#Marianne and Lydia are considered on the young side

[skarabrae-stone]

I think there’s also the idea that an older man’s character is more established than a young one’s, and he’s probably also settled down from any rashness/wildness of youth. To take Jane Austen books as an example, Colonel Brandon and Mr. Knightley both are well known in their communities, and have a steadiness of temperament and moral compass that are well-known and well-proven. They’re not going to change.

Compare this to Frank Churchill, who, while well-meaning, persuades Jane Fairfax into a secret engagement, then selfishly pursues his own enjoyment at her expense-- it’s commented several times that his actions are typical of a young man, who would naturally be thoughtless, impulsive, and impractical. (For example, the whole thing with the piano is repeatedly brought up as a rather inconvenient and misguided gift, typical of a young lover.) Edward Ferrars also enters an ill-judged secret engagement as a young man, which he later regrets when he’s older and wiser.

Before he’s revealed to be a rake, Willoughby shows a lack of propriety by cutting a lock of Marianne’s hair when they’re not formally engaged and taking her on a tour of Allenham house, without a chaperone and without permission from the owner of the house. He also, like Frank Churchill, tries to give an impractical gift-- in this case, he wants to give Marianne a horse which she can’t afford and has no place to keep. Because his estate is not nearby, the Dashwoods have no opportunity of ascertaining his real character. His lack of regard for social mores is chalked up to his youth rather than a greater want of principle right up until he jilts Marianne, which means that Eleanor and Colonel Brandon are pretty much the only people who notice the red flags in his behavior. (And in Jane Austen, a lack of regard for social mores/propriety pretty much ALWAYS denotes a general lack of principle.)

In Persuasion, Mr. Eliot is older, and one of the reasons Anne is suspicious of him is that he can’t quite hide his youthful immorality. She notices that when he speaks of the past, there are former associates, practices, and behavior that don’t speak of a good moral character. She is suspicious that he has only grown more cautious, rather than changed in essentials-- and she ends up being proven right. The fact that he’s older means she has more clues to figure him out, and therefore get an accurate understanding of his character before it’s too late.

I also think that women who valued education/intellectual pursuits might have been more attracted to a man who was not only well-educated, but had been “out in the world” enough that she could learn from him. In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth considers one of the benefits of marriage with Darcy to be that he could help improve her mind, as his education and range of experience are superior to hers. Colonel Brandon is also implied to be a steadying influence on Marianne. The idea that a husband would help shape his wife’s mind and character was considered a good thing-- as long as the husband himself was actually worth emulating.

Basically, I think the idea that someone you already know is safe is a big part of it-- even if Jane Austen’s heroines don’t start out knowing the hero, they usually get to know the hero’s friends, relations, and even servants, share a house with him, and so on before actually marrying. But I also think, based on books from that time period, that it was considered pretty normal for young men to be a bit feckless and “unformed”, and to change as they got older. A man who had been around long enough to have developed a reputation based on his actions rather than simply being young and charming, and to have a steady, fully-formed character that would be unlikely to change, would therefore be a safer bet.

One thing I think is very interesting (but that I have no coherent thesis about) is how the age gap “I have known you all your life” romance between Emma and Mr. Knightley seems like a repeated trope in 19th century novels and is often framed as a really good thing (eg Mr. Brooke and Meg in Little Women)

It’s so weird to me and I have such inchoate thoughts about it because it’s a trope that’s aged like milk. My twenty-first century reaction to reading that Mr. Knightley’s known Emma since she was a literal child, or that Mr. Brooke got interested in Meg when she was only 17, is “NOPE NOPE NOPE”

But… on the other hand, marriage was SO DIFFERENT in the 19th century, and ideas of what it should do and what what you should consider going into it, and how it changes a woman’s status both legally and socially are also very alien now. If you are in a system where you are raised knowing that you must marry, that that’s the only right and respectable path in life BUT ALSO that your whole life from that point will be completely dependent ton your husband and his income and his decisions…

Well, “You’ve known this guy you’re whole life and he’s been consistently a good person to you,” is actually a really good argument in his favor? It makes for a really safe option in a time when you had to gamble on some dude willing to marry you. (But then I get to the point of, ‘well why the age gap then, what’s wrong with being the same age in the 19th century,’ and I’ve got some more thinking to do. Something something economic stability or maybe some weird social ideas about gendered maturity levels?)

[thatscarletflycatcher]

I think part of the "softening Austen" element, specially in modern adaptations, has to do with the story taking the format of a romcom. Both B&P and the Mormon P&P frame Lydia's rescue as a moment of excitement that catalyses the main leads happy ending; you can see this specially in the removal/heavily modification/shifting around of Lizzy's final confrontation with Lady Catherine, which IS the catalyst of Darcy and Lizzy's happy ending in the novel. I don't even remember if LBD had a Lady Catherine; it does follow more closely the book when it comes to Lydia, and because of these two things combined, IMO, gets the worst of both worlds. There isn't a high climactic moment, and Lizzy's character growth gets tied to Lydia's plot, as the writing blames her and Jane for not parenting Lydia (a WILD take considering both their parents are alive and kicking. I'm sure at a doylist level it was an issue of not casting Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, but that doesn't make it make any more sense at a watsonian level). The result is the same: Lydia's happy ending becomes inextricable from Lizzy and Darcy's happy ending in a way it doesn't in the original text.

