Tribute to Jane Austen

Was Mrs. Bennet Really The Tiresome Character We Think She Was?

Pride and Prejudice. The one classic which even people who haven’t read any other classic have read. The book that has spawned countless film and television adaptations and inspired countless retellings in genres ranging from cozy lit to horror. The book which has been co-opted by writers from the subcontinent because the story it tells remains contemporary.

If you ask any of those readers to name the character they dislike more than the rest, the answer is likely to be Mrs. Bennet. Flighty, indecorous and ambitious, Mrs. Bennet is reviled far more than the odious Mr. Collins, the headstrong Lydia and even the untrustworthy Capt. Wickham. Yet, is Mrs. Bennet really as tiresome as she is perceived to be? Or is her motive misunderstood?

Mrs. Bennet was the daughter of a shopkeeper who had married into the gentry- her husband had inherited an estate that provided an income sufficient to maintain a decent, thought not luxurious, standard of living. However, the estate came with an entail which would have ensured that after Mr. Bennet’s demise the estate would pass on to a distant male cousin, leaving Mrs Bennet and her five daughters without a home or an income. Since there were few socially acceptable occupations for unmarried women, wasn’t it natural for Mrs Bennet to want to secure their future through marriage?

Times may have changed, but during the period when Jane Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice an unmarried gentlewoman without a fortune was literally one death away from destitution. While a reasonably well educated and moderately accomplished gentlewoman could, perhaps, secure an opening as a governess, that would leave her at the mercy of the family that employed her and would potentially close off chances of a subsequent marriage. Since Mrs Bennet hadn’t produced any male heirs, she understood that the only way to prevent her daughters from being rendered homeless was by ensuring they married suitable men. To make matters worse, the Bennets were stuck in the country where there was an acute shortage of suitable men (because for gentlewomen to marry tradesmen was unacceptable socially). Who can blame Mrs. Bennet for shamelessly throwing her daughters in the orbit of even remotely suitable men?

The attitude of Jane and Elizabeth couldn’t have made it any easier for Mrs. Bennet. Though both were nearing the age where they could no longer be considered “eligible”, neither seemed to display any alacrity in trying to secure their future either by marriage or (like Jo in Little Women) through an occupation which would ensure financial independence. While both the young women were quick to decry their mother’s lack of decorum, neither made the slightest effort to alleviate her genuine fear of them being left destitute.

While we tend to look at Mr. Bennet favourably, and silently cheer him on when he directs sarcastic barbs at his wife, the reality is that he ignores the perilous condition of his family and does nothing to secure their future. Though society expected men to be financially responsible for their women, it is Mrs. Bennet, and not her husband, who was trying her best to secure financial security for as many of her daughters as she could.

On the face of it, Mrs. Bennet might appear to be a flighty social climber lacking in both charm and decorum, but she was nothing if not pragmatic. She certainly behaved in a manner which made her the butt of jokes, but she did so because she understood the perils of the society she lived in and she wanted nothing more than to secure the future of her daughters. She is perhaps one of the most misunderstood characters in Pride and Prejudice.

More than two centuries after the publication of Pride and Prejudice you still find the descendants of Mrs. Bennet in every society. Women married to impractical men who are forced to employ subterfuge to survive in a world governed by patriarchal norms.

Jane Austen was certainly a writer of her time, but her works also retain a timelessness which makes them as relevant today as they were when they were written. We celebrate the 250th anniversary of her birth this year.