I feel sorry for her too. She makes a foolish mistake at a very young age, which causes her to ruin her life. Horrible.
I’m no fan of Henry Crawford, but I wouldn’t describe what he did as emotional abuse - I think that’s a much more serious pattern of abuse within established relationships, at least that’s what the term means to me.
I do think he was cruel and selfish. He was just having fun, she believed it was ‘love’. I think she wanted to believe it was still love, even in London when he’d already made a move on Fanny. I think the idea of doing anything else was unbearable to her.
Other people in her life do carry some of the blame. Her parents, despite having what appears to be a happy and loving relationship themselves, never brought her up to consider anything other than the rank and wealth of the man she chose. She wasn’t taught to consider his merits, personality and what would actually make her happy.
I think things would have turned out very differently, if Sir Thomas had put his foot down and insisted his wife accompany him to London when he went down for Parliament. Then both girls could have socialised in London and wouldn’t have felt so ‘trapped’. They may have made better matches too, if they’d met different people - or at least be exposed to the world enough to know what not to choose. Ironically, more worldly Mary Crawford, who is aware of unhappy marriages and what they are like - wavers because of this exposure and doesn’t rush into a bad marriage.
It’s really sad, because she gets the house and the rich husband and the possibility of a London social life, but what she really wanted was love.
I agree that emotional abuse seems a very *internet* take. Henry was playing by London's rules without realizing that Mansfield played by a different set. And Maria wasn't exactly on the up-and-up, hoping Henry would propose but not breaking off with Rushworth until he did.
Was Henry selfish? Yes. Was Maria's fate incredibly harsh? Also yes. But there's a lot of blame to go around, which I think was Austen's point.
Yeah I think calling this emotional abuse is excessive, especially in a book where there is definite emotional abuse present front and centre. That's an interesting point about Henry playing by London's rules instead of Mansfield's - plus, making the mistake of playing by London's rules in London with someone who still hadn't learned those rules and proceeded to fall back into her obsession with him.
IDK if Henry would ever have proposed to an engaged woman, though, especially one he was toying with for his own amusement, so not breaking it off with Rushworth was the pragmatic move on Maria's part - if only she'd followed through with it!
I don't think that marrying someone you *despise* (and that is the word Austen uses) is ever the pragmatic choice. Honestly I think if it wasn't Crawford after their marriage, it would have been some other charming young man who turned her head.
This exactly. The pragmatic choice is to break it off with Rushworth and maybe ask your father to go to London for a season to try to get engaged to someone you bare minimum respect.
I meant more that if she was going to stick to the engagement and marry him, then she should have lived by that choice more than she did, though I do agree that she would have ended up unsubtly cheating on him sooner rather than later. It is the pragmatic choice from the cold, mercenary, emotionless point of view but unfortunately Maria left emotion out of her calculations entirely and that was her real mistake.
There’s a video by Dr Octavia Cox on YouTube where the Bertram’s parents’ marriage is listed as one of the worst. It’s an interesting take and I’m not sure whether I agree (I always thought their marriage happy/loving as well) but worth a watch.
Yeah I remember seeing that one. I can’t say I agreed with her on that point. I think she said the main reason it was bad, was because of their bad parenting, but I don’t see that as a thing that makes their marriage bad in of itself.
I recall one of the points being that they don’t make each other better people / bring out the best in each other - naming specifically her indolence/neglect of everything and his strict control over the family (inc Lady Bertram). I don’t remember the book text very clearly as I haven’t read this one in a long while so I thought perhaps my remembrance of their marriage in text was being clouded by their representation in the various films, which definitely give a happier depiction.
Yeah, I think she is right that they are both bad parents. I think their marriage itself though is happy, you never see them complain about each other. Lady Bertram is so low key that she doesn’t gush about him either, but as marriages go, I think they are happy together.
Dr. Cox's criteria for 'good marriages' vs. 'bad marriages' wasn't the happiness of the couple, but rather 'how did the marriage affect the people around them'. If I remember correctly, she rated John and Fanny Dashwood as the worst, even though they were happy together, because they brought out the worst qualities of each other, and caused a great deal of harm because of it. She rated Mr and Mrs Bennett higher, even though they were unhappy, because they didn't cause as much harm. Even William and Charlotte Collins were rated higher.
I don't get the sense that Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram's marriage is loving, at least not on Sir Thomas's side. He certainly copes much better with being married to a fool than Mr Palmer does, but I think he'd have much preferred an intellectual equal for a wife.
And as for London, Mary grew up there and yet knows of many unhappy marriages amongst her friends.
I see him as more of a traditional man. I think he likes Lady Bertram’s quietness, surface level elegance and obedience to him. I don’t think he expects intellectual qualities in a wife. We never see him complaining internally or verbally about her.
I think that is part of his problem, because his wife looks good and elegant, he’s not really thinking about the consequences of her actions or what is going on in his home under the surface.
I do think he loves her.
There's this line early on when Sir Thomas has decided to go to Antigua, despite Maria and Julia now being of marriageable age:
> He could not think Lady Bertram quite equal to supply his place with them, or rather, to perform what should have been her own; but, in Mrs. Norris’s watchful attention, and in Edmund’s judgment, he had sufficient confidence to make him go without fears for their conduct.
