Relationships - matches made in Heaven? |
 Dec 30 2008, 06:28 PM
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One Half of the DDD  Posts: 8,407 Joined: 5:31pm August 30, 2006 Location: Siriusly Dreaming Somewhere   |
 In Jane Austen's time marriages were sometimes arranged to ensure the security of finances, estates, titles etc. Unless a woman was financially independent she needed to marry a man who could afford to support her and any children or face an old age of poverty. A man would sometimes marry a woman with money to help maintain his estate. This thread will discuss the relationships in Sense and Sensibility. Do you think the couples married for love or for convenience and, if it was the latter, do you think love, or at least respect, followed? At the beginning of the book we have Mr & Mrs Dashwood just before he dies. What kind of relationship do you think they had during their married life? We have Mr John Dashwood and his wife Fanny, Sir John and Lady Middleton. What do you think their reasons for marrying had been? Do you think they are, or have ever been, in love? What are your opinions of the marriages entered into in order to keep estates together or to provide comfort for women? Marianne wanted to marry Willoughby for love but he needed to marry for financial reasons. If Marianne had been rich and they had married, do you think they would have been happy together? Do you think Marianne and Brandon will be happy together? No marriage is without its problems, what do you think their challenges will be? Now to Edward and Elinor. How well is Elinor suited to the life of a clergyman's wife? What kind of husband do you think Edward will be? What do you think money, or the lack of it, tells us about the characters? What does it tell us about society in Jane Austen's time? Feel free to discuss any or all of these relationships or others in the book that have not been included here. The questions raised are just a starting point for discussion, we welcome any other questions you might like to raise. This post has been edited by Dreamteam: Jan 2 2009, 08:52 PM --------------------  November's book will be The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger "THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED!" roared Black. "DIED RATHER THAN BETRAY YOUR FRIENDS, AS WE WOULD HAVE DONE FOR YOU!" |
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Jan 4 2009, 04:41 PM
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Cauldron Bottom Measurer  Posts: 108 Joined: 4:41pm July 26, 2008 Location: Walking down Diagon Alley with Ginny and Hermione |
QUOTE(Dreamteam @ Dec 30 2008, 06:28 PM)  In Jane Austen's time marriages were sometimes arranged to ensure the security of finances, estates, titles etc. Unless a woman was financially independent she needed to marry a man who could afford to support her and any children or face an old age of poverty. A man would sometimes marry a woman with money to help maintain his estate. This thread will discuss the relationships in Sense and Sensibility. Do you think the couples married for love or for convenience and, if it was the latter, do you think love, or at least respect, followed? At the beginning of the book we have Mr & Mrs Dashwood just before he dies. What kind of relationship do you think they had during their married life? We have Mr John Dashwood and his wife Fanny, Sir John and Lady Middleton. What do you think their reasons for marrying had been? Do you think they are, or have ever been, in love? What are your opinions of the marriages entered into in order to keep estates together or to provide comfort for women? Marianne wanted to marry Willoughby for love but he needed to marry for financial reasons. If Marianne had been rich and they had married, do you think they would have been happy together? Do you think Marianne and Brandon will be happy together? No marriage is without its problems, what do you think their challenges will be? Now to Edward and Elinor. How well is Elinor suited to the life of a clergyman's wife? What kind of husband do you think Edward will be? What do you think money, or the lack of it, tells us about the characters? What does it tell us about society in Jane Austen's time? Feel free to discuss any or all of these relationships or others in the book that have not been included here. The questions raised are just a starting point for discussion, we welcome any other questions you might like to raise. i feel like the only couple in this story who actually married for love was edward and elinor. even though he was engaged to lucy i don't feel like he ever truly loved her. his having to continually be away from her and never being able to show his affections to her because of its being secret eventually cooled his love for her. i think he was in love with elinor from the start or else he would not have come for her at the end and asked for her hand, he would have married miss mason like his mother wanted him to if all he was concerned about was finacial stability. i am not really sure what to say on the other relationships. i will say that Fanny Dashwood and Mrs. Ferarrs are my 2 least favorite charactures. i do not think that if Marianne had been wealthy and able to marry Willoughby that she would have been happy, she even says so herself in the story at the end. i think Marianne will be happy with Brandon, but i think a big challenge will be Willoughby, i think that as time went on that he would not leave her in peace. Elinor will make a wonderful clergymans wife, because she has the personality for it. she never thinks of herself first and she is very unassuming. i think edward will be a very faithful and loving husband. money shows the charactures for the person that they are by how attached to it they are. the more concerned they are about money the worse personality they seem to have. Jane Austen's stories take place in the time she was a young woman , so her stories are very revealing to the society of her time. i know i haven't even began to touch on everything on the relationships in this particular story, but i will post more replies as the topic picks up 
This post has been edited by hellostarshine_1981: Jan 4 2009, 04:44 PM -------------------- I got my cute avatar from the Leaky Galleries!
