It was a truth universally acknowledged by teenage boys in the Valley of the mid-sixties that chicks dug bad boys, preferably with motorcycles. Roaring down the freeway at 90mph lane splitting while riding on the back without a helmet certainly qualified as dangerous. That wisdom probably derived from the effects of West Side Story and Rebel Without a Cause on popular imagination.
Lizzy's universal truth had more substance in the world of England's propertied class--marriage or inheritance were the only occupations available to women as a means of subsistence other than remaining dependent on (and subject to the authority of) parents. By 1800, convents had long since disappeared as a generally available alternative. Other occupations involved a loss of social standing and material well being as well vulnerability to exploitation. It's hard to imagine that an independent bar maid, washer woman or fish wife wouldn't welcome entry to the marriage marketplace patronized by Darcy and Bingley.
Mrs. Bennet has a sound understanding of these fundamentals, even if her approach to marketing is somewhat forward. Charlotte Lucas is extraordinarily clear-eyed, to the extent of accepting the least romantic character in the story, the insufferable toady Mr. Collins. Even Mary wouldn't take a run at him. Jane and Lydia seem to have assumed the inevitability. Jane's purported goodness will make her content with whatever arrangement she takes. Lydia is just in it for the sex, it appears. Marriage was a bonus for her. Who knows about Kitty.
Even Elizabeth the free spirit accepts her ultimate fate but insists she wants a love match. Is Fitz a wooden jerk? No matter, because his boorishness is a built-in excuse for failing to land him first cast. When it eventuates that the jerk has feelings that his snobbery would prefer he not, Elizabeth might call it even, thinking "good match, he loves me and I can pretend to love him." How each reassesses the marriage over the years is interesting to think on.
So, yeah, the whole brooding simmering danger thing is outmoded, the brand of feminist guy has never gotten much beyond owning up to structural patriarchal guilt, and we have yet to develop much in the way of relationship models of any kind that are based on rough equality of standing. I wish that I would live long enough to see things play out from here. My first understanding was along the lines of "he's got a wife to support." That changed to "why shouldn't a woman do ____ if she wants to, but I'm still going to be a gentleman about it." That phase I now think of as soft patriarchy, bestowing the boon of not being a jerk because I've got so much going for me. It took a nearest, dearest to explain how that comes across as patronizing.
Once perception is adjusted to discount differences in physical size and upper body strength, the sexual fires are banked by advancing age in the observor and, just recently, looking at photos of women with dead pan expressions, I got another jolt. Women are really very formidable people and there's no apparent explanation why they need men.
It was a truth universally acknowledged by teenage boys in the Valley of the mid-sixties that chicks dug bad boys, preferably with motorcycles. Roaring down the freeway at 90mph lane splitting while riding on the back without a helmet certainly qualified as dangerous. That wisdom probably derived from the effects of West Side Story and Rebel Without a Cause on popular imagination.
Lizzy's universal truth had more substance in the world of England's propertied class--marriage or inheritance were the only occupations available to women as a means of subsistence other than remaining dependent on (and subject to the authority of) parents. By 1800, convents had long since disappeared as a generally available alternative. Other occupations involved a loss of social standing and material well being as well vulnerability to exploitation. It's hard to imagine that an independent bar maid, washer woman or fish wife wouldn't welcome entry to the marriage marketplace patronized by Darcy and Bingley.
Mrs. Bennet has a sound understanding of these fundamentals, even if her approach to marketing is somewhat forward. Charlotte Lucas is extraordinarily clear-eyed, to the extent of accepting the least romantic character in the story, the insufferable toady Mr. Collins. Even Mary wouldn't take a run at him. Jane and Lydia seem to have assumed the inevitability. Jane's purported goodness will make her content with whatever arrangement she takes. Lydia is just in it for the sex, it appears. Marriage was a bonus for her. Who knows about Kitty.
Even Elizabeth the free spirit accepts her ultimate fate but insists she wants a love match. Is Fitz a wooden jerk? No matter, because his boorishness is a built-in excuse for failing to land him first cast. When it eventuates that the jerk has feelings that his snobbery would prefer he not, Elizabeth might call it even, thinking "good match, he loves me and I can pretend to love him." How each reassesses the marriage over the years is interesting to think on.
So, yeah, the whole brooding simmering danger thing is outmoded, the brand of feminist guy has never gotten much beyond owning up to structural patriarchal guilt, and we have yet to develop much in the way of relationship models of any kind that are based on rough equality of standing. I wish that I would live long enough to see things play out from here. My first understanding was along the lines of "he's got a wife to support." That changed to "why shouldn't a woman do ____ if she wants to, but I'm still going to be a gentleman about it." That phase I now think of as soft patriarchy, bestowing the boon of not being a jerk because I've got so much going for me. It took a nearest, dearest to explain how that comes across as patronizing.
Once perception is adjusted to discount differences in physical size and upper body strength, the sexual fires are banked by advancing age in the observor and, just recently, looking at photos of women with dead pan expressions, I got another jolt. Women are really very formidable people and there's no apparent explanation why they need men.