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The Problem with the Compromise Trope
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courtship, customs and traditions, marriage, Pride and Prejudice, Regency era, Sense and Sensibility
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22 responses to “The Problem with the Compromise Trope”
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You’ve nailed some amorphous thoughts I’ve often had on this issue as well. My musings usually go something like this:
Bingley: Darcy, you’ve compromised my sister Caroline.
Darcy: So?
Bingley: You must marry her.
Darcy: Make me.
Bingley: …..
Darcy: I’m waiting.
Bingley: …..
Darcy: See ya later. I’m back to London.-
Yes! This is my point. And really, everyone knows this, so compromise is not something they would even attempt.
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This sounds just as I have always thought. For a great quick read try remember you asked for this a short story compendium from Sidney Salier story one 1 Mistress At Pemberley.This is a very entertaining story. There is also a bad Jane. While pretending ill health at Netherfield she decides to try for the much richer Mr D. He sees through her milk sop persona and chucks her out.
However in a true case of an accidental compromise to be left, as a woman to bear the shame and bring that disgrace down on whole family. A marriage might be seen as completed for love of family.
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So true, but I still love the compromise trope
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Oh for sure, forced marriage can be very fun if it’s well written.
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The compromise trope works after “the letter,” and Elizabeth having a better understanding of Darcy, but not early on in the story. In my “Mr. Darcy’s Bride(s)”, Darcy compromises her because she means to break up Jane’s marriage to Collins and ends up at Darcy’s marriage to Anne (who is late to the wedding). They make a “deal” that he will assist her mother and sisters, and she leaves with him. The plural on the word “bride” is because they end up marrying three times: the screwed up marriage ceremony, a pretend marriage in Scotland, and the actual marriage. I rarely write a compromise trope, even in my Regency stories, because of all the reasons you have stated. They are too hard to resolve without one of the characters knowing harm. An unwanted arranged marriage is much easier to manage as a writer. A woman could be sent off to some place such as Scotland or even America so the family could recover part of their reputation from the compromise, but there are no “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” final scene in those cases.
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Good points!
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What did your research show about the reputations of any sisters if one is compromised but does not end up marrying? (Picturing P&P, Mansfield Park, …)
Authors quite often use the threat of the other sisters reputation being ruined too.-
I have never come across a real compromise in fiction or research. The closest is in Wives & Daughters by Elizbaeth Gaskell, but the gossip mostly hurts the girl in question, not so much her family.
Julia Bertram in Mansfield Park does elope because she fears what might happen if she is single after her sister Maria’s affair, but she seems more worried about being confined at home by her strict father. I would imagine that the solution is to send the offending daughter away, never speak of her, and hope people forget and move on.
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I agree that Wentworth loaded the shotgun, but he set it aside while he hung out in Shopshire, hoping against hope that Louisa and the Musgrove family didn’t see things the way Harville and his wife saw them. But hey, I married him off to Louisa once in the dim dark past. I have no shame.
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Ou, brave of you!
Wentworth said he went away as “any fair means” but I think it’s clear that he would have married Louisa if he came back and she was still into him. He got lucky with Benwick.
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True. In P&P, Elizabeth seemed more worried about Darcy not wanting to be related to Wickham than what the people of Meryton thought.
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Interesting post! I think sometimes the compromise isn’t fair because the woman may be forced to marry a man she is not happy with but on the other hand they should have been careful. But I guess it works out in the end at least in books.lol
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I think we see in Sense & Sensibility that a woman’s reputation isn’t ruined by a single incident. No one thinks Marianne is ruined and she was pretty bold with Willoughby. So really it’s just very blown out of proportion in fiction, as far as I can tell.
In books it works out, I suspect in real life some of these marriages would have ended very badly.
I believe that the compromise scenario was made up by some Regency romance author or another in the last 20 years or so and it became so popular, it was copied as if it was a real historical fact–which it is not. Thing is, even the word isn’t a Regency word in this context. The editor of the Online Etymology Encyclopedia doesn’t believe it was used for a forced marriage as all his examples are not in this context, and they are one-offs in any case, showing the word wasn’t even in common use in the Regency in the context of a settlement by mutual agreement.
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The word “compromise” is used a few times in Jane Austen’s novels, but always for a mutual agreement, not marriage.
It does seem to be an invention of authors, not something very based in fact, as you say.
Another thing that I find hard to get on board with, is when authors have young women deliberately trying to “compromise” themselves with men who are good catches, hoping to force these men into marriage. The reality is, like the author says above, the man isn’t ruined so this scheme wouldn’t really work. If the man didn’t want to marry he’d just brush it off and the woman would be ruined. So I don’t see that many women would be eager to attempt this gamble.
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No! I totally agree with you. Especially since she might end up really “compromised” and pregnant!
I would love to read an article about what could realistically get a woman compromised in the first place. Lydia and Eliza Williams are obvious, but to read some people, you would think accidentally being alone with a man for 20 seconds (and being discovered together) did the trick. This problem is rampant since Bridgerton ( which overplays the trope). After all, if one bad-mouthing gossip seeing two people together did the trick, what is to keep said gossips from simply inventing compromising situations abd ruining women all over the place?
A typical answer to that is to avoid this, upper class women had their maids with them in all situations, including Lizzy when she walked to Netherfield! Personally I think that is nonsense…
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That is nonsense, because Elizabeth did not have anyone with her and because who would believe a personal maid anyway? You could easily pay them off. I think it may be a lot like today and who gets “cancelled”, sometimes it’s random and out of nowhere, but most of the time it’s a lot of evidence piling up.
The only “compromise” I’ve read in a novel from the time period, Wives and Daughter by Elizabeth Gaskell, there were multiple witnessess to a girl and man meeting alone in the woods and then someone saw the girl give the man a letter. So it wasn’t a single rumour, it was many people bringing together accounts.
Also, it depends on who cries Compromise or scandal. None of the Austen novels take place in High Society. She never mentions Almacks or Sarah Lady Jersey. In the Haut Ton, if a gossip catches a couple in what she thinks is a compromising situation, the young lady could have her vouchers withdrawn and invitations dry up if the gossip is influential enough or the couple were seen by several Grande Dames of Society. A wealthy influential man or one who is heir to wealth and position could get away with some of that behaviour better than baron’s second son of no distinction.
However, I mainly agree with you that it wasn’t as easy to compromise someone as fiction would have us believe. However, the authors setting their stories in High Society are a bit more believable than anyone unknown to society. A young duke or heir to a duke will be forgiven anything while the lady would be cut by all unless her father had enough power to force the wedding. If a couple showed up at church and exchanged vows. they were assumed to have come there voluntarily. A person would have to literally hold a gun on the groom or clergyman for the church to annul the marriage because of the use of force. Just saying one would ruin one or shoot one wasn’t considered enough force.
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Austen’s novels mostly deal with the gentry, so that’s what I know the most about.
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