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Jan 4 2009, 05:14 PM
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Doctor Filibuster's Junior Assistant Posts: 1,963 Joined: 8:57am March 12, 2005 Location: at Home or somewhere in between |
QUOTE(hellostarshine_1981 @ Jan 4 2009, 04:41 PM) i think Marianne will be happy with Brandon, but i think a big challenge will be Willoughby, i think that as time went on that he would not leave her in peace. I do think that Marianne realized a love that she didn't think possible with Brandon, and that she might think back on her obsession with Willoughby as childish folly. She might be "sense" in the book, but I think both she and Elinor come closer to the center by the end of the story, with more of a balance between the two, and less representative of the extremes. Elinor sees that emotion is sometimes necessary to let others know how you really feel, though Marianne grows into seeing the importance of being sensible to being able to sense  the true natures of others. 
-------------------- Avatar made with Poser 6 and Photoshop Elements
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Jan 4 2009, 05:43 PM
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One Half of the DDD Posts: 8,407 Joined: 5:31pm August 30, 2006 Location: Siriusly Dreaming Somewhere |
QUOTE(hellostarshine_1981 @ Jan 4 2009, 09:41 PM) i think Marianne will be happy with Brandon, but i think a big challenge will be Willoughby, i think that as time went on that he would not leave her in peace. That's a good point hellostarshine, I think Willoughby did love Marianne and really didn't like Brandon at all. I can imagine that he would feel very hurt that Marianne was with the Colonel and would find it very difficult to let her go, despite his and her marriages. He would want to know that his message had been passed on by Elinor and that Marianne had forgiven him. I don't think that his interest would be reciprocated by Marianne, though, she had been brought up as a lady and would behave in a ladylike manner which would mean being faithful to her husband and respecting him. She knows that Willoughby gave her up for financial reasons and although she may forgive him, I don't think she'd forget. -------------------- November's book will be The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger "THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED!" roared Black. "DIED RATHER THAN BETRAY YOUR FRIENDS, AS WE WOULD HAVE DONE FOR YOU!" |
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Jan 4 2009, 11:34 PM
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Cauldron Bottom Measurer Posts: 108 Joined: 4:41pm July 26, 2008 Location: Walking down Diagon Alley with Ginny and Hermione |
QUOTE(Dreamteam @ Jan 4 2009, 05:43 PM) QUOTE(hellostarshine_1981 @ Jan 4 2009, 09:41 PM) i think Marianne will be happy with Brandon, but i think a big challenge will be Willoughby, i think that as time went on that he would not leave her in peace. That's a good point hellostarshine, I think Willoughby did love Marianne and really didn't like Brandon at all. I can imagine that he would feel very hurt that Marianne was with the Colonel and would find it very difficult to let her go, despite his and her marriages. He would want to know that his message had been passed on by Elinor and that Marianne had forgiven him. I don't think that his interest would be reciprocated by Marianne, though, she had been brought up as a lady and would behave in a ladylike manner which would mean being faithful to her husband and respecting him. She knows that Willoughby gave her up for financial reasons and although she may forgive him, I don't think she'd forget. This is very true, and imho that will always be a point of sorrow for Marianne and Willoughby. There will always be the what might have been factor for Willoughby. -------------------- I got my cute avatar from the Leaky Galleries!
