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 Bennet is an awful parent. Her vulgarity is one of the main reasons Bingley left Jane the first time, she does not know her children at all, pushing Mr Collins to Elizabeth, not realising that Mary could be a better match, leaving Jane to deal with all the household after Lydia's elopement, embracing Wickham as favourite son-in-law only because he married Lydia, not being grateful to her brother for rescuing Lydia from an awful fate. She is a very egoistical, narrow-minded and simply foolish woman. That of course does not make Mr Bennet a good father and husband.

Bingley didn’t ‘leave’ Jane, though — Darcy persuaded him she didn’t love him, and because Bingley was a bit of a twit, he obediently trotted off to London with his sisters and D, and only returned to court Jane again once Darcy had given permission. He never seems to have been all that bothered by Mrs Bennett’s vulgarity — his own sisters are fairly dreadful, I suppose. Perhaps he was used to forbearance..?

Loved reading this thread and now looking forward to reading two new books.

Intriguing

Not likely imo. The library is symbolic of his withdrawal from his social and family responsibilities. If anything he has an affair with his books.

A particularly sharp observation from someone who was not allowed to withdraw from social life for an intellectual life (to be fair, Austen may not entirely have wanted that, but I would say that conversation/neighbours/society are presented as necessary in her books but sometimes a necessary evil).

I think we underestimate the strength of sexual rules in those days. Of course they got broken, cf Lydia, but the consequences for her and her family were potentially disastrous. The thought of Mr Bennett risking an illegitimate daughter or two to provide for doesn't seem very likely either.

@merryhouse and gremlinsateit you might find these few sentences from Chapter 50 of P&P interesting:

"Five daughters successively entered the world, but yet the son was to come; and Mrs. Bennet, for many years after Lydia’s birth, had been certain that he would."

That to me indicates that there was no obvious reason why the Bennets couldn't in theory have had a sixth child, but it hadn't happened. It also hints that the Bennets still sleep together for a time after Lydia's birth.

@Gremlinsateit I think Mrs Bennet is more likely to be early to mid-forties rather than in her thirties, as Jane her eldest child we are told is 'nearly three-and-twenty'.

As she seems to have not conceived again in the fifteen years since Lydia was born and she's now forty plus it seems very unlikely the Bennets could have another child.

Hmm you are right @KatherineParr , it does too. So, another case of infertility caused by plot!

Quite possibly correct, but personally I feel that Mrs B married straight from the schoolroom - to the extent she had any education, poor thing - which could easily see her in her late 30s.

Well according to my Maths, if Jane is nearly 23 and she had her at 16 (which would have been considered shockingly young even then), that would make her 39 so I think it's a bit of a stretch to say Mrs B could 'easily' be in her 30s. Girls didn't 'come out' in society until 15 or 16 at the youngest, then you've got to allow time for the courtship, wedding, pregnancy. If you look in all Jane Austen's books there's no character who marries younger than 16 (Lydia herself), although Wickham had attempted to elope with Mr Darcy's sister when she was 15. And was considered to be a cad and a monster for taking advantage of such a young girl. Both Georgiana Darcy and Lydia Bennet did not have their parents around to protect them when he eloped/attempted to elope with them.

I can't really see that a young Mr Bennet would have behaved like that, seems out of character. I can imagine him courting the future Mrs B when she was 18 or so, with the approval of her family. And then having Jane at 19 or 20, so she'd now be 42 or so.

But lets agree to disagree!

@Pinkittens I agree. I much prefer Mr Bennett to Mrs Benett.

Oh my God, I'm 42 and likely older than Mrs Bennet.

Like someone said he's a feckless idiot, marrying for sexual gratuity

I think that Mrs B was like Lydia when she was young - bouncy, energetic, loved to dance and sing and go to parties and Mr B, who strikes me as the reclusive academic type - was bowled over by her sexually and loved her energy. Then he finds out he's married to a silly vulgar woman.

@MissHavishamsMouldyOldCake oh wow I'm so pleased you mentioned Longbourne, it sounds brilliant, thanks.

I always assumed Mrs B was very pretty which is why she could marry up. I'd love to see an adaption with an actress in her early 40s so you could still see what Mr B had been attracted to. Alison Steadman was 50 and Brenda Blethyn was 59 when they portrayed her so both too old (and Alice Steadman not the right kind of pretty). Athough I loved BBs more subtle portrayal and you could still see the younger very pretty and vivacious girl Mrs B would have been, that would have been more apparent when she was 15-20 years younger. Maybe they should do another version with Rosamund Pike as Mrs B, she'd be about the right age now.

