#modernization

U.S. Marines with Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron (HMLA) 269 conduct simulated counter unmanned aerial system operations at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, California, Feb. 2025.

Pride and Prejudice adaptations with a modern setting – e.g. The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Bride and Prejudice, Pride and Prejudice: A Latter-Day Comedy, Fire Island – seem to almost always save Lydia from Wickham in the end. Either Darcy stops the elopement, or the elopement is replaced with an online sex tape which is taken down. Wickham is either arrested or at least left behind permanently, and Lydia learns a lesson and gets a happy ending. Neither she nor the other characters have to live with her mistake for the rest of their lives the way they do in the original.

I've just been rereading several people's posts on this subject, and about Lydia's portrayal in general, which show some very different opinions about it all.

Of course, part of the issue is that in a modern setting, it's much easier to save Lydia. In most of the modern Western world, a teenage girl running off with a 30-year-old man would result in the man being arrested, not in their needing to get married to save both the girl's reputation and her whole family's. And even if they did get married, divorce is an option.

But I suspect the bigger issue is that Austen's original ending is considered cruel, unfair, and a product of outdated morals.

People view Austen as punishing Lydia for being a "bad girl" by leaving her trapped in a loveless marriage to a worthless man and always living on the edge of poverty, when by modern standards, she's guilty only of teenage foolishness. They accuse Austen of "making an example" of Lydia to teach young female readers how to behave, in contrast to the virtuous, well-behaved Elizabeth and Jane with their happy endings, and they call it anti-feminist.

Not only is Lydia's marriage bleak for her, it slightly mars Elizabeth and Darcy's happy ending too, as well as Jane and Bingley's. It means Wickham will always be a part of their lives, and for Lydia's sake, they're forced to treat him as a family member. Darcy is forced to financially assist his worst enemy – though at least he draws the line by not letting Wickham visit Pemberley – and even Jane and Bingley's patience is worn thin by the long periods of time Wickham and Lydia stay with them.

By modern standards of romantic comedy, this isn't normal. The heroine, the hero, and all their family and friends are expected to live entirely "happily ever after," while the antagonist – especially if he's a womanizer who preys on teenage girls – is expected to be punished, then never heard from again.

But of course, Austen didn't write simple romantic comedy. Her work was social commentary. Lydia's ending arguably isn't a punishment, but simply the only way her story could end without disgracing her or killing her off, and it arguably it serves less to condemn Lydia herself than to condemn the society that lets men like Wickham get away with preying on naïve young girls and forces their victims to marry them or else be disgraced forever. It also condemns the type of bad parenting that leads to Lydia's mistake. Lydia is the product of her upbringing, after all: between Mrs. Bennet's spoiling and Mr. Bennet's neglect, she's never had any decent parental guidance or protection. And our heroines, Elizabeth and Jane, both pity their sister and regret that marriage to Wickham is the only way to save her honor. No sympathetic character ever says she deserves it.

The fact that Lydia is trapped in a bad marriage, and that Wickham does go unpunished and the other characters will always have to tolerate him and even cater to him for Lydia's sake, arguably drives home Austen's social criticism. The fact that it adds bittersweetness to the otherwise blissfully happy ending is arguably part of the point. If we change it just to create a happier ending, or in the name of "feminism" and "justice for Lydia," doesn't that dilute the message?

Then there's the fact that by the standards of Austen's era, Lydia's ending is remarkably happy. She doesn't die, or end up abandoned and forced into sex work or a life of seclusion. Nor, despite Mr. Collins' recommendation, does her family cut ties with her: the ending reveals that Jane and Elizabeth regularly welcome her into their homes, and Elizabeth "frequently" sends her money. Other authors would have punished her much more severely.

But of course, that was a different time. While in Austen's original context, Lydia's fate might seem fairly happy and lenient, by modern standards it seems more cruel. And since most of the modern retellings that change her fate are screen adaptations, not books, maybe the difference in art form further justifies the change. I'm thinking of that post I recently reblogged, which argued that some of Austen's more "merciless" plot points would seem darker on film than in print, and therefore tend to be softened in adaptations.

So how should a modernized adaptation handle Lydia's ending? Is it better and more progressive when they save her from Wickham? Or for the sake of social commentary and retaining Austen's sharp edges, should the writers follow the book and find a way (not necessarily marriage to Wickham, but some modern equivalent) for her mistake to leave her trapped in a less-than-happy life, and add a slight bittersweet note to the other characters' endings too?

USS TENNESSEE (BB-43) near Puget Sound Navy Yard, Washington. This was shortly after her complete rebuild and modernization.

Photographed on May 29, 1943.