Here is a controversial statement: Marriage is an important source of happiness for most people.
Once upon a time, that statement would have elicited a yawn. It is akin to a “people need food to live” variety of comment.
Nowadays, however, them’s fightin’ words on a college campus and many other places beyond the gates. Hold that thought.
That Jane Austen is wildly popular is a truth universally acknowledged. Why? I have been puzzling about devotion to Austen for years. After all, she is not the only person who wrote romantic novels in the era. Sir Walter Scott was, once upon a time, vastly more popular. He also writes ridiculously well and his novels are set in that bygone era full of romance, fancy balls, and evening outdoor strolls.
Reading Mansfield Park, it became obvious that there is a huge difference between Scott and Austen. Indeed it is so obvious I wondered why I never noticed it before. Scott’s novels are about all sorts of things; politics and love and freedom loom large. Austen’s novels? Well, it turns out they all revolve around precisely one topic: marriage.
A plot summary of Mansfield Park would simply be a list of engagements and marriages, both desired and actual. Our heroine, Fanny, spends the whole novel waiting for the love of her life to shake off his infatuation with the beautiful, witty, mean girl and discover the wonders of his quiet, pleasant, devoted cousin. Along the way, Fanny must ward off the advances of the callow, scheming bad boy.
“My dear aunt, you cannot wish me to do differently from what I have done, I am sure. You cannot wish me to marry; for you would miss me, should not you? Yes, I am sure you would miss me too much for that.”
“No, my dear, I should not think of missing you, when such an offer as this comes in your way. I could do very well without you, if you were married to a man of such good estate as Mr. Crawford. And you must be aware, Fanny, that it is every young woman’s duty to accept such a very unexceptionable offer as this.”
This was almost the only rule of conduct, the only piece of advice, which Fanny had ever received from her aunt in the course of eight years and a half. It silenced her.
Fortunately in the end, the match made in Austen happens, just like it should in any fairytale. This is of course exactly the same ending as in every other Austen novel.
He was my epiphany…well assuming the definition of epiphany includes a new question. What if the popularity of Austen these days is simply a longing for a day when the importance of marriage was indeed a truth universally acknowledged?
Talking with college students about marriage is a curious thing. Most of my students do indeed want to get married, but they know better than to say that in public. On a college campus, marriage is, of course, a heteronormative institution reinforcing the patriarchy. Students know that the only goals they can discuss in public are their career plans. If a student were to say “You know…getting married and having kids is actually going to be a greater source of happiness in my life than my career will be,” I am pretty sure the sky would fall.
Even in private when a student talks about marriage the preferred form is universal: “First, I need to establish my career. Then I can marry someone and have kids.” When I ask the optimal age to get married, the answer is almost always “27 or 28.” It’s like they are all in the same social circle.
Then, when I ask how they are going to meet the person they want to marry when they are 27 or 28, there is an instant look of terror. No idea. If I ask what makes a good marriage, again no idea. We have an entire generation which has never contemplated the nature of love and marriage. We talk all the time about careers, and nothing about marriage.
As one of my insightful students recently remarked:
There are no cultural or societal models to explain how couples should structure expectations into their relationships. The old model that has the man that goes to work and is the head of the household and the woman as the person who watches the children, cleans and largely follows the man’s lead is something most people reject. Heterosexual couples especially struggle because they feel compelled by both traditional dynamics but also feel the need to reject them because they do not work today and leave most people unhappy. However, there is no new model for people to use so most couples fail because they cannot figure it out. No one teaches you in any part of your life how to structure a long term relationship or how to gain fulfillment from a marriage. We are just kind of expected to figure it out.
Now this student is every bit as clever and poised as Jane Bennet, but it is inconceivable that Jane would ever say something like that. Everyone in an Austen novel knows what marriage is and they all spend an enormous amount of time dreaming about and planning their married lives.
What happens when an entire generation grows up having absolutely no idea how to think about marriage? One thing that seems to happen is a fascination with Austen (and, truth be told, the Brontes). I am beginning to suspect that there is an inchoate yearning for a society in which marriage is not treated as that thing you might do when you are old, but rather that thing you desire when you are young. Few of my students will agree with that statement…in public.