In the comments section on a recent YouTube video about Pride and Prejudice, I accidentally got into a small debate with someone about just why Elizabeth is so upset by Charlotte's choice to marry Mr. Collins.
I made some remarks based on this post, about how marriage for a woman in that era wasn't just about choosing a partner, but about choosing the master of your life, both legally and spiritually, whom you would be expected to obey. So choosing a man whom you didn't respect, and who obviously wasn't worthy of respect, was a much bigger deal than just "He'll never make you happy."
But another commentator disagreed with me, pointing out that mercenary marriages with no thought of love or respect took place all the time in the Regency era. In their point of view, Elizabeth is just upset that her best friend doesn't find Mr. Collins as repulsive as she does herself.
That made me think of how @bethanydelleman has complained that the adaptations almost always portray Mr. Collins as older and more physically off-putting than the character in the book, who is a young man (younger than Charlotte, in fact) and who is only ridiculous in personality, not in looks. This creates the sense that Elizabeth's objection to marrying him, and to Charlotte marrying him, is more visceral and less objective than Austen meant it to be.
I wonder if that other commentator on YouTube was thinking mainly of the adaptations, because "Elizabeth is upset that Charlotte doesn't find Mr. Collins as repulsive as she does" sounds like a very visceral interpretation of her feelings.
But either way, I still don't think I agree. To me, it seems that what upsets Elizabeth is that Charlotte does find Mr. Collins just as obnoxious, stupid, and unworthy of respect as Elizabeth does, but chooses to marry him anyway.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Catherine Morland: *squealing in excitement after getting a new gothic novel*
William Collins, on the side: *tsk tsk* young ladies and their interests! I suppose it is good that they want to keep their little minds busy, but it should be something better than that! Are you not of the same opinion, my esteemed colleague?
Henry Tilney: what? I am so sorry, I was not following-I need to get my wife home, we have a busy evening planned out.
Catherine Tilney, neé Morland: *cheerfully* Henry, let us hurry-there are vengeful spirits in this one!
Henry Tilney: *hastening his pace* do not start without me!
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
I believe most marriages in the gentry had some sort of contract providing for the widow.
Yes, this is what I was referring to in my post when I said:
There would have been legal documents accompanying their betrothal that laid out exactly how much property or money Charlotte and her potential children would receive during and after the marriage (this is what is meant by references to pin money and jointure; pin money is what the woman will regularly receive for her private expenses during the marriage, and jointure is what she gets if she survives her husband)
I read a book where Charlotte gets a widow's portion by telling Collins how Mr. Bennet had done so, and since his relative had done it, it would look bad if he did not.
I don't know the book, but tbh I think that's actually super improbable to ever happen.
Mr Collins, a man who prides—I would say, defines—himself by his dedication to going through the proper forms of things (regardless of whether he has any understanding or interest in why those forms exist or what their purpose is), would need no prompting to do the bare minimum of offering a settlement that establishes Charlotte's pin money and jointure (however small). In fact, I'd say few men in Austen are more likely to have thought through the exact settlement he's going to offer in extremely granular detail.
The idea of Mr Collins needing to be manipulated into it strikes me as very much the P&P fandom tendency to villainize asshole characters into versions that aren't just worse but don't even make sense for the kinds of assholes they are. This happens as well to characters like Lady Catherine, Caroline, even Darcy at times, but Mr Collins gets hit really hard by it.
Regardless, this wouldn't really help Charlotte in the situation I was being asked about, which is what happens to Charlotte if Mr Collins dies before he can inherit Longbourn (and, presumably, if her pregnancy at the end of P&P results in a daughter).
Mr Collins is the heir presumptive of Longbourn, not heir apparent: that is, it's provisionally assumed he'll inherit because he's the next in line per the legal entailment on Longbourn, but there are some possible ways by which he wouldn't inherit at all (say, if Mrs Bennet suddenly died, and Mr Bennet remarried a much younger woman and had one or more sons with her, their son(s) would inherit ahead of Mr Collins). This matters because heirs apparent and heirs presumptive had different legal standing, including with regards to entailment, and Mr Collins' settlement on Charlotte would be based on resources he actually has a legal claim to (and whatever little the Lucases contribute) at the time that they're married. He can't offer any part of Longbourn in the settlement; he doesn't have any legal claim on it at this point.
If he dies before inheriting, Charlotte has no legal claim whatsoever to either the Hunsford income (which would go to a different clergyman on Mr Collins' death) or Longbourn; she only has whatever resources were set aside for her in the settlement and whatever else Mr Collins leaves to her in his will.
I think it's actually very likely that Mr Collins would dutifully set aside further money for Charlotte and their daughter out of his yearly income, and that it would be the exact percentage recommended by guidebooks of the time—something Mr Bennet notably failed to do but which anyone remotely genteel was strongly advised to do for the futures of their widows and children. Legally every t will be crossed and every i will be dotted to ensure Charlotte/their child(ren) inherit whatever he has—that's not an issue at all.
