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Did Mr. Darcy want his Friend Bingley to Marry His Sister?
19 responses to “Did Mr. Darcy want his Friend Bingley to Marry His Sister?”
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LOL. I saw this correspondence. Well done, you! – a perfect explanation of what so many fellow Austen fans on Facebook fail to understand – or rather, can’t BEAR to understand, imho.
They’re certainly intelligent enough to understand what Austen wrote… The trouble is, they just can’t BEAR to think that their beloved Firth – oops, I mean their beloved Darcy – could have schemed as Austen gives us to understand that he DID scheme. (I mean, of course, with regard to his hopes that Bingley and Georgiana might someday make a match.)
Had I been Darcy, and had the great good luck to have as good-natured and winning a friend as Bingley, and to possess as sweet and gentle a sister as Georgiana, I’d have schemed too…
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I am not sure I would go that far, it is a confusing paragraph and a very easy thing to miss. It is never shown in an adaptation either, which makes it easy to forget.
But yes, Bingley seems like a great guy and a good choice for Georgiana. He just had other plans!
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I saw another reply similarly to you, using the same quote, on a Facebook post. I had never read that paragraph that closely before. I agree that everyone treats the Bingleys as gentry. I disagree that the Bennet ladies would have left the gentry class when Mr. Bennet died, however. I think that, like Miss Bates in Emma and the Dashwood ladies in S&S, they would have become impoverished gentry, still maintaining their social class but being seen as needing charity and worthy of pity.
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I did say, “in danger” I believe. They may have been like Miss Bates or they may have chosen to marry below their class. Austen reportedly told her family that Mary married a clerk in her uncle’s office, which would have been out of the gentry as Mr. Phillips was not the sort of lawyer considered gentry. But my main point was that with their tiny inheritances, the Bennets are far more vulnerable than the Bingley women.
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I completely agree they were more in danger. Mary definitely married into Middle class, as did Lydia technically in my opinion, since Wickham is a soldier but not an officer. Social Class was extremely complicated and it is hard to figure out coming from an American (in my case) modern perspective. I actually have to teach social class in Austen to my high school British lit students and it’s not easy. Kudos to you for addressing the issue!
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Thank you! In North America, we like to pretend we don’t have a class system anymore and we encourage people to try to better their cirsumstances, but we certainly still have *something* like class. I’m sure it’s hard to teach!
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I think Darcy hoped Bingley and Georgiana would become attached to each other. It’s understandable that he’d want to protect her from fortune hunters and secure a husband who would treat Georgiana with respect. Having a brother in law who was so malleable and persuadable was certainly a bonus. But, I don’t believe he would’ve forced the match if she was unwilling.
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I totally agree with you! Darcy didn’t seem to want to be forced to marry his cousin, so I doubt he would have forced his sister to marry someone she disliked. But given how influenced Georgiana was by her brother, I think he would have been able to persuade her. The problem was Bingley, lol!
Bingley probably would have been a good match for her. Definitely not Collins or Wickham! Maybe one of the officers? Love the post!
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Thanks!
I like to think Georgiana married a rich William Price from Mansfield Park, he’s a really nice guy. There are so few good men left in Austen’s novels, lol.
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Lowly William Price landing an heiress! The shock of it is probably what finally did Aunt Norris in 😉
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Lol, double bonus!
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Aunt Norris definitely deserves to be gone.
Look at the end of Chapter 33. ‘… and she was quite decided, at last, that he had been partly governed by this worst kind of pride, and partly by the wish of retaining Mr Bingley for his sister.’ Elizabeth thinks this. Because she imputes to Darcy ‘the worst kind of pride’ – and because she initially equates him with the Bingleys, to the exclusion of herself (and her family.) She does not perceive then the significant differences between Darcy’s family and Bingley’s. In fact, her perception is flawed by her own prejudice against Darcy’s pride. The friendship between the two young men does not indicate that Darcy had singled Bingley out for his sister. This is Elizabeth’s assumption.
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I don’t know why you would think that Elizabeth Bennet, citizen of 1800s England, wouldn’t be able to percieve class differences. I am sure she was well aware. And as I said, no one in the entire novel treats the Bingleys as less than.
I could definitely see why Darcy would think Bingley and Georgiana would be a great match, outside of class aspects (though it would play a role). He would want Georgiana to have the happiness and security of Bingley while also wanting to help Bingley and his prospects out of genuine fondness for him since a marriage with Georgiana would anchor him firmly as a gentleman with ties to a noble family in the De Bourgh side of things.
I have it as a major element of a vampire au I came up with where Wickham is one and turned Darcy into one after in revenge after Darcy prevented his elopement with Georgiana. Darcy then is trying to keep his condition under wraps and under firm control while he gets Georgiana married to Bingley so that she’s not left alone to have Wickham seek to make her his prey again. He plans to quietly kill himself after the marriage so that he doesn’t stain his family name and so he doesn’t have any chance of giving in to his new urges. But then Elizabeth starts disrupting things.
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That sounds really interesting!
Thank you so much for posting this about the Bingley family. Caroline, Louisa and Charles were lucky to have a father that saved so the money could accrue for the next generation.
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No problem! They were lucky. I always wonder how he made so much though, it’s a lot of money.
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