Did Mr. Darcy want his Friend Bingley to Marry His Sister?

The short answer is yes.

One of the most heated arguments I’ve witnessed in my time participating in Jane Austen Fan Fiction and the wider Jane Austen fandom is whether or not Darcy really wanted Bingley to marry Georgiana. This is a discussion I’ve always found strange, since it’s affirmed directly by the narrator, who even makes a joke about it:

Not a syllable had ever reached her [Caroline] of Miss Darcy’s meditated elopement. To no creature had it been revealed, where secrecy was possible, except to Elizabeth; and from all Bingley’s connections her brother was particularly anxious to conceal it, from that very wish which Elizabeth had long ago attributed to him, of their becoming hereafter her own. He had certainly formed such a plan; and without meaning that it should affect his endeavour to separate him from Miss Bennet, it is probable that it might add something to his lively concern for the welfare of his friend. -Pride & Prejudice, Ch 46

This quote confirms many things, 1. that Elizabeth long suspected Darcy of wanting to set up Charles and Georgiana, 2. Darcy thought it was important that Charles didn’t know about the failed elopement, and 3. Darcy is not as unbiased as he claimed to be in his letter.

Reminder quote: That I was desirous of believing her indifferent is certain; but I will venture to say that my investigations and decisions are not usually influenced by my hopes or fears. I did not believe her to be indifferent because I wished it; I believed it on impartial conviction, as truly as I wished it in reason. (Ch 35, from the post-proposal letter)

As an aside, I don’t think this bias is anything remarkable or condemable on Darcy’s part. We are all biased and influenced by our own wishes. Of course Darcy saw indifference from Jane when he wished to see it and love when he wished to see otherwise. It’s very human of him. It is pretty funny that he thinks he is somehow above bias.

(This is when Darcy suddenly can see that Jane likes Bingley, once he wants to see it)

One of the most frequent arguments that I’ve heard against the quotation above is that the paragraph is actually from the persective of Elizabeth Bennet, using that free indirect speech that Austen is famous for, but that just doesn’t hold water for me. It cannot be Elizabeth’s persepective because the quote contains information that Elizabeth could not have known. She has no idea that Darcy has been anxiously concealing the elopement specifically from the Bingleys. Instead, this paragraph is framed as a confirmation of what Elizabeth thought already; the narrator clearing up the facts.

The other argument is that Charles Bingley is too lowly to marry a Darcy, with the added scornful comment that Caroline was being delusional or lying when she suggests the match in her letter to Jane. However, if Darcy considered Bingley so far beneath him, they wouldn’t be interacting socially at all, much less being invited to Pemberley. Connections and who one was seen with was very important and we know it’s something that Darcy thinks about. Caroline is excited because Darcy is giving every indication that he wants the two families to become closer. Colonel Fitzwilliam tells us that Darcy spent the summer with the Bingley family and we know they spent the fall together at Netherfield. Darcy even has Bingley staying at his house in London during the winter. Darcy thinks very seriously about how poor Elizabeth’s connections are, there is no way he’d be spending this much time with anyone if he considered them a bad connection.

(Also, Caroline’s idea that one marriage between two families will bring another is echoed in Mansfield Park by both Edmund Bertram and Mary Crawford)

Bingley’s actual social class is vague. He is not in trade, his money is from trade. We know his father was already able to purchase an estate before his early demise, so the money was already accumulated before Charles came of age. In fact, when and how the money was made is not specified at all:

They were of a respectable family in the north of England; a circumstance more deeply impressed on their memories than that their brother’s fortune and their own had been acquired by trade. (Ch 3)

The Bingleys are nothing like the Gardiners, for example, who live within view of their warehouses and have to plan plot-critical vacations around business obligations. The Bingleys live as gentry even if they aren’t fully a part of that class and importantly, everyone in the novel treats the Bingley like gentry. When it comes to marriage, Darcy says that Bingley could do better than marrying Jane Bennet and Lady Catherine, snob extraordinaire, says Jane is the ultimate winner in her match:

I was told, that not only your sister was on the point of being most advantageously married, but that you—that Miss Elizabeth Bennet would, in all likelihood, be soon afterwards united to my nephew—my own nephew, Mr. Darcy. (Ch 56)

Elizabeth believing that it was Darcy’s plan to have them marry only confirms that it was true. She is a character in a Regency novel written during that era, so she would probably have a pretty good idea of whom is suitable to marry whom (certainly better than my ideas in the 21st century!). If it was an outrageous lie, Elizabeth would have rejected the idea outright as preposterous and comforted Jane with its impossibility. Elizabeth even spends time determining if Charles and Georgiana are in love when she meets both of them at Pemberley. She definitely believed that the marriage was a social possibility!

It is clear to me from the novel that the Bingley family have made it past the gatekeepers and are tenuously established in the gentry. With their wealth and connections, the Bingleys are likely to keep moving forward and higher into the upper class, especially when Charles finally buys an estate (thank you Bennet family for being so annoying that he finally did it!) and as Caroline likely marries into a gentry family. Therefore, a marriage between Charles Bingley and Georgiana Darcy is something that may have happened, if not for Jane Bennet!

The Bennet girls, on the other hand, were at a serious risk of falling out of the gentry class, especially if none of them managed to marry before the death of Mr. Bennet.

Lastly, I highlighted the fact that Darcy concealed the elopement from the Bingley family because I often hear the theory that Darcy wanted Georgiana to marry Bingley because he would overlook that indiscretion. Darcy does not seem to believe that since he has taken such care to keep the failed elopement a secret.

To conclude, it is stated in the novel that Mr. Darcy did indeed wish for his friend Mr. Bingley to marry his sister Georgiana. No one in the novel seems to believe there is a massive class divide between the Bingley and Darcy family and Elizabeth thinks the plan is very likely. However, the best plans of extremely wealthy men occasionally go awry, leaving Georgiana Darcy for the Jane Austen fan fiction writers to play with!

Who is your favourite match for Georgiana, post Pride & Prejudice? Let me know below!