Happily Ever After

This is seventh in a series of guest posts written by “Sophie” of A Reasonable Quantity of Butter in celebration of Mansfield Park’s bicentennial.

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Squashed into the epilogue of ‘Mansfield Park’ is the marriage of Edmund and Fanny. Although Fanny’s and Edmund’s romance is quite bland in comparison with the excitement in the rest of the novel, I think the couple had an excellent chance of achieving a “happily ever after”. They shared an attitude and philosophy of life as well as interests and pastimes. This, combined with mutual trust, could create a solid base for their life together.

Beyond this, their marriage could strengthen both Edmund and Fanny individually. Because Fanny fully supported Edmund’s career, Edmund could gain confidence in his work. As Fanny was not accustomed to expensive gaieties and luxuries she would not weigh him down with discontent.

For Fanny, marriage to Edmund meant taking on a high position in a new community. As  the wife of a clergyman, her duties of hospitality and charity could help her develop confidence and authority, especially practiced among strangers.

I imagine Fanny and Edmund star-gazing, reading, visiting the poor, and raising children together. What reasons do you think would make them a happy couple?

Fanny Was Right

This is third in a series of guest posts written by “Sophie” of A Reasonable Quantity of Butter in celebration of Mansfield Park’s bicentennial.

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“[Sir Thomas’s] displeasure against herself she trusted . . . would now be done away. She should be justified. Mr. Crawford would have fully acquitted her conduct in refusing him”¹

To Sir Thomas, Henry’s and Maria’s elopement vindicated Fanny’s refusal. In this, Sir Thomas’s judgment was shallow. Fanny did not reject Henry because she foresaw scandal and disgrace. Henry did not need to be wicked enough to run off with someone else’s wife in order to be a bad choice for Fanny. Her refusal was formed on standards which Sir Thomas did not share and events of which he was not aware. These standards needed no later proof to validate them.

At the time of Henry’s proposal, Fanny’s knowledge of him was overwhelmingly bad. At almost every meeting, Henry flirted and trifled with an engaged woman—a circumstance which Sir Thomas never learned of. Henry also spoke flippantly about matters which should have commanded his respect. When Fanny said, “I cannot approve his character. . . . I am persuaded that he does not think, as he ought, on serious subjects”² she had every reason to think so. It would have been foolish to entrust herself, and any children she might have, to such a man, no matter how rich or charming he was.

There was also the fact that Fanny did not love Henry. Among the characters, Sir Thomas alone would disagree that it is wrong to marry someone you do not love. When Edmund tells Fanny, “You did not love him; nothing could have justified your accepting him”³, he is only saying what most people would believe. Even worldly-minded Mary and Henry censure any woman who, “would ever give her hand without her heart.”⁴ Marrying without love is a wrong not only against yourself, but also against the one you marry.⁵ To marry Henry when she was in love with another would have been doing him a double wrong.⁶

Not only did Fanny not love Henry, she did not even like him. His society was irksome to her—both as a suitor and as a friend.“His attentions were always—what I did not like”⁷ & “his spirits often oppress me”.⁸ This is the only reason for rejecting Henry that Fanny felt comfortable telling her uncle. But Sir Thomas did not understand the nature of liking: “There is something in this which my comprehension does not reach.”^9,10

Fanny’s rejection of Henry is not evidence that she was a prig or a prophet. Rather, it shows that she had common sense and common justice. No matter how imperfect her knowledge of him was, or how he may have changed afterward, Fanny was right to refuse Henry.

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¹Mansfield Park, ch. 47

²Ibid., ch. 35

³Ibid., ch. 35

⁴Ibid., ch. 5

⁵Austen censures Rushworth for marrying a woman who he knows doesn’t love him:

“[Maria] had despised him, and loved another; and he had been very much aware that it was so. The indignities of stupidity, and the disappointments of selfish passion, can excite little pity. His punishment followed his conduct,” ch. 48

⁶Austen’s characters do not marry out of a silly sense of duty, especially when their hearts are otherwise engaged (not like Laura Fairly in The Woman in White).

⁷Mansfield Park, ch. 32

⁸Ibid., ch. 35

⁹His speech continues, “Here is a young man wishing to pay his addresses to you, with everything to recommend him: not merely situation in life, fortune, and character, but with more than common agreeableness, with address and conversation pleasing to everybody. And he is not an acquaintance of to-day; you have now known him some time.”, ch. 32

¹⁰I am reminded of Aunt Stanbury in He Knew He Was Right: “I never heard of such a thing in my life. Not love him! And why shouldn’t you love him? He’s a gentleman. Everybody respects him. He’ll have plenty to make you comfortable all your life!”

