Reddit Reddit: Pride and Prejudice

“It is a fact universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Three gold stars for anyway who can tell me the next sentence!*

It’s no secret, I love Jane Austen novels and in particular Pride & Prejudice. But one character I feel is terribly maligned is Mrs. Bennett.

Now I do have to declare an interest here, some years back I played Mrs. Bennett in a production of I Have Five Daughters by Margaret McNamara, adapted from Pride & Prejudice.

The director, a respected Janeite, (lover of all things Jane Austen related) spent many hours discussing with me how we would interpret Mrs. B’s character.

It is interesting to see how Mrs. Bennett has been interpreted by various actresses, directors and scripts, mostly portraying her as rather silly, bitter, frivolous and in Miss Austen’s own words “… a woman of mean understanding, little information and uncertain temper. When she was discontented she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters married, its solace was visiting and news.”

Well I am here to defend Mrs. Bennett.

We talk about back stories for characters, which  basically means, “where were they before the book starts”. “What do they say about themselves”. “What do other characters say about them”.

Throughout Pride & Prejudice there are hints of why Mrs. Bennett is the person she is, both in text and subtext. Miss Austen understood the benefits of a good back story.

It seems to me that Mr. Bennett was attracted to his wife when she was all curls and dimples. When her silliness was considered charming and her “mean understanding, little information” were to be encouraged.

Many woman even in our more enlightened times, hold onto the style of their younger years when in their own eyes they were at their most beautiful.

Mr. Bennett may have expected his wife to mature, but she didn’t and so he took to his library and opted out of family life.

The Bennett estate is entailed to a distant male relative, Mr Collins. Not at all an unlikely scenario in the period. After having five daughters and no son, Mrs. Bennett knows life is not going to be easy for her daughters. They have no fortune to recommend them. Is it any wonder, “when discontented she imagined herself nervous”. Poor woman, she knew what lay in wait for unmarried women.

Bear in mind for any woman during the Regency, there were few choices. The choices of the unmarried woman without an income were limited and were mainly the choices of her male relatives. Choices such as:

1. Take care of her elderly parents until they died, keeping their home and estate in good order so a brother, or other male relative, could inherit.

2. Continue to live in her brother’s/relative’s house as nanny/governess to his children, unpaid housekeeper, unpaid “estate manager” (someone had to work while he played!).

3. Companion to elderly relative, who was nominally family, but nonetheless treated her as a servant.

Even for the woman of means, the world was just as unforgiving. You needed a chaperone/companion to travel, frequently someone else’s poor relation and your income was usually controlled by a male. You had to rely on the good graces of a male to remain “a woman of means”.

If, like the Bennett family you were middle class with no money and five daughters, those daughters could look forward to a life of drudgery, companion to an elderly person at their beck and call, governess or perhaps a lady’s maid.

“The business of her life was to get her daughters married”, all five of them and as well as possible, otherwise what type of Mother would she be!

If her life’s “solace was visiting and news”, who could blame her?

Your methods my dear Mrs. Bennett may have lacked elegance you may indeed be a silly woman, but your lovely heart was in the right place, three cheers!!!

Over to you Starts at Sixty Bookies, what do you think of Mrs. Bennett?

∗ To save you looking up the answer (or to check if your answer is correct):

“However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.”

For more information on Jane Austen, including a short biography, please see: http://www.jasa.net.au/jabiog.htm

Pride and Prejudice is currently available at Booktopia for $6.95