arranging to be the one who introduces Lizzy, Maria and Sir William to Lady Catherine etc, whereas we’re meant to think Mrs Bennet is the ‘respectable, gentlemanly’ face of the Bennets, along with Jane and Lizzy, while Mrs Bennet is the vulgar, embarrassing one (though we don’t ever see him managing her in public, only humiliating poor Mary for hogging the piano.).

Both couples clearly have/have had a sex life, though — so Charlotte clearly tolerates Mr Collins’ presence in bed as a necessary marital evil, at least at times.

Sorry, ‘MR Bennet’ is the respectable one, clearly.

Mr Bennett is a snide, selfish duck but I don't think he is having an affair.
I always wondered if Kathy and Heathcliff were half siblings. The story of the dad suddenly reappearing with an "adopted" son always seemed suss to me. More likely it was his son and the mother died.

Elizabeth had thought that her father was the respected face of the family, but she had her eyes opened to his true nature by Darcy's harsh but true letter. In his own way he was just as vulgar as his wife, the difference being that he could choose to behave well (evidenced at the end of the book when he is perfectly pleasing to Bingley and Darcy post-engagements) but chose to act like a knob for his own fun, and never mind the reputations of his daughters.

Oh don't get me started! Mrs Bennett is clearly terrified that she and her girls will be left destitute if they don't get settled, and well. I'm not surprised she is anxious, she is consumed with the need to get things arranged and her husband is a useless and feckless idiot. He might be clever but he's a total chump with people and reality.

Lydia almost puts the knackers on the WHOLE FAMILY by being flighty and and, frankly, thank GOD for Darcy to sort it all out and save her reputation by not only getting Wickham into shape but also by risking his own reputation by choosing Elizabeth. He could easily take the other route of a 'suitable' wife with more appropriate family. And yes, that is the romance of it, that he realises and follows his heart, but it wasn't necessarily usual back then.

Lydia flies off with the first man who shows her proper attention and knowing it's important she marries, and being young and easily influenced, she thinks she can bring Wickham up to snuff. She has no idea what she's risking, she assumes he is true and that her reputation is safe and not at risk. I don't blame her, she's a child!

And actually, most of the men in P&P are pretty horrid! There's no-one that one likes from the start who doesn't, at some point, gravely disappoint. Even Bingley wavers before finally choosing Jane. Weak men, women in precarious positions of powerlessness.

And THAT's telling isn't it?...

I can't stand Mr Bennett. Like someone said he's a feckless idiot, marrying for sexual gratuity and hoping a boy will come along one day.

He's also nasty, believing himself superior.

They all laughed at Mr Collins with his pre-prepared bon mots, but at least he wasn't nasty with them.

I mean Mr Collins did say it would have been better if Lydia had died than run off with Wickham. Not very charitable, to put it mildly.

Weak men, women in precarious positions of powerlessness.
The powerful women don't seem much better off - Lady Catherine, Miss Bingley. Both bitter and unhappy despite their advantages.

Longbourne is brilliant! (Clearly this question has played on the minds of many a P&P reader over the years...)

It depends how you want to read it. It's not in the spirit of the author so from that point of view, no. But if it's become a world apart from her where anything could happen, not just what she would be likely to imply or imagine then...yes I suppose he does act like someone who might have a mistress.

Mrs B is perhaps rightly so concerned with marrying their DDs off well, because the Bennet house/estate will go to the nearest male relative instead of any of their daughters, so the daughters need to be independent of the family home by the time Mr B passes. However, she is definitely obsessed with status, money, position, power beyond a realistic (and understandable) pragmatism. It's possible (and I think JA draws this so well) to be all those things at once, which is why Mrs B is such a fascinating and multi-faceted character. Like a PP said, in Georgian times these things would have been whispered about but Mrs B is happy to shout about them (literally). Imagine the discomfort of this dirty laundry subject matter (of the time) in refined circles when the book was first published!

I see Mr B as having married a young Mrs B back in the day when she was coquettish, pretty, amusing, and fun probably, but over the years her obsession with marrying DDs/status-money-power has taken over to the point that they don't have much in common at all. However, by the standards of the time (and even today) he does not present her with many problems. He isn't horrible to her, he does poke a bit of fun but gently rather than meanly, and Mrs B and Lydia pretty much run the show how they see fit. (badly, a lot of the time).

I like Mr B and think he's a saint TBH.

I've always seen Mrs Bennet as clumsy (a PP described her as vulgar which I think is more accurate) but her fundamental strategy is sound. She knows she needs to get her daughters married off to reasonably solvent men to avoid penury, and their chances aren't that great. Mr Bennet on the other hand could clearly have saved up and left his daughters in a better financial position, even with the entail in place, but doesn't bother. He sees himself as superior to his wife, most of his neighbours, etc. but he doesn't get the basics of parenting right.

In my head, Mrs Bennet goes on to unexpectedly conceive a son in a pre-menopausal fertility flurry, leaving Mr Collins to spend his life with Lady Catherine. Yes I know how unlikely this is!

Yes, it always strikes me that Mr B is rightly rebuked by Darcy in his letter to Lizzy for his ‘occasional’ ‘want of propriety’ — which, ok, is only seldom compared to that of Mrs B and the younger girls, but is still listed by Darcy as part of the reason he wanted to split up Jane and Bingley and was horrified at his own attraction to Lizzy — but it gets tacitly forgotten. He’s not really required to change.

Came in here to say LONGBOURN! Love that book. Love it.

I always felt for Mr Collins. He was socially clueless, but did try to do the right thing by the sisters until they dove him off.

@KatherineParr oh yes, I so wanted Mr & Mrs B to get mildly tipsy and affectionate in the post-wedding glow!

Unfortunately I suspect the reason for the sudden stop is that five babies in six years has taken its toll and Mrs B was told very sternly not to even think about having another.

@Pinkittens I think that is very insightful about the multi faceted nature of Mrs B. She’s only awful because she is open about not wanting to end up like Mrs and Miss Bates, except with 5 daughters instead of one! I don’t think Mr B is a saint, though.

It’s interesting that the book is written on the basis that there is no chance of a son. As a teenager I took it for granted that they were Just Far Too Old, but Mrs B is presumably only in her 30s, and cannot have had a hysterectomy no matter what state her poor insides are in. I wonder if JA also thought they were Just Too Old, or whether Mr B can’t stand the thought of another.