Austen's Persuasion: Notes on marriage

Marriage is thought about and figured variously by the different characters in Persuasion. For Elizabeth, she pursue Mr. Elliot because he is the means of enhancing her fortune. In assessing him as a future mate, this seems to be the sole criteria she employs. Such a view would imply that to consider other factors is not worthwhile. Clearly, marriage is not looked to for companionship or emotional intimacy.

While Elizabeth and her father's view of marriage is fairly uniform and simple, Lady Russell's views seem equivocal. When Anne is courted by Frederick the first time around, Lady Russell fears Anne will be "sunk by him ino a state of most wearing, anxious, youth-killing dependence"(30). I'm not sure if the state alluded to is necessarily marriage, but it would seem to be so. However, later, she expresses a different conception of marriage. After Anne turns down Charles Musgrave, Lady Russell "began to have the anxiety which borders on hopelessness for Anne's being tempted....to enter a state for which she held her to be peculiarly fitted by her warm affections and domestic habits"(32).

Note-
There is much reference made in Persuasion to natural and unnatural. Anne looks back at her youth and concludes, "She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older-the natural sequence of an unnatural beginning"(33). Such language evokes scientific types of discourse and express a desire for predictable patterns.

Natural is what people expect and others affect in accordance. Everybody's day has a natural pattern. Thus, when the Crofts visit Kellynch Hall, Anne "found it most natural to take her almost daily walk to Lady Russell's, and keep out of the way till all was over; when she found it most natural to be sorry that she had missed the opportunity of seeing them"(34).

Jane Austen's Persuasion, notes on marriage, love and balance

The inventory and examination of marriages continues in chapters 2 and 3 of Persuasion. We are told of Mrs. Clay, "who had returned, after an unprosperous marriage, to her father's house [Mr. Shephard]"(21). Mrs. Russell deems Mrs. Clay "one who ought to have been nothing to [Elizabeth] but the object of distant civility"(21). Granted,the reader learns to not grant ready credence to all Mrs. Russell's opinions. In addition, Mrs. Clay has faults beyond her marriage history. Yet, Mrs. Russell's cold assessment most probably reflects the rejection a divorced woman was likely to meet with at the time and Austen doesn't offer much in the way of a dissenting murmur. Again, we seem the primacy of marriage offered in this instance of another unhappy one.

Austen turns a corner of sorts with the introduction of the Crofts in chapter 3. Theirs appears to be the one unequivocally happy marriage presented in the book and Austen and Anne Elliot are fascinated by them. We see them first via the second-hand description Mr. Shephard offers Mr. Elliot. Mr. Shephard speaks of Admiral Croft's origins in Somersetshire, his looks, and claims he is "quite the gentleman in all his notions and behaviour"(26). He goes on at a bit more lenght on Mrs. Shephard for she is the oddity apparently. Mrs. Croft is "a very well-spoken, genteel, shrewd lady, she seemed to be...asked more questions about the house, and terms and taxes, than the admiral himself,and seemed more conversant with business"(27).

Near the end of chapter three, we learn that Mrs. Croft is sister to Frederick Wentworth, introducing the book's central relationship/potential marriage, that between Frederick and Anne. Some nine years prior to the start of the book, they had been seriously courting each other and intending to marry. With precision, Austen charts the course and causes of their relationsip. With economy, Austen tells us Fredrick, having "come into Somesetshire, in the summer of 1806...was, at that time, a remarkably fine young man, with a great deal of intelligence, spirit and brilliancy; and Anne an extremely pretty girl, with gentleness, modesty, taste, and feeling-Half the sum of attraction on either side, might have been enough, for he had nothing to do, and she had hardly anybody to love"(29). Ultimately, two fine characters, according to an inventory of somewhat gender specific qualities, brought together by circumstance, will naturally be attracted to each other and fall in love. The narrator matter of factly relates, "they were gradually acquainted, and when acquainted, rapidly and deeply in love"(29).