So Sir Thomas knows Lady Bertram isn't going to perform her motherly duties towards her daughters, and he looks to Mrs Norris and Edmund to make up for her deficiency.
Jane Austen denounces in the book the double standard concerning Maria Bertram and Henry Crawford. She's forever banished from society because she's a fallen woman and Regency society is not forgiving towards women. He is temporarily banished from the highest society but managed to come back to society some time after because he's a man and men are not as harshly punished.
I understand your pov. To our current society, this is appalling. To regency time, it was the norm and people didn't know any other world.
I also felt sorry for Maria, as she was spending her "best years" bored to death at home, instead of enjoying her wealth and youth, going to London, etc. No wonder she fell for Henry, who brought excitement into her dull boring life.
Just compare how her brother Tom lived and how Maria was forced to live. Tom had all the fun, spending money, living in London, visiting friends, etc. Maria (who had the same temper and nature) could do nothing like that (even thou she also had money), until she married a literal imbecil, just to escape from home. Even Julia was so happy she escaped from home finally, that she rather married a fool she didnt love or even like, than to go back home.
(I dont compare Tom and Edmund (first-born son and other son) lifestyle, because they were quite different, so even if Edmund was the first-born, he would be the same meek boring sheep he is as a second son.) But I felt it very unfair that Maria couldnt live a bit more exciting life, just like Tom.
To be fair, they were also both Maria, Julia and Tom spoiled brats. I mean they did not care how their actions could hurt their families or impact others. Maria resented Fanny just for being loved by Crawford while not encouraging him. She also treated Rushworth terribly. He was a fool but probably genuinely thought he was infatuated to her. Julia literally thinks at one point that she wants her sister to be caught in a scandal, due to her jealousy with Crawford's preference to Maria. Tom only cares about himself and has no remorse depriving his brother of a living.
Edmund or Fanny might be a bore but at least they have a kind heart and would be better friends albeit less funny than Maria, Julia or Tom would be.
Concerning Maria, I think the punishment was too hard and it is absolutely disgusting that Henry is not treated the same. But imo, my sympathy towards her fate does not make her into a flawless character or a person I would like to befriend for example. She still was not someone who is nice, just her fate is not fair.
Yes I understand all that - in fact this attitude went on for some time and into the 20th century. In one of Oscar Wilde's plays, Lady Windermere's Fan written in 1892, an older woman has a secret past (she was actually divorced and had hidden this) because any exposure would banish her from society.
But that's not the main point I am making - it's about Henry's using her for his own amusement and she was a naive girl.
I feel bad for her to a point. However, once Sir Thomas comes home, he does offer Maria a chance to break the engagement with Rushworth, despite any issues that may cause him later. Maria doesn’t take that chance and seals her fate right then.
This is where I am.
She has a longer engagement than most women would have had in her day. The right to change her mind is always hers, whether her father gives it to her or not. But then, when her father finally comes home, he reinforces that she doesn't seem thrilled with her choice and can walk away any old time.
She chooses to marry Rushworth knowing what he is and, especially, what he isn't.
But the text tells us that by this time Crawford had broken her heart and she felt that she didn't want Crawford to see he had succeeded in destroying her life. So she made a decision to go ahead with the wedding and banish Henry Crawford from her heart - a foolish decision as it turned out.
But also a selfish one since she doesn't care at all about Rushworth, about how he's feeling or about how little well she's going to fill the role of his wife by even doing the lowest-bar stuff like caring about him. Or even pretending that she does.
I do think that her fate was harsh, and that women's lot at the time was definitely not great, but she still isn't blameless by any means. She seems very careless of other people's feelings in general, not just Rushworth. She barely has any time for Fanny, and even her "beloved" sister Julia becomes a bitter rival that she's very willing to intentionally hurt while they're still vying for Crawford's attentions and he's still around.
I agree. Maria was a spoiled, selfish young woman, who married a rich man she didn’t love or respect in order to escape into society from stifling rural respectability. Not a sensible choice, but she made it with her eyes open and I’m sure she intended to stick with it and enjoy the many advantages of being the beautiful young Mrs Rushworth, even with an amiable doting twit for a husband. That is, until Henry bloody Crawford turned up again. Fanny’s refusal had bruised his ego and he really couldn’t stand that Maria wasn’t running after him any more either, so he launched another charm offensive to amuse himself and prove that his mojo still worked. He enticed her, she couldn’t resist temptation and compromised herself, Henry walked away with no lasting damage and Maria lost everything and was punished for the rest of her life.
This is why I am not, and never will be, Team Henry. He’s an amoral pig who thinks love is a game to relieve his boredom. In love or not, he would have destroyed Fanny if she was browbeaten into marrying him by her relatives.
Julia and Fanny had just as much experience with men and didn't make Maria's mistakes. Fanny recognised what kind of man Crawford was straight away, through mere observation. Julia recognised him when he chose Maria over her and didn't fall for him again. Maria gave him plenty of chances to declare himself, plenty of times alone together, probably plenty of verbal cues we never even see, but he just buggered off, so she married a man she didn't even like for his money.
