Marriage, Community and Austen – Part 2

In the novel Pride and Prejudice Mrs. Bennet’s attitude toward marriage can be taken to be representative of her community’s, though not the author’s – the language used to describe Mrs. Bennet is clearly one of criticism (see previous post).

But perhaps we cannot totally blame Mrs. Bennet to have such a view of marriage, since that seemed the best and sometimes only option for a girl in that society. A girl with little fortune and no connections seemed to have few choices open to her, as is the case with Charlotte Lucas who, despite being a sensible and intelligent girl, accepts to marry a man who her friend for very good reasons refused. On a personal level, Mr. Collins is “a conceited, pompous, narrow-minded, silly man”, yet on a social level he fares better: he is the rector of a parish, he has a parsonage, connections and Lady Catherine de Bourgh as his patroness. So he can provide for Charlotte all that she could look for in a husband: someone to give her “a comfortable home” and security, which is probably the most important reason for her to want to marry such a man. What Austen is trying to show here is less a criticism on Charlotte’s character than on the society of 19th century England. A society which provides little security and almost no chance of happiness for women outside marriage and which makes its members give up their personal feelings in favour of worldly advantage.

Marriage, Community and Austen

Jane Austen is definitely one of my favourite authors, but her Pride and Prejudice has to be not only a favourite of mine, but also, I believe, her masterpiece. I cannot get bored of it and to prove that, I have watched the movie seven times as well as the TV series, and read the book three times! What follows is a closer look at one of the social aspects of the novel: marriage.

If we take Pride and Prejudice as representative of 19th century England, or even as a community on its own, Austen gives a clear picture of the conventions and customs established within this society or community. She also reveals her own views and judgments regarding these conventions. The subject of this and the following posts is to look at how Austen presents the conventions concerning marriage present in the society at the time the novel was written. The argument presented shows how she criticized some of the ways in which these conventions worked in the society.

The very first lines of the novel opening with the famous sentence “It is a truth universally known that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife” serves to do just that: in this community daughters must be married off. This “truth” is “so well fixed” in the community that any man with such a fortune is “considered as the rightful property” of their daughters. The very tone of the narrative sets forth the attitude of the author toward this “truth”. The irony and satire with which this “truth” is presented indicates criticism. This criticism is further enhanced in the conversation between Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, where the latter expresses how she wishes Mr. Bingley, whom she knows nothing about except that “he is a single man of large fortune”, to marry one of her girls. Mrs. Bennet, then upon Mr. Bennet’s apparent ignorance, goes on to say that though he has no “design” in settling in Netherfield, “it is very likely that he may fall in love” with one of the Bennet girls. These opening sentences, therefore, give us a feeling of the community, of which Mrs. Bennet may be taken as a representative, its ruling conventions, and the attitude of the writer. We are assured that it is not only Mrs. Bennet who holds such views and that it is truly a “universal” matter since it was Mrs. Long who told her the news and that “Sir William and Lady Lucas are determined to go”. Even all throughout the novel Mrs. Bennet’s attitude on the subject little changes and she remains determined to have all her daughters “well married”. And since we are told that “She was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper” with “manners so far from right”, we can rightly take it that her way of life was not much approved of by the author.

The Plane Crash in Iran

The tragic plane crash which happened on Wedenesday has left many mourning and bewildered. Unfortunately there were no survivors. Words cannot describe the depth and the pain of this tragedy.

Many facts are still unknown about this incident and the government is still investigating the matter.

My heart and prayers go out to all the families who lost their loved ones and may they have forbearance to deal with this hurtful incident.

God bless the souls of all those who were killed and may they find peace in the hereafter. Amen

Veiled Justice

Marwa Sherbini was brutally murdered by her offender in a German courtroom, but one cannot but wonder as to how anyone - let alone an offender to be tried - could be and should be allowed to bring in a knife; and how the stabber, identified as Axel W, was allowed to stab her 18 times before security or police interfered and shot her husband instead!

Surely security in a courtroom is much tighter than that and is expected to intervene and stop any such incident, should one at all occur, with the second or at most the third stabbing, it is usually...isn’t it?

Another thing which struck me as a surprise was the comparatively small number of articles which were dedicated to this matter (when I searched on Yahoo no more than a handful appeared; this came as a surprise since usually similar incidents of injustice are dealt with more meticulously).