Austen is always fascinated with balance and imbalance. Austen portrays their relationship in terms of an equation, with the two parties as the chief variables. In Austen's telling of the couple, she explains their coming together in an almost fatalistic or scientific fashion, or as if one might actually employ scientific laws in assessing its likelihood. Anne agains expresses her assessment of her affair with Frederick in terms of its unjust imbalances when she thinks of how she at 27 might now advise her 19 year old self. She is certain that such 19 year old would "never receive any [advice] of such certain immediate wretchedness, such uncertain future good"(32).

Lady Russell seems to use a similar calculus in evaluating a potential marriage between Anne and Charles Musgrave some years later. However, her figuring and balancing is all done towards assessing the value of the variables, the propriety of the match, and the potential benefits accruing to Anne and herself. In considering Charles's suitability, she opines, "while she might have asked for something more, while Anne was nineteen, she would have rejoiced to see her at twenty-two, so respectably removed from the partialities and injustice of her father's house"(32).

Similarly, in her brief synopsis of the course of their affair she seems to be looking for a logical procession. However, she fails to find such a pattern. While Anne and Frederick's acquaintance proceeds in gradual fashion, their falling in love occurs rapidly. Next follows a "short period of exquisite felicity"(30). However, the short duration of their happiness does not lead to Anne's suffering it's exit for a similarly short period. Instead, Austen notes, "A few months had seen the beginning and the end of their acquaintance; but, not with a few months ended Anne's share of suffering from it"(31). Here, with these almost scientific sounding assessments, one hears Austen's frustration with the injustice and imbalance so often attending the course of love.

Persuasion by Jane Austen: notes

Persuasion begins to query the origins and nature of four marriages within the first few pages of the novel. Within that short span, Austen considers two marriages that occur and two that do not, and the findings are dire. Austen believes in the potential for marriage to be one of the chief means of human happiness and personal growth. Yet, while key to happiness and fulfillment, good marriages seem rare in Persuasion.

As noted, we're given a whirlwind look at four in the first few pages. First is that of Sir Walter and his deceased wife. This is not a marriage that lends much credit to the forces at play in the setting-up of marriages in Austen's day. Sir Walter is a shallow and vain man unfortunately married to a substantial woman, Anne Elliot's mother, Elizabeth. Austen writes, "His good looks and his rank had one fair claim on his attachment, since to them he must have owed a wife of superior character to any thing deserved his own" (p10, Oxford Edition,1990).

The marriage is far from a meeting of minds conducive to the happiness of both and the benefit of the marriage accrues in shockingly uneven fashion. When Austen lists the blessing of life for Mrs. Elliot, it is hardly surprising thatthere is no mention made of Mr. Elliot. With classic Austen understatement and restraint, Mrs. Elliot is described as "not the very happiest being in the world herself, [she] had found enough in her duties, her friends, and her children, to attach her to life"(11).

In contrast, the marriage confers quite a bit of benefit to Mr. Elliot; while married, Mrs. Elliot "had humored, or softened, or concealed his failing, and promoted his real respectability for seventeen years." Mrs. Elliot raises his daughters with a moderate amount of success. She works to preserve his economic well-being, supplying her "method, moderation, and economy...with her had died all such right-mindedness"(15)

Next up in the marriages considered is one that doesn't occur: Mr. Elliot and Lady Russell fail to marry after the death of his first wife. Austen notes and remains tellingly silent on why Mr. Elliot and Mrs. Russell, "of steady age and character,"(11) never marry after the passing away of the girls' mother. Austen remarks that the public seems to only demand explanation when a woman marries again, not when she doesn't. On the other hand, Mr. Elliot's remaining single apparently requires explanation: he is sacrificing his ambitions for his eldest daughter, 29year old Elizabeth.

Elizabeth's failure to marry is then brought into focus. Austen raises the question of the latter's failure to find a marriageable companion briefly, noting her beauty and alluding to her wondering if she is going to be "solicited by baronet-blood within the next twelve month or two"(13). Originally, she sought the hand of her cousin, the future heir to Sir Walter's title and lands, Mr. William Elliot. For mysterious reasons, he does not pursue her but "purchased independence by uniting himself to a rich woman of inferior birth"(14). The latter is the last marriage observed and speaks to the primary spring governing the making of marriage.