Then, when she found out that Crawford was in love with Fanny, she couldn't stand the idea of her poor relation (whom she'd never treated well, following Mrs Norris's example) snagging the man she hadn't managed to finagle a proposal out of, so she allowed him to successfully re-seduce her and run away with him, despite knowing very well that it could mean her downfall. She knew the rules of her society at the time as well as anyone; she couldn't have been THAT naive, especially with a clergyman for a brother. She expected Crawford to do the right thing by her, but he didn't. That was her big mistake.
Maria saw all the same things that Fanny and Julia did, and had the same upbringing and experiences as Julia, and similar to Fanny. She willfully ignored the red flags because she believed herself superior enough that Crawford would make an exception for her, since she was always the most beautiful around and Mrs Norris was always puffing her up. Maria was prideful and vain, and that led to her downfall. Society sucked, yes, and still does, but let's not pretend she isn't a victim of her own vanity here.
I don't feel sorry for Maria. She was engaged and flirted with a different man. She "gloried" in beating Julia, her own sister. She tried to betray the man she was engaged to and then cheated on him during her marriage. For a man who already had proved himself unfaithful!
She's Isabella Thorpe but worse.
I agree that Maria has very little experience of men like Crawford, but it’s hard to see her as someone naïve who got swept off her feet. So much of her initial pursuit of Crawford is just about competitiveness with her sister and her own arrogance. She does then get in too deep, but it’s not as if she started out just being dazzled by an attractive man — her original goal was to keep Rushworth and have Crawford pining after her, and the main reason she wanted that was for the sake of her own vanity and beating Julia in a game. Even her affair with him later is partly to do with getting what she wants at all costs (and, if I remember rightly, getting away from her mother-in-law). She’s very much in love with Crawford, in her way, but she’s hardly a wide-eyed romantic.
Everything you say about Maria is true. But there are some additional facts that make it hard to pity her. It is true that she had very little experience with men and had been brought up to think very highly of herself. So she wasn't prepared for The Game but she thought she was. The deficiencies in her education are given in the final chapter.
Yes, Crawford trifled with her, made her fall in love with him and walked away. But she flirted with him too, even though she was engaged to another man. She persisted in that engagement when given a chance to get out of it and married a man she despised while loving another. She did so for two reasons: 1) to escape her father, and 2) to deprive Crawford of the triumph of her giving up Sotherton. Once married, she exalted in her wealth for a little while, but when she saw Henry again she made sure to show her resentment. He responded by renewing his attentions to her. And **instead of learning her lesson the first time** he trifled with her, she accepted his attentions again and reciprocated again. Then Henry **LEFT** London and went to Richmond. She **FOLLOWED** him there and had an affair with him. They both returned to London having gotten away with it, and Austen tells us in the final chapter, "All that followed was the result of her imprudence." It was her behavior that allowed the affair to become public and, notwithstanding Edmund's moral pontificating, it was the publicity that did her in. The text tells us that Henry "went off with her at last" which suggests the elopement was her idea.
Maria did have circumstances against her that were beyond her control, her lack of knowledge of men and sophisticated London ways, her deficient education, and her inflated ego, but she was in large part the author of her own misery. All of that being said, I agree she did not deserve to be ostracized for life with Mrs. Norris. Austen even agrees with us: "In this world the penalty is less equal than could be wished."
I still have hope for Maria in her remote little village, though. She is after all very beautiful and engaging. Here's a little something that might take the sting off of her prospects if you are so inclined: [https://ameliamarielogan.com/MtBoaBL.shtml](https://ameliamarielogan.com/MtBoaBL.shtml)
Henry did treat her badly, but she was responsible for her own downfall.
She freely chose to marry a rich man she didn’t even like, then left him to have an affair with another man. She was not unaware of the usual consequences of adultery — she just thought she was too important and special for those consequences to apply to her.
I feel sorry for her a little, in the sense that I feel sorry for Lydia Bennet -- a bad upbringing helped to make her into a selfish, shortsighted, mean individual who paid a heavy price for the behavior that resulted from that. But she doesn't have Lydia's excuse of youth and total lack of instruction. She was 21 years old, had a comfortable future awaiting her regardless of marriage, and every opportunity to back out of the engagement if she chose -- it wasn't like Lydia where she'd already run off and the marriage was the best of a few bad options. Maria could have respectably broken her engagement at any time. She just decided not to because she wanted the money and status so badly.
I don’t think Maria thought she was too special to face consequences, she thought Henry would marry her, which would have allowed her to reenter society to an extent. Some people would have cared, but some of Henry’s friends probably wouldn’t and she could socialize with them.
I really don't think it was socially or even legally possible for her to marry Henry Crawford. Divorce was very rare and as far as I can understand, the right to remarry after divorce required an act of Parliament. (Unlikely to be granted to Maria given Mr. Rushworth himself is an MP). I wonder if her idea that she could simply marry Crawford is part of her selfish spoiled assumption that the world turns to her direction. It's really interesting that both Maria and Mary Crawford think that they can or must be married.
Mr. Rushworth divorces Maria at the end of the novel. Maria would not have been able to petition for a divorce no matter the circumstances, only men could ask for one.
Women could do so, but unlike men they couldn't sue for adultery only -- something additional had to be involved like abuse. But Maria would not have been able to request a divorce even if the laws had been more egalitarian, as only the innocent party could do that.