But if he only lives a few years, the saving on the kind of income Hunsford gives him would not amount to enough to make Charlotte and their daughter(s) all that secure financially. They'd be essentially dependent on the charity of the Lucases and extended Bennet family. They're never going to be hungry or anything like that—well over 90% of the country was living in worse poverty than Charlotte would ever know—but within their own social class, this would mean a narrow, dependent existence in which the best case scenario is charity from the Darcys and Bingleys.
Within a month of her marriage, Charlotte Collins had no particular regrets, except that it was entirely possible she would lose her mind.
It could not be said that she had wed a cruel man. There was no especial malice driving any of Mr. Collins’s decisions and indeed, he had been kind enough in the marriage-bed, making an effort not to offend any delicate sensibility she might have, unexpectedly gentle, and she knew herself fortunate that in a parsonage which did not allow for separate bedchambers, he did not snore. He was less obsequious away from his patroness Lady Catherine, which meant that their evenings alone were tolerable unless a visit to Rosings was in the offing, a situation which drove him to a feverish pitch of mingled exhortation and instruction, remarks often repeated as soon as he’d uttered them. He gave her a fair allowance to run the household, she had a cook and housemaids, a gardener and a groom, and he made few demands other than to confess he detested mutton however it was prepared and had an uncommon fondness for skirret fritters. He labored mightily over his sermons, though she could tell little difference in them from one Sunday to the next, and blessedly, he did not expect her to act as his amanuensis.
He was just so terribly dull, she could hardly bear it, she who had chided Lizzie for her romantic ideals, the risks her friend took waiting for a man she might love with all her heart and soul.
Charlotte knew she might feel some affection for William at some point, but that was all the future held, a quiet, patient companionship and the years ahead stretched interminably, her body and position adequately sustained, her intellect withering.
It was a bargain she herself had struck almost eagerly and now could not confess her fears, for who would sympathize? Not her mother, who had been overjoyed and astounded that Charlotte had managed to snare the Bennett’s heir, not to her sister Maria, and though there was occasionally a surprising gleam in the eye of pallid Miss de Bourgh, she dared not risk speaking a slightest word that might be held against her husband, a disloyal wife who would risk his livelihood.
She tried playing the spinet, but her talent was paltry and the music meager, a thin broth. No degree of practice nor skilled tutelage would improve it. Her husband’s library was full of sermons and essays, his Greek texts from Oxford as unreadable to her as they had been impenetrable to him, but had she had a novel or collection of poetical works, they could not have held her attention much better. She sat in the window-seat and watched the lane, embroidered an altar-cloth, and felt her very self begin to come apart as the steam that rose from her afternoon tea dissipated into the air, into nothingness.
And then, a miracle! The letters began to arrive.
First, Lizzie wrote, regaling her with tales of her family, of her walks in the countryside, her wit and zest for life, her uneasiness about her prospects, her undeniable fascination with Mr. Darcy all readily apparent, despite the occasional blots due to her tendency to use her pen too long, when a fresh nib was clearly needed. She’d enclose a sprig of whatever blossom or herb she’d found on her excursions, small mementos Charlotte found dear and charming.
The next letter came from Jane Bennett, a polite little missive, much shorter than Lizzie’s, but possibly more informative, if one knew, as Charlotte did, how to correct for Jane’s perpetual sunniness to see the truth of Jane’s observations. It was a translation, to read Jane’s letters, and appreciate heartbreak and melancholy and anger, emotions Jane might allow Lizzie to see direct, but no one else.
There was a letter from her sister Maria, full of complaints, so much like home Charlotte felt the refreshment of relief when she finished it, to look about Hunsford and see her own domain, run to her own direction. The night that letter arrived, Charlotte kissed her husband as soon as he came through the door, and laughed when he blushed, smiled sincerely when he muttered I say, Lottie.
Her pen flew. She responded to every letter she received the same day, except for Lizzie’s, as they required more thought, more argument. She spent her pin-money on the best ink and skirret seed, so she might grow enough to make her husband skirret frittered, fried and creamed, so he might not complain at the cost of having her post franked.
She wrote to Mary Bennett, suggesting the young woman read Sterne’s sermons and then Tristram Shandy. She wrote to her mother and asked for Cook’s best receipts for jugged hare, for a tonic for catarrh. She wrote to Miss de Bourgh, very carefully, extolling Rosings’ grounds, mentioning Herbert and more daringly, Donne, and was rewarded by short notes in an elegant hand inviting her to tea, asking her opinion on lemon curd.
When she told her husband, he kissed her as soon as he heard, muttering, I say, Lottie, well-done you. And then, how sweet you are, how lucky we are, and Charlotte didn’t feel she needed to argue with him.
She’d simply write about it to Lizzie. She’d write and invite her for a visit.
