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.