Jane Austen on Love

I love Jane Austen. Period. Those books are some of my favorite, and yes I have read every single one of them. Except Lady Susan...I hate reading unfinished books, so I tend to skip them. I also hate people who think they have the right to finish them....They aren't the author and they shouldn't try to finish something when they have no idea what was in that author's head,...any amount of reading up about the original author's life still doesn't give them the right...BAH. Okay, enough soap box...

A modern idea of love is that you see someone and automatically fall in love with them! Or you sleep with somebody you sort of know and after awhile all the sleeping together turns into love. Why, why, WHY!! Jane Austen knew a thing or two about love, although never married herself.

All of her characters know their future spouse for a long while before they actually, truely become enamored with them. Fanny Price lived with her cousin for many years before she (and he) saw each other as potential suitors. Elizabeth Bennet actually hated Mr. Darcy before having her vision corrected about his virtues. Marianne Dashwood watched the object of her desire go through a horrible engagement to another woman because of his honor before she was able to marry him. Emma married a man SIXTEEN years older than herself who used to play with her as a child! My point is that these women knew the men they married.

Love at first sight is a bit of a hoax. Even Mr. Darcy didn't fall in love with Elizabeth right away. He actually made it very clear to all of his friends that he didn't think there was an attractive feature in her face before realizing other features that he liked. It didn't happen as quickly as the movies often portray. If you read the book the entire progression of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy's regard for each other took the better part of a year, as did Jane and Mr. Bingley, and not without alot of bumps along the way.

In the end though, each party had realized the virtues and FAULTS of the other. I have to point that out because some women get into their heads that their man should be perfect. Good heavens no! Austen plainly points out the flaws of all her characters, but she also includes their virtues and shows them striving to overcome their flaws.

Austen also critizies women who do marry with little or not regard for their spouse, such as Charlotte Lucas and Miss Bertram, both of whom marry for money and comfortable homes, albeit different reasons why. She points out that both extremes are bad and instead is very careful about culturing the relationship between her heroine and hero.

Charlotte Bronte thought that Austen wrote romances for cultured gardens, while hers occupied the windswept moors. Actually, I don't think Austen wrote romances at all. She was writing about the relationships between people, all kinds of people. Between sisters, between husband and wife, between suitors, between aunt and niece, between friends and between casual aquantances even. She is always discussing conversation between people, not necissarily describing landscapes or houses. Her characters do the talking and thinking for most of the book. They are books about people and the energy between them, one of which is love.