Whatever the details, the mere occurrence of such an incident clearly marks it out as a tragic case of injustice which has been committed against humanity and should be a concern for all the world and not just Muslims, for as the saying goes: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

And also, what about the greater injustice: women abused and mistreated in their own countries and in most cases their stories never hitting the news and never getting heard? Especially in societies where even the law offers little or no protection for women, and is written to the advantage of men – in which case the crime against women is not even treated as a crime! What hope is there in such situations and where can a woman run to when her own government and people are turning a blind eye to a terrible injustice?

Forever: good or bad?

Imagine living in a world where everything could last forever. Everything was certain and fixed. We’d wake up every morning with the knowledge that the world was as we left it yesterday. We’d be sure that our happiness lasted, that we would always be around to enjoy all we had. How wonderful would that be...or would it?

Now imagine in that world we were given pain and misfortune instead of happiness. We would wake up every day with the horrible knowledge that we had another day of misery ahead of us and we had forever to suffer in that pain. Even if our share was only happiness, the same old routine everyday would be monotonous and boring. There would be no hope of any improvement or change. Now that isn’t very pleasant, is it?

The best thing about life, I feel, is its uncertainties. We wake up every day not knowing what exactly to expect. Happiness may not last forever, but nor does pain. Everything is transient and that makes us savour our good times and tolerate our bad times. Because we know that the next moment it may all be gone. We go to bed every night with a new hope, a new life and a new tomorrow. Our dreams, though distant, may come true in this world, because nothing is for sure. There is always room for improvement and change, change for the better as well for the worse! Now this life I like.

The Objective Universe and Our Subjectivity

It may seem from what I have written so far that I view the world as completely subjective and all values as relative. On the contrary, I cannot for one moment believe that there are no higher transcendent and objective values to which we could cling and on which we could base our lives.

I strongly believe in the existence of some higher values such as Truth, Justice, Love, etc. which are the Ultimate, and towards which all other values are directed. The problem, or rather the situation, is that though we may believe in them and even seek them in our lives we do so based on our subjectivity. In our search for the Ultimate we all arrive at some smaller truths which may be far from our real destination and we usually substitute the appearance of truth for Truth. But this is not entirely a bad thing. For after all we look at and for things through our own subjective eyes and opinions. And I believe if we persist in our goal toward the Ultimate transcendent Values which define all other values, we are likely to arrive at the desired place or at least near enough to it.

Our universe is an objective one and its Laws, Rules and Principles are permanent, fixed and unchanging. What varies is our perception of this objective universe. As a general rule, we all value and believe in justice, freedom and beauty, but our specific definitions of them vary. So what are in fact transcendent and universal values are seen, defined and practiced through our ‘subjective’ perceptions of them. In this sense an ‘objective’ universe is described ‘subjectively’ by everyone.

What is important here is to remember this subjectivity: to remember that we are each a member of the whole human race, with individual values, beliefs and perceptions. To live in harmony we need to understand, love and respect each other’s needs, worlds and beliefs.

As a last point I would like to add that if you find yourself in disagreement with what I have just described, don’t worry: it is simply because your ‘subjective’ perceptions of the world vary from mine!

‘It wasn’t MY fault!’

The comments I received from Connie on my previous post about the subjectivity of our world encouraged me to write once again on this topic and treat yet another aspect of what I believe is our subjectivity. It concerns the way we try to make up for our shortcomings and mistakes.

It is a habit most unwholesome and yet very welcome when we tend to blame others for what are in reality our own faults. It is always much easier and more appealing to point the finger at someone else. I am not saying that everything we do or whatever happens to us is a direct result of our own actions and that we are to be blamed for everything that goes wrong. What I’m pointing at here is how we make scapegoats of everything and everyone else to avoid admitting our own responsibility in the matter. A common example is not managing to arrive on time and excuses vary from ‘traffic jams’ to ‘bad weather’ for what in fact might have been our own lack of time management. The list is endless and books could be – and might have been – written about all the cover ups we use to make up for our problems. And they have penetrated into our lives so much that a lot of the time we come to believe in our own make-believe stories and substitute a subjective view of the world for a fair and true one.

This is even true of governments and politics. They always have someone or something to blame for their own shortcomings. On a larger scale, the West blames the East and the East blames the West. This habit of passing the blame has become so common and useful (!) that sometimes I wonder if we would have been able to manage our lives had there been no East, no West or no evil to be punished ... I really do wonder!