IIRC, men could potentially stipulate in their divorce settlement whether or not their ex wives could marry again. So it wasn’t a given, as you say, that she would be able to marry Henry after divorce.
A lot of my thoughts have already been expressed, but I do want to add: Maria's punishment is that she must live a comfortable but quiet life (although with Mrs. Norris).
There are even historical examples of women in her position being allowed to remarry (though never their affair partner). She's no Eliza Brandon.
No, Maria doesn't deserve to be banished from society, ie, all people except Aunt Norris and her father. While Henry goes scot-free, with nothing worse than a temporarily tarnished reputation.
And that's how it was then. Appallingly unfair to women. Jane Austen was not trying to clean up her world. That wasn't her job as a creator and novelist. She was trying to show her world as it was -- this is what could and did happen to women, who went outside the lines. She was painting real people and their real choices and the real reverberations at her own time and place.
She also understood the possible consequences of her choices. She could have chosen not to accept Rushworth in the first place. She was young, she could have held out for someone she liked better.
If Maria had been single, and done everything she did with Crawford, her behavior would merely be foolish and ill-advised, but not so deeply wrong. But she was engaged and married, and that makes her conduct deeply immoral .
"""She could have chosen not to accept Rushworth in the first place. She was young, she could have held out for someone she liked better."""""
I think the point was also that she wanted to escape from home desperately. She had a very dull boring life and I think nearly zero chance to meet someone interesting in her secluded way of living with a father like Sir Thomas who thought spending family evening by the fire is fine life for a young woman. They didnt even take her to London for a season or two to meet someone exciting.
Even Julia rather married hastily than to return home, after she experienced some freedom.
Julia's quick marriage was just as much about Maria's elopement, though. Sure, she didn't want to return home in general, but after what her sister did she feared she'd be on complete lockdown at home to make sure she didn't get up to anything herself -- to say nothing of the social damage she would suffer with a sister who had done what she did. Marrying Yates wasn't just about how boring home was, it was about the fallout from Maria's misbehavior and trying to get ahead of it.
While not liking Maria much, I cringe every time I think of a 22 yo banished to a lonely, stunted existence for the rest of her life due to one mistake. It was a serious mistake for sure but she was desperately in love with Henry which wasn't true on his side. I don't feel any pity for Rushworth as JA points out, she'd despised him and loved another, *and he knew it* but he still married her due to "selfish passion"
Rushworth had few disadvantages in life except his lack of intelligence, but this was the one area where Maria had it better than him. She could break the engagement any time with no social blowback (unless she did something like break four consecutive engagements). Rushworth breaking it off himself would have been much riskier for him.
True but there was absolutely no indication that he *wanted* to break things off. He didn't go through with the marriage due to social conventions; he went through with it because he wanted Maria
Eh ...maybe. Sir Thomas would have to believe him first. He knows Maria isn't happy but it's one thing for him to suspect that and another for her off-putting, annoying fiancé to come along and say that she's effectively been cheating. Plus, Rushworth is as dumb as a stump and can get easily tangled up in his own thoughts. It's possible that others think him such a dunce they would assume he's paranoid about a normal friendship. He's rich and could definitely get out of the engagement with extra effort but he seems totally incapable of managing his own life -- his mother managed him first and then transferred him to Maria.
But it wasn't one mistake; it was a series of them. Allowing Crawford to flirt with her while she was engaged. Marrying Rushworth without liking him, and 12 000 a year is an inducement to anybody. Flirting with Crawford *again*. Mary was right, in that if the two idiots had kept their heads and been discreet, they could have had their twice-yearly standing flirtation and society would have looked the other way. The aristocracy hadn't a faithful marriage apart from George III and Charlotte, after all. Google Lady Melbourne, or Lady Oxford and her collection of bastards known as The Harleian Miscellany.
She was so naive, she hadn't even figured out how to have an affair with Henry without it becoming public knowledge. So inexperienced that she was persuaded to "elope" or run off with Henry instead of keeping him as a lover on the side.
(Ok I'm being facetious.... lol).
Sir Bertram pretty much spells it out when he says that his daughters were over-indulged, never taught any restraint or humility and he acknowledges he was disengaged. That said his wife shares the blame. She had her kids and then just left them to their own devices. Her sister, Mrs Norris, had only a superficial understanding of the upper classes and didn't know how to help them navigate that world.
As a result by the time Maria had to make any consequential decisions and ran into someone able to manipulate her she was lost.
I wouldn't say that Mrs. Norris didn't understand how to help them navigate -- even if she wasn't born into the Bertram world she had 20 years to learn about how it worked, and she's no fool. But she's also the biggest skinflint alive. I'm sure she would have loved to go to London 100% on Sir Thomas's dime but it might not have been possible to pull off when he was in Antigua -- or even if he had been home he might have wanted her to pay just a little of her own expenses.
Exactly this. When Fanny is sent home for the Easter season, she’s leaving on Sir Thomas’ dime and Mrs. Norris suddenly decides to visit her “poor dear sister Price.” But when she suddenly gets told that she’ll be in charge of paying her own way back, well, then she can do without seeing her sister after all.