I completely agree. She is, in fact, the sensible parent looking out for her daughters' future.

I completely agree. She is, in fact, the sensible parent looking out for her daughters' future

It's the way she goes about it that upsets people. According to the social rules, a matchmaking mother was supposed to make every effort to get decent marriages for her daughters but not look as if she was. For Mrs B, of course, there's an element of desperation because two daughters are of marriageable age with no serious suitors on the horizon.

Yes, absolutely. There's that line near the start where Mr Bennet says that maybe Mrs Bennet should send the girls by themselves to visit Mr Bingley, because he might find the mother as attractive as her daughters, and she dismisses it and says that she's had her share of good looks, but that when a woman has five grown-up daughters she needs to give up thinking about her own beauty -- to which Mr B says something like 'In such cases, a woman does not often often have any beauty to speak of'.

It's usually played for laughs, with Alison Steadman gurning like a madwoman, but I suppose you could also see it as his slightly rueful (but courtly?) tribute to his wife's continuing good looks, which presumably snared him into marrying her in the first place? And it would be very interesting to cast a beautiful actress of 40 as Mrs Bennet -- it would show us that he fancied her desperately, might flag up entirely differently the way she reminisces about her own youthful liking for soldiers in relation to Kitty and Lydia's flirtations, and make us think of her as a young and energetic woman compared to her (presumably) older, staider husband, who never really seems to leave his library.

(Re. Rosamund Pike -- pretty much the only thing I liked about the Joe Wright P and P adaptation was the casting of the more conventionally pretty RP as Jane against Keira Knightley's Lizzy. I thought that was genuinely interesting. The novel says Jane is prettier than Lizzy, but very few adaptations cast someone better-looking than the 'star'...)

Just popping in to say I hated Longbourn and I loathe how these books sort of become 'canon' (see also 'Wide Sargasso Sea'). P&P is a witty story about the frivolities of the Georgian upper middle classes written by a someone who experienced it and I didn't need a gritty reboot seen through the eyes of a modern storyteller. I know a lot of people like the books that continue a well known story/write it from a different characters viewpoint, but I always feel like 'get your own flipping characters'.

That's just my opinion though

I have mixed feelings about Longbourn but loved The Other Bennet Sister.

'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!'

At 44 or so? Not totally improbable.

A younger Mrs B would be a great idea, although the problem that creates is casting young actors of a similar age to the Bennet sisters in real life, rather than mid-twenties and upwards a la Ehle and Harker - who was nearly 30.

Re: Mr & Mrs Bennett, it's a long time since I read the book, but I assume their entrenched positions relative to each other are the result of many, many discussions over the years of their marriage, about the position of Mrs B & the girls, after Mr B dies (& who wants to think about their own death all the time?). These discussions were pretty fruitless, as he can't change the legal position of the estate, so maybe that's one reason why he's withdrawn from any mention of it & into the peace & safety of his study. Perhaps his snide remarks & refusal to get involved are a way of shutting down a discussion he doesn't want to have yet again.

Totally agree with the Mrs B analysis and I like to think that's how JA intended her to be interpreted. I'm not keen on the Mrs B viewed through modern eyes as being practical and sensible about her DD's futures and Mr B being a horror because he doesn't take Jane to football

Not saying Mr B is a fab parent however but he is really not a bad one considering the time the book was written in. He is powerless to stop the Mrs B and Lydia juggernaut and he knows it, but he is a loving parent in the ways that matter, the biggest being advising Lizzie not to marry Mr Collins even though it would secure the future of Longbourne and pretty much solve all their problems, because he knows how unhappy Lizzie would be with Mr C.

That was a really big deal, because Lizzie loved Mr B so much if he'd have asked her to go ahead she probably would have. And Mr B didn't advise her not to marry Mr C because he thought she could make a better financial match if she kept looking, like Mrs B might have done. He advised Lizzie not to marry Mr C because it was not a love match (even a like match) and he didn't want that life for her.

I loved both Longbourne and Wide Sargasso Sea. It is a tribute to P&P and Jane Eyre that they have taken on a life of their own. It is completely reasonable to me to think about the opinions of the 'below stairs' inhabitants' (and how the Bingley's might have made their money) or the point of view of the first Mrs Rochester.

Also a 40 year old women in those days might look more like a 60 year old woman now.