There's also an element that, yes, Lydia is young and spoiled, but Darcy does try to get her to go home, and she refuses. Marianne Dashwood is a peak unpleasant teenager making stupid decisions out of youthful passion and inexperience, but is shown to have good qualities such as earnestness, some intelligence and a strong love for her family; Lydia has none of that. Austen wrote both (and in fact wrote Marianne earlier), so I feel like the accusations of misogyny are at least partial and narrowly focused on P&P. Sometimes people are infuriatingly stubborn and unreasonable independently of their age, and I feel that is the case with Lydia in the book. I feel like in a modern setting her story would be darker because realistically she'd be the sort of person that would jump from abusive relationship to abusive relationship (or yoyo in and out of the same abusive relationship)... but then people today are more likely to be isolated and don't be affected by family connections as much (at least in the type of socioeconomic setting an Austen would usually be fit), so... it's complicated.

In the end I think that changing Lydia's ending obeys to other reasons besides softening Austen, but softening Austen is undoubtedly a goal in adaptation, and I'm not sure adaptors are fully to blame; the success of Bridgerton points to how big the whole Fantasy Regency LandTM thing is, where audiences only want to hear about dukes and luxury and never be reminded of the ugly sides of the system in place.

Pride and Prejudice adaptations with a modern setting – e.g. The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Bride and Prejudice, Pride and Prejudice: A Latter-Day Comedy, Fire Island – seem to almost always save Lydia from Wickham in the end. Either Darcy stops the elopement, or the elopement is replaced with an online sex tape which is taken down. Wickham is either arrested or at least left behind permanently, and Lydia learns a lesson and gets a happy ending. Neither she nor the other characters have to live with her mistake for the rest of their lives the way they do in the original.

I've just been rereading several people's posts on this subject, and about Lydia's portrayal in general, which show some very different opinions about it all.

Of course, part of the issue is that in a modern setting, it's much easier to save Lydia. In most of the modern Western world, a teenage girl running off with a 30-year-old man would result in the man being arrested, not in their needing to get married to save both the girl's reputation and her whole family's. And even if they did get married, divorce is an option.

But I suspect the bigger issue is that Austen's original ending is considered cruel, unfair, and a product of outdated morals.

People view Austen as punishing Lydia for being a "bad girl" by leaving her trapped in a loveless marriage to a worthless man and always living on the edge of poverty, when by modern standards, she's guilty only of teenage foolishness. They accuse Austen of "making an example" of Lydia to teach young female readers how to behave, in contrast to the virtuous, well-behaved Elizabeth and Jane with their happy endings, and they call it anti-feminist.

Not only is Lydia's marriage bleak for her, it slightly mars Elizabeth and Darcy's happy ending too, as well as Jane and Bingley's. It means Wickham will always be a part of their lives, and for Lydia's sake, they're forced to treat him as a family member. Darcy is forced to financially assist his worst enemy – though at least he draws the line by not letting Wickham visit Pemberley – and even Jane and Bingley's patience is worn thin by the long periods of time Wickham and Lydia stay with them.

By modern standards of romantic comedy, this isn't normal. The heroine, the hero, and all their family and friends are expected to live entirely "happily ever after," while the antagonist – especially if he's a womanizer who preys on teenage girls – is expected to be punished, then never heard from again.

But of course, Austen didn't write simple romantic comedy. Her work was social commentary. Lydia's ending arguably isn't a punishment, but simply the only way her story could end without disgracing her or killing her off, and it arguably it serves less to condemn Lydia herself than to condemn the society that lets men like Wickham get away with preying on naïve young girls and forces their victims to marry them or else be disgraced forever. It also condemns the type of bad parenting that leads to Lydia's mistake. Lydia is the product of her upbringing, after all: between Mrs. Bennet's spoiling and Mr. Bennet's neglect, she's never had any decent parental guidance or protection. And our heroines, Elizabeth and Jane, both pity their sister and regret that marriage to Wickham is the only way to save her honor. No sympathetic character ever says she deserves it.

The fact that Lydia is trapped in a bad marriage, and that Wickham does go unpunished and the other characters will always have to tolerate him and even cater to him for Lydia's sake, arguably drives home Austen's social criticism. The fact that it adds bittersweetness to the otherwise blissfully happy ending is arguably part of the point. If we change it just to create a happier ending, or in the name of "feminism" and "justice for Lydia," doesn't that dilute the message?

Then there's the fact that by the standards of Austen's era, Lydia's ending is remarkably happy. She doesn't die, or end up abandoned and forced into sex work or a life of seclusion. Nor, despite Mr. Collins' recommendation, does her family cut ties with her: the ending reveals that Jane and Elizabeth regularly welcome her into their homes, and Elizabeth "frequently" sends her money. Other authors would have punished her much more severely.

But of course, that was a different time. While in Austen's original context, Lydia's fate might seem fairly happy and lenient, by modern standards it seems more cruel. And since most of the modern retellings that change her fate are screen adaptations, not books, maybe the difference in art form further justifies the change. I'm thinking of that post I recently reblogged, which argued that some of Austen's more "merciless" plot points would seem darker on film than in print, and therefore tend to be softened in adaptations.

So how should a modernized adaptation handle Lydia's ending? Is it better and more progressive when they save her from Wickham? Or for the sake of social commentary and retaining Austen's sharp edges, should the writers follow the book and find a way (not necessarily marriage to Wickham, but some modern equivalent) for her mistake to leave her trapped in a less-than-happy life, and add a slight bittersweet note to the other characters' endings too?

I think a case can be made for both choices and I'd like to know other people's viewpoints.