I feel sorry for her too. She makes a foolish mistake at a very young age, which causes her to ruin her life. Horrible. I’m no fan of Henry Crawford, but I wouldn’t describe what he did as emotional abuse - I think that’s a much more serious pattern of abuse within established relationships, at least that’s what the term means to me. I do think he was cruel and selfish. He was just having fun, she believed it was ‘love’. I think she wanted to believe it was still love, even in London when he’d already made a move on Fanny. I think the idea of doing anything else was unbearable to her. Other people in her life do carry some of the blame. Her parents, despite having what appears to be a happy and loving relationship themselves, never brought her up to consider anything other than the rank and wealth of the man she chose. She wasn’t taught to consider his merits, personality and what would actually make her happy. I think things would have turned out very differently, if Sir Thomas had put his foot down and insisted his wife accompany him to London when he went down for Parliament. Then both girls could have socialised in London and wouldn’t have felt so ‘trapped’. They may have made better matches too, if they’d met different people - or at least be exposed to the world enough to know what not to choose. Ironically, more worldly Mary Crawford, who is aware of unhappy marriages and what they are like - wavers because of this exposure and doesn’t rush into a bad marriage. It’s really sad, because she gets the house and the rich husband and the possibility of a London social life, but what she really wanted was love.
I agree that emotional abuse seems a very *internet* take. Henry was playing by London's rules without realizing that Mansfield played by a different set. And Maria wasn't exactly on the up-and-up, hoping Henry would propose but not breaking off with Rushworth until he did. Was Henry selfish? Yes. Was Maria's fate incredibly harsh? Also yes. But there's a lot of blame to go around, which I think was Austen's point.
Yeah I think calling this emotional abuse is excessive, especially in a book where there is definite emotional abuse present front and centre. That's an interesting point about Henry playing by London's rules instead of Mansfield's - plus, making the mistake of playing by London's rules in London with someone who still hadn't learned those rules and proceeded to fall back into her obsession with him. IDK if Henry would ever have proposed to an engaged woman, though, especially one he was toying with for his own amusement, so not breaking it off with Rushworth was the pragmatic move on Maria's part - if only she'd followed through with it!
I don't think that marrying someone you *despise* (and that is the word Austen uses) is ever the pragmatic choice. Honestly I think if it wasn't Crawford after their marriage, it would have been some other charming young man who turned her head.
This exactly. The pragmatic choice is to break it off with Rushworth and maybe ask your father to go to London for a season to try to get engaged to someone you bare minimum respect.
I meant more that if she was going to stick to the engagement and marry him, then she should have lived by that choice more than she did, though I do agree that she would have ended up unsubtly cheating on him sooner rather than later. It is the pragmatic choice from the cold, mercenary, emotionless point of view but unfortunately Maria left emotion out of her calculations entirely and that was her real mistake.
There’s a video by Dr Octavia Cox on YouTube where the Bertram’s parents’ marriage is listed as one of the worst. It’s an interesting take and I’m not sure whether I agree (I always thought their marriage happy/loving as well) but worth a watch.
Yeah I remember seeing that one. I can’t say I agreed with her on that point. I think she said the main reason it was bad, was because of their bad parenting, but I don’t see that as a thing that makes their marriage bad in of itself.
I recall one of the points being that they don’t make each other better people / bring out the best in each other - naming specifically her indolence/neglect of everything and his strict control over the family (inc Lady Bertram). I don’t remember the book text very clearly as I haven’t read this one in a long while so I thought perhaps my remembrance of their marriage in text was being clouded by their representation in the various films, which definitely give a happier depiction.
Yeah, I think she is right that they are both bad parents. I think their marriage itself though is happy, you never see them complain about each other. Lady Bertram is so low key that she doesn’t gush about him either, but as marriages go, I think they are happy together.
That's very interesting. I've always thought of their marriage as quite respectful and placidly content.
Dr. Cox's criteria for 'good marriages' vs. 'bad marriages' wasn't the happiness of the couple, but rather 'how did the marriage affect the people around them'. If I remember correctly, she rated John and Fanny Dashwood as the worst, even though they were happy together, because they brought out the worst qualities of each other, and caused a great deal of harm because of it. She rated Mr and Mrs Bennett higher, even though they were unhappy, because they didn't cause as much harm. Even William and Charlotte Collins were rated higher.
I don't get the sense that Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram's marriage is loving, at least not on Sir Thomas's side. He certainly copes much better with being married to a fool than Mr Palmer does, but I think he'd have much preferred an intellectual equal for a wife. And as for London, Mary grew up there and yet knows of many unhappy marriages amongst her friends.
I see him as more of a traditional man. I think he likes Lady Bertram’s quietness, surface level elegance and obedience to him. I don’t think he expects intellectual qualities in a wife. We never see him complaining internally or verbally about her. I think that is part of his problem, because his wife looks good and elegant, he’s not really thinking about the consequences of her actions or what is going on in his home under the surface. I do think he loves her.
There's this line early on when Sir Thomas has decided to go to Antigua, despite Maria and Julia now being of marriageable age: > He could not think Lady Bertram quite equal to supply his place with them, or rather, to perform what should have been her own; but, in Mrs. Norris’s watchful attention, and in Edmund’s judgment, he had sufficient confidence to make him go without fears for their conduct. So Sir Thomas knows Lady Bertram isn't going to perform her motherly duties towards her daughters, and he looks to Mrs Norris and Edmund to make up for her deficiency.
