Austen in the novel presents Mrs. Bennet as "occasionally nervous and invariably silly" even at the end of the novel (364). However, while Mrs. Bennet's "business of her life was to get her daughters married" seems misguided there are practical aspects of it.
Take Mr. Collins for instance, while he was "not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature had been but little assisted by education or society," he was still going to inherit the fortune of Mr. Bennet (69). Here, Mrs. Bennet is ignoring his faults and the likelihood that he will not give her daughters genuine love, but her approach is not unrealistic. Her daughters are going to receive nothing in the event of her father's death, instead it will all go to Collins. It seems like quite a fix all solution to have Collins marry one of her daughter, that way the fortune would stay in the family and it would be much less likely any of her daughters would end up having no money to live on.
I also understand that Elizabeth's approach to Darcey's first proposal did make sense on emotional grounds. He was very condescending, had caused Jane months of misery, was believed to have stolen money from Whickham and it was clear he had great disdain for where she came from. In the realistic sense however, Elizabeth was looking at no future other than marriage. Elizabeth simply works off from an emotional standpoint in her rejection of Darcey and is not swayed by his massive fortune. In this case she is ignoring the practical aspects of her future that include her having an income where she can be provided for comfortably which would have undoubtably be on many other peoples minds if they themselves were proposed too.
By making Mrs. Bennet an embarrassing, repellent character Austen is drawing the story away from practical matters of money only towards issues of love. Mrs. Bennet represents traditional views on marriage that would honestly make sense given the lack of fortune the Bennet sisters have. However, Austen's novel was written in part to prove that character and behavior should be values over simply money; thus, making Mrs. Bennet the character that embodies those values and by making her unstable, embarrassing and not exactly bright Austen is turning the focus towards emotional values and love over marrying for practicality.
I have always viewed the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet a little differently. They are to me an example of what happens when you cannot truly respect your marriage partner due to a vast difference in intellectual ability. Mr. Bennet appeals to Elizabeth in reaction to Mr. Darcy asking for his blessing, “My child, let me not have the grief of being unable to respect your partner in life. You know not what you are about” (*Chapter 59). Mr. Bennet fears that Elizabeth is blinded by material desires and will fall into the same trap that he has. Mrs. Bennet is a living example of what happens when you cannot respect your partner. Mr. Bennet married her when she was young and pretty and soon came to realize that was all she was. Now, most of his amusement in life is derived from teasing her by invoking wit beyond her capacity to understand. Mrs. Bennet is someone who chief passion in life is to find husbands for her daughters, while this is practical, it is not really a deeply intellectually driven or fulfilling enterprise. I would agree with you, that Mrs. Bennet’s drive to see her daughters married is her most practical quality. She realizes that their best chance of leading a comfortable life is if she can find someone relatively well-off for them to marry. She also realizes that having one of them marry exceedingly well is the only way that all of them could live comfortably, both through direct support and by throwing the others into a higher ranking social circle.
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ReplyDelete*My book has wildly different page numbers, so I hope the chapter number will suffice.
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