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Jan 5 2009, 11:12 AM
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Doctor Filibuster's Junior Assistant Posts: 1,963 Joined: 8:57am March 12, 2005 Location: at Home or somewhere in between |
QUOTE(Dreamteam @ Dec 30 2008, 06:28 PM) In Jane Austen's time marriages were sometimes arranged to ensure the security of finances, estates, titles etc. Unless a woman was financially independent she needed to marry a man who could afford to support her and any children or face an old age of poverty. A man would sometimes marry a woman with money to help maintain his estate. This thread will discuss the relationships in Sense and Sensibility. Do you think the couples married for love or for convenience and, if it was the latter, do you think love, or at least respect, followed? At the beginning of the book we have Mr & Mrs Dashwood just before he dies. What kind of relationship do you think they had during their married life? I was thinking about this question last night and it occurred to me that they probably had a very affectionate relationship, whilst Mr Dashwood's first marriage was probably one of the socially arranged ones. This came to me in thinking about the children produced in his marriages. His first marriage produced only one child - a son - which was more than likely the minimum needed to anchor the mother's inheritance. Once that obligation was fulfilled, they had no further children...much like John and Fanny's relationship in only producing the very spoiled Henry. It is very likely that the second Dashwood family was one created from mutual affection and love, as it produced three children - all daughters that would require a dowry- and Mr Dashwood upon his deathbed asked his son to look out for their welfare - including that of his current wife. This isn't the action of a father who dislikes his daughters' mother, even though she brought very limited financial resources to the marriage...he seems to have married her out of genuine affection, and continued to love her as a "true" husband loves his wife, even though each girl child that resulted was a financial liability. The Dashwood sisters were quite probably a source of ribald gossip themselves, yet Mrs Dashwood would have been unaffected by it through her own sensibilities. This post has been edited by momwitch: Jan 5 2009, 11:16 AM -------------------- Avatar made with Poser 6 and Photoshop Elements
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Jan 5 2009, 08:16 PM
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Just Through the Brick Wall Posts: 5 Joined: 7:31pm January 5, 2009 |
I agree. At that time in society, it was practical for women to marry for money since they would have very, very limited ways of earning any of their own. However, another important factor is the family. Parents could and did arrange marriages for various reasons (financial security, "blood"/status, etc.)--think Darcy and his cousin Anne (although they happily didn't follow through).
I think that as time went on, partners some marriages would definitely gain respect for each other and "liking" may grow to "loving" but, I don't really see much of it in S&S. Mr. and Mrs. Dashwood may be one. I think as long as the husband is not over-demanding, unfaithful, and gambling away the family's fortune, women at the time probably would have reason to respect their husbands. Marriages definitely did not all involve the love that JA wrote about (and her characters are lucky to have them!). I just hope that people do end up with happy lives filled with both love and fortune in the real world. (Just to give me hope for the future  )
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Jan 12 2009, 06:15 PM
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One Half of the DDD Posts: 8,407 Joined: 5:31pm August 30, 2006 Location: Siriusly Dreaming Somewhere |
QUOTE(ladyluna @ Jan 6 2009, 01:16 AM) Marriages definitely did not all involve the love that JA wrote about (and her characters are lucky to have them!). I just hope that people do end up with happy lives filled with both love and fortune in the real world. (Just to give me hope for the future )Yes, it seems that the people of the same generation as Austen's heroines do want to marry for love, which I think very much reflects her own life and her disappointment in not being able to marry the man she wanted to. Those of the previous generation seem to have married mainly for reasons of finance or status, such as Fanny and John, his father and first wife, its clearly what Mrs Ferrars has in mind, she doesn't want Edward marrying someone who doesn't meet her social standards. We saw similar attitudes in Pride and Prejudice where Jane and Elizabeth both wanted to marry for love, whereas Mr and Mrs Bennett clearly didn't respect each other and even Charlotte marries to secure a safe future, rather than for love. -------------------- November's book will be The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger "THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED!" roared Black. "DIED RATHER THAN BETRAY YOUR FRIENDS, AS WE WOULD HAVE DONE FOR YOU!" |
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Jan 16 2009, 12:33 PM
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Just Through the Brick Wall Posts: 12 Joined: 8:17am January 16, 2009 |
I've been struggling with the idea that Jane wrote all her heroines to marry under the rule of her husband and though she portrayed "marry for love" we read "marry for respect." When Marianne and the Colonel are married, I'm very happy about the match because he's so grounded and good natured. He dislikes Willoughby for good reason and even though he is so besotted with the younger Dashwood sister, he never tries to stop her from happiness with Willoughby. He was deeply in love with a girl when he was younger and, like Miss Dashwood, had his love stolen from him by the practicality of money. I think we find him respecting her at a point when he compares his young ward's willingness to be anything to Willoughby and Marrianne's choice to recover from the heartbreak that she would not be his wife. That She had enough sense to not fall under him like his ward did. There was no way Marrianne could have respected Willoughby, but there was nothing but respect for Colonel Brandon.
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Jan 23 2009, 10:19 PM
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Exclusive distributor of The Dungbomb Protection Kit Posts: 2,632 Joined: 10:52pm March 5, 2007  |
I think that Jane Austen has made the point that you can't have love without respect. I have always thought that her main heroines did marry for love, but only after they respected their future husband. It's too bad that we didn't see the development of Brandon and Marianne's relationship, I think that is one of the major flaws of the book. We don't know enough about Brandon's character to imagine how he would have won Marianne's heart, but I feel certain that her affection was true. I get the impression it wasn't as passionate and free-for-all as her affection for Willoughby was (interesting name, Willoughby, just as I am typing this I imagine a willow tree blown every which direction at the mercy of the wind..kind of appropriate), but more grounded in a sense of love that comes from respecting the person you are married to.
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