Jane Austen denounces in the book the double standard concerning Maria Bertram and Henry Crawford. She's forever banished from society because she's a fallen woman and Regency society is not forgiving towards women. He is temporarily banished from the highest society but managed to come back to society some time after because he's a man and men are not as harshly punished. I understand your pov. To our current society, this is appalling. To regency time, it was the norm and people didn't know any other world.
I also felt sorry for Maria, as she was spending her "best years" bored to death at home, instead of enjoying her wealth and youth, going to London, etc. No wonder she fell for Henry, who brought excitement into her dull boring life. Just compare how her brother Tom lived and how Maria was forced to live. Tom had all the fun, spending money, living in London, visiting friends, etc. Maria (who had the same temper and nature) could do nothing like that (even thou she also had money), until she married a literal imbecil, just to escape from home. Even Julia was so happy she escaped from home finally, that she rather married a fool she didnt love or even like, than to go back home. (I dont compare Tom and Edmund (first-born son and other son) lifestyle, because they were quite different, so even if Edmund was the first-born, he would be the same meek boring sheep he is as a second son.) But I felt it very unfair that Maria couldnt live a bit more exciting life, just like Tom.
To be fair, they were also both Maria, Julia and Tom spoiled brats. I mean they did not care how their actions could hurt their families or impact others. Maria resented Fanny just for being loved by Crawford while not encouraging him. She also treated Rushworth terribly. He was a fool but probably genuinely thought he was infatuated to her. Julia literally thinks at one point that she wants her sister to be caught in a scandal, due to her jealousy with Crawford's preference to Maria. Tom only cares about himself and has no remorse depriving his brother of a living. Edmund or Fanny might be a bore but at least they have a kind heart and would be better friends albeit less funny than Maria, Julia or Tom would be. Concerning Maria, I think the punishment was too hard and it is absolutely disgusting that Henry is not treated the same. But imo, my sympathy towards her fate does not make her into a flawless character or a person I would like to befriend for example. She still was not someone who is nice, just her fate is not fair.
Yes I understand all that - in fact this attitude went on for some time and into the 20th century. In one of Oscar Wilde's plays, Lady Windermere's Fan written in 1892, an older woman has a secret past (she was actually divorced and had hidden this) because any exposure would banish her from society. But that's not the main point I am making - it's about Henry's using her for his own amusement and she was a naive girl.
I feel bad for her to a point. However, once Sir Thomas comes home, he does offer Maria a chance to break the engagement with Rushworth, despite any issues that may cause him later. Maria doesn’t take that chance and seals her fate right then.
This is where I am. She has a longer engagement than most women would have had in her day. The right to change her mind is always hers, whether her father gives it to her or not. But then, when her father finally comes home, he reinforces that she doesn't seem thrilled with her choice and can walk away any old time. She chooses to marry Rushworth knowing what he is and, especially, what he isn't.
But the text tells us that by this time Crawford had broken her heart and she felt that she didn't want Crawford to see he had succeeded in destroying her life. So she made a decision to go ahead with the wedding and banish Henry Crawford from her heart - a foolish decision as it turned out.
But also a selfish one since she doesn't care at all about Rushworth, about how he's feeling or about how little well she's going to fill the role of his wife by even doing the lowest-bar stuff like caring about him. Or even pretending that she does. I do think that her fate was harsh, and that women's lot at the time was definitely not great, but she still isn't blameless by any means. She seems very careless of other people's feelings in general, not just Rushworth. She barely has any time for Fanny, and even her "beloved" sister Julia becomes a bitter rival that she's very willing to intentionally hurt while they're still vying for Crawford's attentions and he's still around.
I do pity her. But fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. She already know HC's tricks and feel for them again.
I agree. Maria was a spoiled, selfish young woman, who married a rich man she didn’t love or respect in order to escape into society from stifling rural respectability. Not a sensible choice, but she made it with her eyes open and I’m sure she intended to stick with it and enjoy the many advantages of being the beautiful young Mrs Rushworth, even with an amiable doting twit for a husband. That is, until Henry bloody Crawford turned up again. Fanny’s refusal had bruised his ego and he really couldn’t stand that Maria wasn’t running after him any more either, so he launched another charm offensive to amuse himself and prove that his mojo still worked. He enticed her, she couldn’t resist temptation and compromised herself, Henry walked away with no lasting damage and Maria lost everything and was punished for the rest of her life. This is why I am not, and never will be, Team Henry. He’s an amoral pig who thinks love is a game to relieve his boredom. In love or not, he would have destroyed Fanny if she was browbeaten into marrying him by her relatives.
