SENSE & SENSIBILITY BICENTENARY CELEBRATION - Men, Marriage, and Money in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility by Jennifer Becton

October 2011 will mark the bicentenary of the publication of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. This is why My Jane Austen Book Club wants to  dedicate a special space to the celebration and discussion of Austen's first achievement as a published writer. I have invited some expert Janeites to contribute to the discussion and they have kindly and generously accepted.The Sense and Sensibility Bicentenary Celebration opens today with Jennifer Becton 's guest blogpost.  Here are her thoughts on  "Men, Marriage, and Money in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility".
There's a giveaway ( open to US readers only this time ) linked to this post. For further information see at the bottom of this post. Read, enjoy, leave your comment + e-mail address and ... good luck!

The course of true love never did run smooth. Or cheap, as readers of Jane Austen’s novels well know.

Before the seventeenth century, marriages were formed solely on the basis of improving the family finances, and the concept of romantic love did not come into play at all. Even in the Regency period, when young ladies and gentlemen began to hope for domestic felicity and a bit of romance, marriage was still viewed as a path to security at the very least and as an opportunity for upward social mobility at its most successful.

Marriage was serious business, and though many of Austen’s characters hoped for romantic love, the financial implications of marriage could not be ignored. In fact, they were discussed quite openly. So frank was this conversation about the finances of eligible ladies and gentlemen that their incomes and inheritances were often the subjects of newspaper articles and even books. In 1742, before the Regency period, an unknown compiler published A Master-Key to the Rich Ladies Treasury, which was tables that listed eligible women, their addresses, and their fortunes. A fortune hunter’s directory!

To modern ears, the frank discussions of each eligible character’s finances may sound crass and impolite, but this was very much the societal norm. Women, whom society forbade to engage in most professions, had little choice but to seek a wise financial match. But as Jane Austen demonstrates in many of her novels, gentlemen were also subject to the pressure to marry for money rather than love. Sense and Sensibility especially reveals that gentlemen were also not always free to marry for their own reasons. Edward Ferrars, John Willoughby, and Col. Brandon’s choices were also influenced—positively or negatively—as a result of financial concerns.

Mrs. Ferrars, the mother of Edward and Robert Ferrars, “with the utmost liberality, will…settle on [Edward] a thousand a year” if he marries the Hon. Miss Morton, who has 30,000 pounds. When Edward refuses this inducement to marriage because he has been secretly engaged to another, his brother Robert is substituted in his mother’s scheme with little compunction. Money and status matter most to Mrs. Ferrars, and though she was unsuccessful in bringing about either match, she had no qualms about doing whatever was necessary to force one of her sons into this advantageous marriage. Both her sons eventually married for love.

Financial considerations also influenced John Willoughby, a charming rake of poor character but good personality, in his marital choice. Though he appears to love Marianne, he marries a Miss Grey who has 50,000 pounds. To the Dashwoods, Willoughby seemed to be a man influenced only by the contents of his heart, but his actions show that he was more concerned by the contents of his pocketbook. And his marriage was no doubt less than pleasant.

Other than Edward Ferrars, Col. Brandon is perhaps the only eligible gentleman in Sense and Sensibility whose choices continued to show a balance between love and money. And the results of his family situation display not only the repercussions of loveless marriages on the gentleman and the more dire ramifications for the young lady, but also on entire families. As a young man, Col. Brandon was greatly attached to Eliza, an orphan of large fortune who was raised in the care of his father. Though Col. Brandon loved her with the same “fervent…attachment” that Marianne had for Willoughby, he bowed to the will of his father, and Eliza was married to his brother, who did not love her at all. Misery ensued for the entire Brandon family. Col. Brandon was forced to watch his brother marry the woman he loved; his brother was displeased with his wife; and Eliza suffered at the hands of an unkind husband. This marriage ended ultimately in a rare divorce, and a destitute Eliza, whose “legal allowance was not…sufficient for her comfortable maintenance,” was left to the mercy of society and dependent on Col. Brandon’s kindness and financial support.

Edward Ferrars eschewed the idea of marriage for money, John Willoughby chose money over love, and Col. Brandon exemplified the long-term complications that could arise when a loveless marriage was arranged. The choices of each gentleman had large impacts upon the women around them and upon their families in general. There is no question that Jane Austen dreamed of a time when a young couple could marry for love alone, but she was also practical enough to realize that such a time had not yet come.

Jennifer Becton

Jennifer Becton is the author of Charlotte Collins: A Continuation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (My review HERE) . Her next Austen sequel will be released on July 15, 2011, followed by a contemporary mystery novel later in the year. For more information, please visit http://www.jenniferbecton.com.

JANUARY GIVEAWAY!!!

If you comment  and leave your e-mail address on this post or/and on my announcement of the Grand Event for Sense and Sensibility Bicentenary, you'll be entered in the giveaway of The Three Weissmans of Westport by Cathleen Shine. This novel,  published by Picador,  is a new modern re-telling of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. I'm afraid,  this giveaway is for US readers only  but there will be others open worldwide. It ends  31st January .