Settling revisited (4)

I think you can find all that I said in previous posts on this subject in Jane Austen.

The first Jane Austen point is, don't settle. Writing to her niece, she said never marry someone you don't really love. By the point she wrote that Austen was not married and not going to be married she'd had all the time she needed to regret her choice not to marry and she had not changed her mind. (And the most obvious example to pick from a whole bunch of Austen characters who fail by settling is Charlotte Lucas.)

Marriage is a good thing. You'll be happier if you can do it. Marriage is increasingly a class marker. Married people are more likely to be people on their way up, single people are more likely to be on their way down.

But, as tough as it is being single, marrying and then failing at marriage is far worse.

The second Austen point is amiability: you have to actually like men or women if you want to be successful at marriage. The man who thinks, "Most women are manipulative sluts but you are different," will fail at marriage. Likewise, the woman who thinks, "Most men are insensitive jerks but you are different," will fail. (And here we can see where Marianne Dashwood will go wrong.)

And it's more than just affecting the right attitude. Men do have the attitudes that men have about sex. If a woman doesn't embrace and welcome those attitudes, if all she is willing to do is tolerate them or put up with them when she is in the mood, she will fail at her marriage. Likewise, women really do shift up and down, sideways and backwards emotionally. It isn't enough for a man to think, I guess I can live with that—we have to want, even crave those qualities in women.

The third Jane Austen point is that the only kind of love good enough to lead to marriage is pedagogical love. If we aren't learning from the person we have fallen in love with, then we should find someone else. Because marriage is moral project for both us as a couple and for the community we live in. It's not just about having a good time. And it will only be a good time if we aren't learning from one another. (And here we can see Mary Crawford's failings.)