Wise lessons from Jane Austen

In the novel Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen tells the story of the Bennet family. We learn quite a bit about each family member, but one of the biggest parts of the story deals with the bad behavior of several of the family members.

First you have Mrs. Bennet. She is a bit shallow, silly and a gossip. She has good intentions for her five daughters (ie. wanting them to find wealthy husbands that will be able to adequately support them), but she sometimes does not think before she does things. Sometimes you meet people who talk before they think (which I am sure we all have done at one time or another). That is something I think that Mrs. Bennet suffered from almost constantly. She is also a gossip who tends to talk in a voice that projects a little too much, there for allowing others to hear things that she should not be saying (at least in polite company).

Next we look at Lydia Bennet. This is the youngest of the sisters and she is the favorite of her mother's. I think that when you really think about it favoritism never helps a child, but actually has more of a negative affect. You see, Lydia is pampered, encouraged in her boisterous and sometimes inappropriate behavior by her mother and never corrected by her father. Then you look at how much whining and crying she does in order to get her way (which most times her family gives in if only to get her to hush). When has it ever been good to teach a child that if they whine or cry they can get whatever they desire?

The third is Kitty Bennet. I like to think that Kitty would be a good and proper child if her younger sister, Lydia, did not influence her so much. She was allowing herself to be lead by someone who was a bad example for anyone (unless you want to show how not to act!) and not taught to be able to think for herself. Although she is not as silly as her younger sister, she is not too far behind her.

Mary Bennet is a very unique individual. She is not as pretty as her sisters and is a sort of a loner. She has attempted to become accomplished in her piano and singing as a way of promoting herself. Mary is very dedicated to her playing and singing, but she is mechanical and stiff in both. Her voice is never praised as a pretty voice, but she always tries to display her “talents” any time she can. She also is a preachy in her comments to her family, as well as showing little to no tact in these comments, either.

Although Mr. Darcy once states that Elizabeth and her eldest sister, Jane, are above reproach, they also show some behavior that affect their family. They are very close and are to the point that they exclude the other sisters from their close relationship (though mostly it seems to be unintentional). Jane is a Pollyanna who can never see the bad in others. Elizabeth can sometimes be very prejudiced against people (namely Darcy, Wickham, and Caroline Bingley) when she really does not know them that well.

Now at last is Mr. Bennet. He is a smart and witty man. After he married Mrs. Bennet he realized what she was really like and that he had been blinded by her beauty. He realized way too late that he married a woman that he could not respect. After this realization, as well as the addition of her fits of nerves, he tends to avoid her by sequestering himself in his library most of the day. He also starts to make fun of her, instead of trying to help her to become a more well behaved, intelligent person. Not only was he unsupportive of his wife, but also he is also unsupportive of his daughters. He seems to favor his older two daughters as the most intelligent of his daughters. He is constantly making insulting comment as to his other daughters (ie. they are the silliest girls in the country, cannot speak two words of sense together, etc), though he tries to cover it by attempting to make it humorous. He has never properly prepared for his daughters in their dowries, since he planned to have a son (Since his estate is only to pass to male heir, his family will have no home or the income of the estate to live on after his death). In his passiveness towards his wife and younger daughters he has also not taken the control as head of his family. He shirks his responsibilities for making sure that they are behaving in appropriate ways, avoids going to the public outings with his family, he allows his younger daughters to continue in their wild behavior and had given in and allowed them to be “out” too early. In all of this he ends up losing much of the respect that Elizabeth had held for him. When faced with the issue of allowing his whiny daughter, Lydia, to leave home to spend time with a friend in another city, he shrugs off Elizabeth’s warnings of possible disgrace that not only might come on Lydia herself, but would during that time period also included her family (especially her sisters). His response is:

"Do not make yourself uneasy, my love. Wherever you and Jane are known, you must be respected and valued; and you will not appear to less advantage for having a couple of—or I may say, three—very silly sisters. We shall have no peace at Longbourn if Lydia does not go to Brighton. Let her go then. Colonel Forster is a sensible man, and will keep her out of any real mischief; and she is luckily too poor to be an object of prey to any body. At Brighton she will be of less importance, even as a common flirt, than she has been here. The officers will find women better worth their notice. Let us hope, therefore, that her being there may teach her her own insignificance. At any rate, she cannot grow many degrees worse without authorizing us to lock her up for the rest of her life."

Here is a prime example of where a father should be the one to discipline and keep his family in line. If Mr. Bennet had taken the time to discipline and control his youngest daughter he could have prevented the elopement that involved Lydia and the scoundrel, Wickham. This is a huge scandal and one that could have been horribly damaging to the entire family. This father led his family straight to ruin by his lack of responsibility and was only saved by Mr. Darcy who came in and did a patch job to save the reputation of the Bennets.