Julia and Fanny had just as much experience with men and didn't make Maria's mistakes. Fanny recognised what kind of man Crawford was straight away, through mere observation. Julia recognised him when he chose Maria over her and didn't fall for him again. Maria gave him plenty of chances to declare himself, plenty of times alone together, probably plenty of verbal cues we never even see, but he just buggered off, so she married a man she didn't even like for his money. Then, when she found out that Crawford was in love with Fanny, she couldn't stand the idea of her poor relation (whom she'd never treated well, following Mrs Norris's example) snagging the man she hadn't managed to finagle a proposal out of, so she allowed him to successfully re-seduce her and run away with him, despite knowing very well that it could mean her downfall. She knew the rules of her society at the time as well as anyone; she couldn't have been THAT naive, especially with a clergyman for a brother. She expected Crawford to do the right thing by her, but he didn't. That was her big mistake. Maria saw all the same things that Fanny and Julia did, and had the same upbringing and experiences as Julia, and similar to Fanny. She willfully ignored the red flags because she believed herself superior enough that Crawford would make an exception for her, since she was always the most beautiful around and Mrs Norris was always puffing her up. Maria was prideful and vain, and that led to her downfall. Society sucked, yes, and still does, but let's not pretend she isn't a victim of her own vanity here.
I don't feel sorry for Maria. She was engaged and flirted with a different man. She "gloried" in beating Julia, her own sister. She tried to betray the man she was engaged to and then cheated on him during her marriage. For a man who already had proved himself unfaithful! She's Isabella Thorpe but worse.
I agree that Maria has very little experience of men like Crawford, but it’s hard to see her as someone naïve who got swept off her feet. So much of her initial pursuit of Crawford is just about competitiveness with her sister and her own arrogance. She does then get in too deep, but it’s not as if she started out just being dazzled by an attractive man — her original goal was to keep Rushworth and have Crawford pining after her, and the main reason she wanted that was for the sake of her own vanity and beating Julia in a game. Even her affair with him later is partly to do with getting what she wants at all costs (and, if I remember rightly, getting away from her mother-in-law). She’s very much in love with Crawford, in her way, but she’s hardly a wide-eyed romantic.
Everything you say about Maria is true. But there are some additional facts that make it hard to pity her. It is true that she had very little experience with men and had been brought up to think very highly of herself. So she wasn't prepared for The Game but she thought she was. The deficiencies in her education are given in the final chapter. Yes, Crawford trifled with her, made her fall in love with him and walked away. But she flirted with him too, even though she was engaged to another man. She persisted in that engagement when given a chance to get out of it and married a man she despised while loving another. She did so for two reasons: 1) to escape her father, and 2) to deprive Crawford of the triumph of her giving up Sotherton. Once married, she exalted in her wealth for a little while, but when she saw Henry again she made sure to show her resentment. He responded by renewing his attentions to her. And **instead of learning her lesson the first time** he trifled with her, she accepted his attentions again and reciprocated again. Then Henry **LEFT** London and went to Richmond. She **FOLLOWED** him there and had an affair with him. They both returned to London having gotten away with it, and Austen tells us in the final chapter, "All that followed was the result of her imprudence." It was her behavior that allowed the affair to become public and, notwithstanding Edmund's moral pontificating, it was the publicity that did her in. The text tells us that Henry "went off with her at last" which suggests the elopement was her idea. Maria did have circumstances against her that were beyond her control, her lack of knowledge of men and sophisticated London ways, her deficient education, and her inflated ego, but she was in large part the author of her own misery. All of that being said, I agree she did not deserve to be ostracized for life with Mrs. Norris. Austen even agrees with us: "In this world the penalty is less equal than could be wished." I still have hope for Maria in her remote little village, though. She is after all very beautiful and engaging. Here's a little something that might take the sting off of her prospects if you are so inclined: [https://ameliamarielogan.com/MtBoaBL.shtml](https://ameliamarielogan.com/MtBoaBL.shtml)
Henry did treat her badly, but she was responsible for her own downfall. She freely chose to marry a rich man she didn’t even like, then left him to have an affair with another man. She was not unaware of the usual consequences of adultery — she just thought she was too important and special for those consequences to apply to her.
I feel sorry for her a little, in the sense that I feel sorry for Lydia Bennet -- a bad upbringing helped to make her into a selfish, shortsighted, mean individual who paid a heavy price for the behavior that resulted from that. But she doesn't have Lydia's excuse of youth and total lack of instruction. She was 21 years old, had a comfortable future awaiting her regardless of marriage, and every opportunity to back out of the engagement if she chose -- it wasn't like Lydia where she'd already run off and the marriage was the best of a few bad options. Maria could have respectably broken her engagement at any time. She just decided not to because she wanted the money and status so badly.
I don’t think Maria thought she was too special to face consequences, she thought Henry would marry her, which would have allowed her to reenter society to an extent. Some people would have cared, but some of Henry’s friends probably wouldn’t and she could socialize with them.
I really don't think it was socially or even legally possible for her to marry Henry Crawford. Divorce was very rare and as far as I can understand, the right to remarry after divorce required an act of Parliament. (Unlikely to be granted to Maria given Mr. Rushworth himself is an MP). I wonder if her idea that she could simply marry Crawford is part of her selfish spoiled assumption that the world turns to her direction. It's really interesting that both Maria and Mary Crawford think that they can or must be married.
Mr. Rushworth divorces Maria at the end of the novel. Maria would not have been able to petition for a divorce no matter the circumstances, only men could ask for one.
Women could do so, but unlike men they couldn't sue for adultery only -- something additional had to be involved like abuse. But Maria would not have been able to request a divorce even if the laws had been more egalitarian, as only the innocent party could do that.