Matrimony Was Her Object

Pop quiz: One of the following quotations describes Mr. Rushworth of Mansfield Park, and the other describes Mr. Collins of Pride and Prejudice. Which is which?

a: “He was a tall, heavy-looking young man of five-and-twenty.”

b: “He was a heavy young man, with not more than common sense”

Jane Austen obviously considered affection an important requirement for marriage. Not all of her characters share their creator’s values, however. Maria Bertram of Mansfield Park marries Mr. Rushworth, a man for whom she entertains no warmer sentiment than contempt, and Charlotte Lucas of Price and Prejudice marries Mr. Collins, whose society she finds irksome. Maria and Charlotte thought alike in several ways, though with some important differences and from dissimilar backgrounds. So, without further ado, Maria Bertram versus Charlotte Lucas:

“Being now in her twenty-first year, Maria Bertram was beginning to think matrimony a duty; and as a marriage with Mr. Rushworth would give her the enjoyment of a larger income than her father’s, as well as ensure her the house in town, which was now a prime object, it became, by the same rule of moral obligation, her evident duty to marry Mr. Rushworth if she could.” (MP, Ch. 4)

“Without thinking highly either of men or matrimony, marriage had always been her [Charlotte Lucas’s] object; it was the only provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want. This preservative she had now obtained; and at the age of twenty-seven, without having ever been handsome, she felt all the good luck of it.” (P&P, Ch. 22)

“Mr. Rushworth was from the first struck with the beauty of Miss Bertram, and, being inclined to marry, soon fancied himself in love. He was a heavy young man, with not more than common sense; but as there was nothing disagreeable in his figure or address, the young lady was well pleased with her conquest.” (MP, Ch. 4)

“Charlotte herself was tolerably composed. She had gained her point, and had time to consider of it. Her reflections were in general satisfactory. Mr. Collins, to be sure, was neither sensible nor agreeable; his society was irksome, and his attachment to her must be imaginary. But still he would be her husband.” (P&P, Ch. 22)

“In all the important preparations of the mind she [Maria] was complete: being prepared for matrimony by an hatred of home, restraint, and tranquillity; … and contempt of the man she was to marry.” (MP, Ch. 21)

“The whole [Lucas] family … were properly overjoyed on the occasion. The younger girls formed hopes of coming out a year or two sooner than they might otherwise have done; and the boys were relieved from their apprehension of Charlotte’s dying an old maid. …

“‘[W]hen you have had time to think it over, I hope you will be satisfied with what I [Charlotte] have done. I am not romantic, you know; I never was. I ask only a comfortable home; and considering Mr. Collins’s character, connection, and situation in life, I am convinced that my chance of happiness with him is as fair as most people can boast on entering the marriage state.’” (P&P, Ch. 22)

And were Maria and Charlotte happy? When Elizabeth Bennet goes to visit her friend Charlotte, she observes, “When Mr. Collins said anything of which his wife might reasonably be ashamed, which certainly was not unseldom, … in general Charlotte wisely did not hear. … When Mr. Collins could be forgotten, there was really an air of great comfort throughout [the house], and by Charlotte’s evident enjoyment of it, Elizabeth supposed he must be often forgotten.” (P&P, ch. 28). While few, I suppose, would wish to obtain enjoyment and comfort only by forgetting their husbands, Maria fairs even worse. She runs away with another man. “She hoped to marry him, and they continued together till she was obliged to be convinced that such hope was vain, and till the disappointment and wretchedness arising from the conviction rendered her temper so bad, and her feelings for him so like hatred, as to make them for a while each other’s punishment, and then induce a voluntary separation.” (MP, ch. 48). Moral of the story: Don’t marry someone you don’t love.

Oh, and if you didn’t find the answers to the pop quiz in the quotations above, “a” is Mr. William Collins (see P&P, Ch. 13) and “b” is Mr. James Rushworth (see MP, Ch. 4).

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Illustrations: Mr. Rushworth and Mr. Collins by C. E. Brock (top), Maria Bertram and Mr. Rushworth by H. M. Brock (center), Charlotte Lucas and Mr. Collins by H. M. Brock (bottom).