Pride & Prejudice, ch. 50: But At Least We'll Have A Balanced Budget

Breaking news: the Bennets are bad at managing money. 

This is due to a couple of reasons. One: it simply doesn’t occur to them, especially to Mrs. Bennet, to try to save any (remember how eager she was to buy wedding clothes for Lydia “from the best warehouses” just a chapter ago). Two: they both banked on having a son who would inherit the estate and render the entail pointless. To my mind, the expectation of birthing a son is perfectly reasonable, and it was only a twist of fate that they went 0-for-5 on that one. But the excuse that “it was then too late to be saving” by the time Lydia came along is not really justifiable and speaks to a combination of arrogance and laziness. What, exactly, was stopping the patriarch of the Bennet family from exercising a little authority to curb his wife’s unnecessary spending? For that matter, if Mrs. Bennet knows the importance of her daughters marrying well, why not tell her that by saving money now, they can afford better dowries for them to heighten their attraction to potential husbands?

As it stands, the daughters have “five thousand pounds” between them, with about a thousand of that going to Lydia (“100 pounds per annum” would appear to last for a decade, but it will last throughout her lifetime due to upperclass Regency maths). Mr. Bennet appears to still be in shock that the whole business will be completed “with so little inconvenience to himself as by the present arrangement,” despite/because of the “worthless[ness]” of his soon-to-be son-in-law. To give him a fair shake, Mr. Bennet displays an uncharacteristic eagerness in trying to discover how much he owes Uncle G and paying him off.

Mrs. Bennet is very much in Queen of Sheba mode: happy to have secured one daughter in marriage, she fixates on obtaining “elegant nuptials, fine muslins, new carriages, and servants” for Lydia and Wickham. So basically … whenever there’s a serious problem, she thinks about what she can buy with money. And whenever there’s a celebration, she thinks about what she can buy with money. Got it. Anyway, she wonders when her precious daughter and her new husband will move back to the neighborhood (even though she has no idea what their budget is like). Mr. Bennet breaks it to her that he won’t allow them to come to Longbourn … or that he’ll buy Lydia any more clothes.

Again, to be fair, both of these things are a big deal in their separate ways. Mr. Bennet refusing to acknowledge Lydia and Wickham is a capital-S snub that would have ramifications for the new couple’s standing in society. And a newly-married woman getting a new wardrobe might seem trivial, but it was also expected. Mr. Bennet’s stance here would potentially serve to highlight the couple’s … inappropriate behavior pre-wedding, which is what they all have to avoid. But Mrs. Bennet is “more alive to the disgrace which the want of new clothes must reflect on her daughter's nuptials, than to any sense of shame at her eloping and living with Wickham a fortnight before they took place,” and therefore unable to make this salient point.

This is where Jane and Lizzy come in. Actually, it’s not until Uncle G responds to Mr. Bennet’s letter that Lydia and Wickham will be living up North (which is apparently England’s equivalent of Florida) that they intervene. I wonder if this news makes it easier for them to persuade their father—or for them to even want to persuade their father—to accept the newlyweds before they leave forever. Nonetheless, the two sisters provide guidance that cuts through their father’s “resentment” and also appeases their mother, proving that they are more rational than either of their parents.

It is notable that, though Mr. Bennet’s anger at Lydia is justified, this is the only time in the book where his emotion (rather than apathy) blocks him from carrying out his parental duties. He is more inclined to pay his apparent debt to his brother-in-law than he is to reflect on his failures as a father to Lydia. He believes that “instead of spending his whole income, he [should have] laid by an annual sum for the better provision of his children,” not that he should’ve been a stronger authority figure to his most immature daughter.* Mrs. Bennet isn’t the only one who appears to think that money can go a long way to solve a problem.

Meanwhile, Lizzy is torturing herself by thinking about Mr. Darcy, regretting that she ever confessed to him Lydia’s running off with Wickham. Now that Wickham will be her brother-in-law, “there seem[s to be] a gulf impassable between [she and Darcy].” Yes, dear reader, it is at this moment—mere days after learning that her sister’s indiscretion will effectively be erased—that Lizzy fully realizes her requited feelings for Darcy. Man, you really don’t know what you don’t have until it’s gone …

… Or maybe there’s something more going on here. In dreading the lack of “permanent happiness” Lydia and Wickham will find in their union, Lizzy seems to be placing more value on the potential “connubial felicity” she could have had with Darcy. She sees now how their differences could have complemented one another: “[their] union [could] have been to the advantage of both; by her ease and liveliness, his mind might have been softened, his manners improved, and from his judgment, information, and knowledge of the world, she must have received benefit of greater importance.” Austen spells out her thesis statement quite clearly—that an example of a “happy marriage” might “teach the admiring multitude”—howsoever it may double as a declaration of love. That she includes it a few paragraphs after illustrating again the painful mismatch of the Bennet parents is deliberate. At the same time, she manages to combine rational analysis with human emotion. Lizzy might have taught Darcy to be a little better, and he would have responded in kind, both accepting the help because of their mutual respect and love. It’s somehow calculated yet carries an undertone of regret.

And now there’s just the meeting of the newlyweds to get through. Great.

Next chapter: Lydia spills a world-shattering secret, and Lizzy the Gumshoe is on the case!

*Perhaps her resemblance to Mrs. Bennet makes Lydia even less palatable to Mr. Bennet.