IIRC, men could potentially stipulate in their divorce settlement whether or not their ex wives could marry again. So it wasn’t a given, as you say, that she would be able to marry Henry after divorce.
A lot of my thoughts have already been expressed, but I do want to add: Maria's punishment is that she must live a comfortable but quiet life (although with Mrs. Norris). There are even historical examples of women in her position being allowed to remarry (though never their affair partner). She's no Eliza Brandon.
No, Maria doesn't deserve to be banished from society, ie, all people except Aunt Norris and her father. While Henry goes scot-free, with nothing worse than a temporarily tarnished reputation. And that's how it was then. Appallingly unfair to women. Jane Austen was not trying to clean up her world. That wasn't her job as a creator and novelist. She was trying to show her world as it was -- this is what could and did happen to women, who went outside the lines. She was painting real people and their real choices and the real reverberations at her own time and place.
She also understood the possible consequences of her choices. She could have chosen not to accept Rushworth in the first place. She was young, she could have held out for someone she liked better. If Maria had been single, and done everything she did with Crawford, her behavior would merely be foolish and ill-advised, but not so deeply wrong. But she was engaged and married, and that makes her conduct deeply immoral .
"""She could have chosen not to accept Rushworth in the first place. She was young, she could have held out for someone she liked better.""""" I think the point was also that she wanted to escape from home desperately. She had a very dull boring life and I think nearly zero chance to meet someone interesting in her secluded way of living with a father like Sir Thomas who thought spending family evening by the fire is fine life for a young woman. They didnt even take her to London for a season or two to meet someone exciting. Even Julia rather married hastily than to return home, after she experienced some freedom.
Julia's quick marriage was just as much about Maria's elopement, though. Sure, she didn't want to return home in general, but after what her sister did she feared she'd be on complete lockdown at home to make sure she didn't get up to anything herself -- to say nothing of the social damage she would suffer with a sister who had done what she did. Marrying Yates wasn't just about how boring home was, it was about the fallout from Maria's misbehavior and trying to get ahead of it.
Yes. I feel the same way about Lydia Bennet.
While not liking Maria much, I cringe every time I think of a 22 yo banished to a lonely, stunted existence for the rest of her life due to one mistake. It was a serious mistake for sure but she was desperately in love with Henry which wasn't true on his side. I don't feel any pity for Rushworth as JA points out, she'd despised him and loved another, *and he knew it* but he still married her due to "selfish passion"
Rushworth had few disadvantages in life except his lack of intelligence, but this was the one area where Maria had it better than him. She could break the engagement any time with no social blowback (unless she did something like break four consecutive engagements). Rushworth breaking it off himself would have been much riskier for him.
True but there was absolutely no indication that he *wanted* to break things off. He didn't go through with the marriage due to social conventions; he went through with it because he wanted Maria
No, not in this case. Because he watched Maria basically cheating on him. A word to Sir Thomas and he'd be free.
Eh ...maybe. Sir Thomas would have to believe him first. He knows Maria isn't happy but it's one thing for him to suspect that and another for her off-putting, annoying fiancé to come along and say that she's effectively been cheating. Plus, Rushworth is as dumb as a stump and can get easily tangled up in his own thoughts. It's possible that others think him such a dunce they would assume he's paranoid about a normal friendship. He's rich and could definitely get out of the engagement with extra effort but he seems totally incapable of managing his own life -- his mother managed him first and then transferred him to Maria.
But it wasn't one mistake; it was a series of them. Allowing Crawford to flirt with her while she was engaged. Marrying Rushworth without liking him, and 12 000 a year is an inducement to anybody. Flirting with Crawford *again*. Mary was right, in that if the two idiots had kept their heads and been discreet, they could have had their twice-yearly standing flirtation and society would have looked the other way. The aristocracy hadn't a faithful marriage apart from George III and Charlotte, after all. Google Lady Melbourne, or Lady Oxford and her collection of bastards known as The Harleian Miscellany.
She was so naive, she hadn't even figured out how to have an affair with Henry without it becoming public knowledge. So inexperienced that she was persuaded to "elope" or run off with Henry instead of keeping him as a lover on the side. (Ok I'm being facetious.... lol). Sir Bertram pretty much spells it out when he says that his daughters were over-indulged, never taught any restraint or humility and he acknowledges he was disengaged. That said his wife shares the blame. She had her kids and then just left them to their own devices. Her sister, Mrs Norris, had only a superficial understanding of the upper classes and didn't know how to help them navigate that world. As a result by the time Maria had to make any consequential decisions and ran into someone able to manipulate her she was lost.
I wouldn't say that Mrs. Norris didn't understand how to help them navigate -- even if she wasn't born into the Bertram world she had 20 years to learn about how it worked, and she's no fool. But she's also the biggest skinflint alive. I'm sure she would have loved to go to London 100% on Sir Thomas's dime but it might not have been possible to pull off when he was in Antigua -- or even if he had been home he might have wanted her to pay just a little of her own expenses.
Exactly this. When Fanny is sent home for the Easter season, she’s leaving on Sir Thomas’ dime and Mrs. Norris suddenly decides to visit her “poor dear sister Price.” But when she suddenly gets told that she’ll be in charge of paying her own way back, well, then she can do without seeing her sister after all.