Her reasons for wanting to marry Mr Watts are purely materialistic, and dominated by her pride. After describing his ‘extremely disagreeable’ character, Mary talks of Mr Watts’ ‘large fortune’. This was the prime reason for women to marry because in Austen’s time most ‘genteel’ women could not get money except by marrying for it or inheriting it. Few occupations were open to women, and those that were paid very little. This shows us again why it was so important for women such as Mary to marry, and to do so with a reasonable amount of money involved. There were few alternatives.
Mary’s pride is also the reason why she chooses to accept the offer. Being able to ‘triumph’ over her sisters and friends with status is a main priority to her. She says that she ‘could not bear’ either of her sisters to be married before her because society at the time considered it correct for daughters to be married in age order. As Mary is the eldest of the girls this requirement of society is therefore very important when making her decision.
Mary does however have reasons against marrying Mr Watts, which illustrates the more contemporary view, ‘I shall be miserable all the rest of my life’ she realises when describing his unattractive character. However, the attraction to money, pride, and social status prove too strong and as a result Mary is prepared to live a miserable life in order to triumph over other women. This decision illustrates how money and social position were everything as married women had far more social status than a spinster, who was pitied and patronised.
However, Mary’s character is exaggerated as a result of satire. Jane Austen wields this by taking known characteristics to an extreme to show the reader the situation women were faced with, and the stupidity of it. She creates a selfish, fickle, shallow character in Mary to illustrate how she has been swayed by society’s requirements. Due to this it is wrong to judge Mary by our contemporary standards. If she did not marry the alternatives included such jobs as becoming a teacher or governess, and these were both looked down upon by society. It was therefore essential that a character such as Mary’s married when given the chance.
In letter two we are introduced to mother, who takes the role of both parents as the girls appear to be fatherless. It is essential that the mother ‘settles’ her daughters or they could end up destitute with nothing. This was the worst possibility for women of Austen’s time and it helps us to understand why the mother is especially keen to get one of her daughters married to Mr Watts. He has much in his favour including money and status, which again were considered everything. However, like Mary, mother does not appear to have a liking for Mr Watts but the fact that she is willing to have one of her daughter’s marry him illustrates how women were forced to live by society’s requirements, even if it meant unhappiness, ‘I am determined not to let such an opportunity escape of settling one of my daughters so advantageously’, she says to Mary.
She also does not appear to set much store by romantic love, but marriage at the time was more of a social and economic agreement, rather than for compassionate reasons. We therefore cannot judge the girls’ mother by our contemporary standards. Settling her daughters well was desperately important if they were to have any sort of life at all and she is typical of many mothers at the time. Her behaviour can therefore be justified as caring for her daughters.
By this point in the story we can begin to form an idea of where Jane Austen’s sympathies lie. She didn’t believe that women should marry just in order to be ‘respectably settled’; consequently none of the heroines in her six novels does this and she herself refused a marriage proposal from a prosperous man.
The third letter written by Georgiana outlines the plan that Mary’s two younger sisters hatch. They do this to make Mary marry Mr Watts and in doing so prevent themselves being forced to marry him. The plan plays on Mary’s attraction to pride, money and social status, as she has already declared that she ‘could not bear’ her younger sisters to be married before her. They therefore imply that they will marry him given the chance, which inevitably causes Mary to accept his offer for herself.
Sophy and Georgiana’s plan shows that their expectations of marriage are more contemporary, and that they have more insight into the real nature of marriage than Mary. Austen uses sarcasm to reveal Mary’s petty and fickle expectations when Georgiana says that Mr Watts himself cannot make Mary happy, but ‘his fortune, his name, his house, and his carriage will’. Together Sophy and Georgiana represent Austen’s own views, as Georgiana tells us that ‘These things however would be no consolation to Sophy or me for domestic misery’.
The humour that Austen uses in Sophy and Georgiana’s description of Mr Watts rehearses many arguments with wider implications. ‘He is rather plain to be sure’ we are told, ‘but then what is beauty in a man; if he has but a genteel figure and a sensible face’. The sarcasm here is showing us that women had to marry such vulgar men as Mr Watts just to fit in with society. There is no apparent sense of the love and companionship needed for a marriage to work, and this is what Jane Austen opposed. The way in which Sophy and Georgiana go against social convention in their ideas illustrates this view.
The comic highpoint of the story comes when Mr Watts arrives and the bargaining ensues. Mary proceeds to tell him of all the things she expects with the marriage including ‘diamonds such as never were seen’, ‘a new saddle horse’ and ‘a suit of fine lace’ to name but a few. Her shallow, self-centred character is exposed once again here, and Austen goes on to have her obsessing about the carriage.
In Austen’s time married women were often given their own carriage, and the height at which it was ‘hung’ acted as a status symbol. Mary therefore desires a carriage ‘hung as high as the Duttons’ and goes so far as to insist upon it being ‘blue spotted with silver’. Mr Watts however disagrees with her high expectations, showing us that women had to be content with what they were given. Apart from pin-money, they had few rights or property of their own, and this is the matter that Mary and Mr Watts actually bargain over, with Mary demanding two hundred a year, and Mr Watts offering less. Pin money was an allotment of money to be spent as the woman wishes, including on clothing and adornment, and not for household necessities.
Mary’s fairy tale idea of marriage carries on through letter three, and from this we not only learn a great deal about Mr Watts’ character, but also of the lives and pastimes of the rich through her demands. They appear to hold no true values of the love involved in a marriage, but for the materialistic side that brings with it social status and pride.
Mr Watts’ character is revealed in this letter as uncaring and cold. He, like Mary, appears to have no sense of the real meaning of marriage. The fact that he is willing to marry either of the sisters shows his perception of marriage and expectation of women clearly. He sees women as an accessory that will bear children to become heirs to his money and possessions. As the mother says, he just ‘wishes to be allied to the family’. Through Mr Watts we can also see how women were treated and expected to behave, ‘She must not expect to go to Town or any other public place for these three years’ he insists. Women were not only restricted in this way, but society required them to also be quiet, demure and compliant.
Sophy’s response to marriage later in this letter again shows the modern view that Jane Austen believed in herself. She tells Mr Watts that she expects her husband to be ‘good tempered and cheerful’ and to consult her happiness ‘in all his actions’ loving her with ‘constancy and sincerity’. This realistic, modern view was very rare in Austen’s time, but shows through this character that Jane Austen understood the meaning of marriage better than the people around her.
On the basis of this story, we can see that genteel young ladies of this era could have expected married lives of misery, with no independence or freedom to express themselves. The pressures on women caused by marriage being the only socially-approved outlet were very great, and we learn this through the characters in the story. Women had very few alternatives, and even these were looked down upon by society.
The story harshly exposes Mary’s character, but in my opinion, the blame is not all placed on Mary and the story implicitly criticises the social realities which lead a weak character like Mary’s to make the choice that she does.
I believe Jane Austen tries to make a real point about the stifling nature of marriage when reduced to an economic bargain through her story, encouraging the reader to change their outlook.
As Austen matured with age, it is clear in her later writing that her views matured also and her characterisation became more subtle and rounded. However her message is still clear in encouraging us to consider the real nature of marriage, in a society of harsh requirements.
