Miss Austen on Marriage

I was rereading that most popular and timeless of all 'chick lit,' Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, the other day and was struck by how each of the characters viewed marriage and what were assumed to be the underpinnings of a happy marriage.  You need to be able to respect your spouse, there should be mutual affection (yet that should not be the only foundation upon which it is based), there must be some means of support for the couple/resulting family, and it is a permanent condition.  What I found most interesting is that in Austen's day, her views coincided with those of society at large, while 200 years later, society has basically decided the Lydia Bennet was right after all, yet this book still remains popular both in print and on film, anachronism though it seems.  Vampires and sadism come and go, but Austen is forever.

The problem, apparently, with marriage is that there are not enough choices or freedom in the mix.  We have spent the last 40 years destroying marriage and redefining it and now forgo it altogether and the flotsam and jetsam that is our family culture speaks for itself.  Of course, anyone who has taken Austen's warnings seriously could have told you that.  Of all her characters, Lydia and Wickam did not live 'happily ever after.'  The problem isn't marriage, it is human nature.  We don't want to be changed or required to keep our word or to put up with a relationship when things get tough.  We want an out, we want to nurture our own wellbeing, we want to be independent, but this is not marriage.  Marriage is the mutual submission of two wills to one another, putting the spouse and family and couple before our own whims, growing together as individuals and a couple, sticking it out when things get tough or the emotional flame begins to sputter.  It is anything but convenient and it was not meant to be, because anything so convenient could not weather the storms of life and come out the other side all the stronger.  Instead, we jump ship at the first sign of wind and waves, and wish our abandoned partner all the best while seeking a calmer sea.

Like Lydia, we want all the pomp and celebration, the adoration and congratulations that come with a wedding but we don't want all the responsibility and trouble that comes with a marriage.  Society has indulged this whim and undermined its own wellbeing and longevity thereby.  Why is Austen's book so popular and poignant even still in a culture that is completely alien to her own?  Perhaps because, deep down, we know she's right and we long for that very thing ourselves, even if we can only find it in a novel.