Marriage

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”

Pride and Prejudice

The famous opening line of one of Jane Austen’s best loved novels is possibly the most fitting summary of Georgian attitudes towards marriage. To both men and women of the gentry, a good match satisfied a range of criteria, including the ideal of uniformity and character, alongside improving the family’s prospects. Once they were married, they would leave their own family and be embraced by their marital family, becoming another sibling to their in-laws.

Male heirs were expected to marry women of ‘good breeding’ and prosperous families to secure the family name and legacy, while their younger brothers would either marry an heiress who would too secure them financially or simply make a good match depending on their family’s wishes. For women, however, their only role in adulthood it seemed was to marry well, gaining them status and financial security and providing their husbands with an heir. As summarized by historian Amanda Vickery “getting married was the most decisive act a lady could do” (see The Gentleman's Daughter). So how would this affect sibling relationships?

Jane Austen believed,

“everybody [has] a right to marry once in their lives for love”

Jane Austen, by her sister Cassandra

which is why she places so much emphasis on it in most of her novels. Marriages of convenience were more realistic than the ‘love’ matches in Austen‘s novels and accepting marriage proposals was deemed a sense of duty to one’s family rather than to oneself. Hence, the uproar in Pride and Prejudice  when Elizabeth Bennet rejects her cousin’s proposal of marriage despite the fact she would be securing herself and saving her sisters and mother from hardship after their father’s death. Though this never happened to the Bennet family, in a real Georgian family rejecting such an offer of marriage would be devastating for the family. Within Austen’s own family, her rejection of Harris Bigg-Wither’s (a wealthy heir) proposal caused much tension between herself and her mother. Therefore we can question how engagement and marriage affected sibling relationships, and whether they caused more tension than ease.

Marriage seemed to be a recurrent topic of conversation in the letters between Jane Austen and her sister Cassandra. Whilst both believed in marrying for affection over anything else, they acknowledged that:

"Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor, which is one very strong argument in favour of matrimony"

So if they could marry for love and also ensure financial security for themselves, they would be fulfilling their duties to their family and embracing “the manoeuvring business” of marriage. However, Cassandra’s engagement to Thomas Fowle was extended for many years, as insufficient funding on the part of them and their families meant they were unable to marry. This did not so much cause tension between Cassandra and her family, but rather intensify her relationship with Jane as the one person she could consult on the matter.

Silhouette of Cassandra Austen

Evidently, marriage created stronger bonds between families, especially if they were both nuclear families. This kind of connection can be seen in correspondence between the individual and their future in-laws. As seen in the letters between Mrs George Austen (Jane Austen’s mother) and her future daughter-in-law Mary, all the family were delighted with the news of her engagement to Frank Austen;

“when we assure you that we feel the most beautiful satisfaction at the prospect we have of adding you to the number of our very good children”

It is clear here that the spouse of the said sibling would be welcomed into the nuclear family almost automatically and become another child and sibling within their marital family. However, the marriage of one sibling could potentially cause tension between the parents and their other children. Now that the fourth son was engaged, speculations began as to when the other Austen children were to marry. Mrs George Austen emphasises this at the end of her letter to Mary

“I look forward to you as a real comfort to me in my old age when Cassandra is gone into Shropshire & Jane, the Lord knows where…Farewell for the present my dear Mary, and believe me every your most affectionate”

Though it may seem pushy of her to be marrying off all of her children, it was important for the mother that her sons married well, because it would be her daughter-in-law’s responsibility to care for her in her old age. This was increasingly important, because Mrs Austen’s own daughters would enter the same roles within their own husband’s family, so in a way she needed to replace her own daughters with daughters-in-law. So ultimately, Mrs Austen, like most gentry wives and mothers of her time, only wanted what was best and to take comfort in seeing all her children happy and settled, fulfilling her role as a mother and wife.