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Jane Austen's novels primarily concern themselves with moral education. Is it possible to ruin good breeding with poor moral education? This was actually a somewhat scandalous take back then.
The primary application of Pride and Prejudice today is to present young women with caution about their selection of mates. Which is a very worthy task, even if half the class is male and might not see the point (though the truly wise will understand what make's Austin's heroes the hero and not the villain, and maybe learn from that.)
It's arguably a pretty scandalous take here and now.
I think we struggle right now with the opposite question: are there some people whose poor breeding cannot be improved with a good moral education?
It's not "the opposite question" it is the same question.
That question is which has the greater effect, education or breeding?
It's perfectly possible that bad education can ruin good breeding, but bad breeding can't be improved by good education. In short, the relationship may be asymmetrical.
Anyone can make a tall man short by cutting off his legs, but good luck making a short man tall.
Bullshit, either education has a sufficiently large effect size to overcome breeding or it does not.
Why should the world be so convenient? Give Albert Einstein enough alcohol and you can make him a slurring, slumped vagrant. But there is nothing you can drink that will turn you into Albert Einstein.
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The boys can learn from Darcy and Bingley and Mr. Bennett and Mr. Collins and Wickham. Darcy nearly ruins his chances by appearing proud (really he's mostly socially awkward and bad at expressing himself) because he unthinkingly sticks to the rigid social hierarchy of the time. He does have a strong moral foundation, though, and is capable of thinking for himself without needing to destroy all the rules (that last is important, I think; you can change and grow but that doesn't mean you have to be radical rebel punk burn it all down).
Bingley is just a sweetheart who deserves to be happy and he gets to be happy.
Mr. Bennett is a neglectful parent. He may be unhappy in his marriage (which was for love, or at least lustful attraction between him and his wife, so it was not well-established from the start) but retreating into his library, indulging his favourite daughter, and neglecting his other daughters and responsibilities to them is not the way to do it. The estate is entailed so when he dies, his daughters will be turned out and have nothing to live on. That's why Mrs. Bennett is so anxious to get them all married off and settled as fast as she can. His neglect bears fruit in Lydia's caprice and what happens to her, and too late he decides to be more strict with Kitty so she won't turn out the same way.
Wickham is the superficially charming 'cool' guy who presents himself as a victim but who has not taken useful advantage of the help he received, instead he permitted envy and entitlement to shape his actions, and now he's basically a con man living off his wife and her in-laws, being bribed to shut up and go away quietly.
Making a good marriage is also an important message for the boys as demonstrated in this novel; Mr and Mrs Bennett's marriage was imprudent, Wickham's father was drowned in debt by his wife's extravagance, Mr. Collins is trying to marry based not on his own choice and judgement but 'what will please my patroness?', and Darcy almost runs off the rails by how he treats Elizabeth ("your family is terrible, I am lowering myself by being associated with them, but in spite of all the bad things this union will bring, I condescend to propose to you" is not a good way to propose marriage!) and Wickham runs himself into a shotgun marriage where his tricks of trying to compromise a rich girl in order to force such a marriage get turned on him (he runs off with Lydia but never intended to marry her). He's been fortune-hunting, the male equivalent of a gold-digger (there's another heiress he tries to nab but is foiled) and ends up caught in his own trap.
Bingley probably has the smoothest, most trouble-free, romance and marriage of them all, and that's because both he and Jane are good people. He's not foolishly proud, he's not marrying simply because of lust, she's not wealthy herself but she's a good match due to her character and upbringing, and they genuinely fell in love. Walk the middle path between greed (marriage based only on personal advantage and pecuniary gain) and lust (marriage based only on romantic and sexual attraction), be sensible, and you have the best chance of being happy.
Excellent post!
As an aside we need more adaptations with a hot MILF Mrs. Bennett, she's only in her 40s and supposedly a complete smoke-show. Her character becomes so much more layered if you imagine her as coming into the room with "hot chick at the club" type energy only to get brushed off.
That would be funny, adaptations tend to make the Bennetts older side of middle age. They both probably assumed they'd have a son to inherit the estate, I wonder if the five daughters were the results of efforts to get that son.
Once the New Relationship Energy wore off, they found they had nothing in common. Mr. Bennett couldn't share his intellectual interests with her and she couldn't get him to be interested in her social ambitions and (later) worries about marrying the girls off.
Still hot MILF Mrs. Bennett would be a great role in any new adaptation!
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Isn’t that part of the point? Mr. Bennett is a weak man who married the uncouth but gorgeous party girl. He made a bad choice but never had the spine to guide her to a better path.
In the the Book? Yes. I think a lot of the film adaptations end up missing out by casting Mrs. Bennett as a silver-haired matron and Mr. Bennett as a dottering old man, rather than as they were originally described.
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