Contains spoilers for Pride and Prejudice
Trigger warnings: forced marriage, misogyny
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the story of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the plot can be summarised as follows:
Whilst attending a local ball, Elizabeth Bennet – a spirited young woman from a modest family – encounters a conceited aristocrat called Mr. Darcy. Elizabeth hates Darcy’s arrogance and Darcy is similarly unimpressed by Elizabeth’s low social status and rough-around-the-edges family. However, through a series of events, they each learn to overcome their mutual prejudices, resulting in one of the most famous romances in all of literature.
But we’re not here to talk about Lizzie and Darcy today. We’re here to talk about Mrs. Bennet – Elizabeth’s overbearing mother.
Mrs. Bennet’s desperation to secure advantageous marriages for her five daughters is one of the driving forces of the book. Indeed, whilst Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy give Pride and Prejudice its heart, Mrs. Bennet, and her husband (Mr. Bennet), are responsible for some of the more comedic moments in the book. Mrs. Bennet’s hysteria and neuroticism are a perfect point of contrast to Mr. Bennet’s unflappable demeanour and dry wit. What’s more, the couple’s conversations have helped to cement Mrs. Bennet’s legacy as a manic buffoon. But is there, in fact, any underlying complexity and even tragedy to this woman?
Like any good book, my understanding of Pride and Prejudice has altered with time and experience. Whilst Pride and Prejudice is written in the third-person omniscient style, it is still clearly from a youthful perspective. Elizabeth is a young adult and still at an age where one can struggle to fully understand one’s parents. Mrs. Bennet ostensibly wants her daughters to be married, regardless of whether the girls love their suitors or not – a notion which Elizabeth finds ridiculous. The oft-quoted opening line to Pride and Prejudice epitomises Mrs. Bennet’s philosophy whilst simultaneously mocking it:
‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.’
The wonderful thing about the above line is that it is dripping with sarcasm. You can practically see the young narrator rolling her eyes as you read it. Elizabeth knows that her mother will see every ‘single man in possession of a good fortune’ as a potential son-in-law.
So, the question remains: Why is Mrs. Bennet so eager to see her daughters married? A cynical interpretation might be that Mrs. Bennet is a vapid social climber. She wants her daughters to have rich husbands so that she, by association, will move up in the world and become the envy of the community. However, this is not my interpretation of her motives.
The novel establishes that the ageing Mr. Bennet does not have adequate savings to ensure that his wife and daughters will be sufficiently cared for in the event of his death. We know that when Mr. Bennet dies, the family’s estate will be entailed away to a distant male relative, Mr. Collins. The Bennet women would have no legal power to challenge this. Mr. Collins would likely evict the family, leaving Mrs. Bennet and her daughters destitute.
As far as Mrs. Bennet’s concerned, her husband is a ticking clock. She knows she will be unable to support her five daughters after Mr. Bennet dies and so her determination to find decent husbands for them is motivated by having their best interests at heart. Women of the time were owned by men – first by their fathers and then by their husbands. If Mr. Bennet died before any of his daughters were married, this would mean disaster for the surviving women of the family. Mrs. Bennet sees a problem and she proactively sets out to prevent the worst possible outcome. And that’s not to say that Mrs. Bennet’s behaviour is always justified, but I think her actions are more sympathetic than some readers give her credit for. The upsetting reason why Mrs. Bennet is indifferent to romance in marriage is that it was a luxury which many women of the Georgian period could not afford to indulge in. Marriages were primarily motivated by pragmatism, not romance.
Therefore, Mrs Bennet is baffled when Elizabeth declines the romantic advances of Mr Collins – a man who, though dull, promised a lifetime of marital comfort. Can we really blame Mrs. Bennet for fretting over this rejection when Elizabeth may have just antagonised the man who will inherit the family’s estate after Mr. Bennet dies?
I mentioned earlier that Pride and Prejudice is written from the perspective of a young person. I identified a lot with Elizabeth as a teenager. Consequently, I had no hesitation in mocking Mrs. Bennet with impunity. She seemed to represent everything which is frustrating and annoying about one’s parents: she is overanxious, old-fashioned, and obsessive. To laugh at Mrs. Bennet is to laugh at one’s own parents and there’s a great catharsis in that. However, the older I get, the more I can see Mrs. Bennet’s logic (as warped as it can sometimes be).
So maybe we should all be a little more compassionate towards Mrs. Bennet. She’s a proud mother desperately trying to ensure that her daughters are sufficiently cared for. She may not always act in the most appropriate of ways but, hey, that’s parents for you.
Rebecca McHugh (She/Her)