#wickham enjoys himself in london and bath

[mysunfreckle]

When it comes to adaptations of Pride & Prejudice, especially modernised versions, it's always quite clear that Jane Austen is a lot harsher towards Lydia Bennet than we are generally comfortable with nowadays. She's barely sixteen and yet is held fully responsible for all of her actions and thereby deserving of how she ends up (with Wickham).

But there's something else that I think is integral to Lydia's character and her treatment in the narrative: she is not sorry and she is not miserable. And while her gleeful "Lydia was Lydia still" attitude just after she got married could be just another piece of evidence that she's simply too unprincipled to feel any sort of shame, all the information we get about her future implies that she pretty much stays that way:

Whenever [Lydia and Wickham] changed their quarters, either Jane or [Elizabeth] were sure of being applied to for some little assistance towards discharging their bills. Their manner of living, even when the restoration of peace dismissed them to a home, was unsettled in the extreme. They were always moving from place to place in quest of a cheap situation, and always spending more than they ought. His affection for her soon sunk into indifference: hers lasted a little longer; and, in spite of her youth and her manners, she retained all the claims to reputation which her marriage had given her. Though Darcy could never receive him at Pemberley, yet, for Elizabeth’s sake, he assisted him further in his profession. Lydia was occasionally a visitor there, when her husband was gone to enjoy himself in London or Bath; and with the Bingleys they both of them frequently stayed so long, that even Bingley’s good-humour was overcome, and he proceeded so far as to talk of giving them a hint to be gone.

It is very likely Lydia does not enjoy being poor, but she has no qualms about asking her sisters for money. And while I presume Wickham isn't faithful to her (especially not when "enjoying himself" in London or Bath), it says in the text that her affection for him only lasts "a little longer" than his for her.

It is remarked upon that Wickham and Lydia's characters "suffered no revolution from the marriage of her sisters" and, although she is always refused, she keeps trying to get Kitty to visit her with the promise of balls and young men.

Compare this to how Maria Betram's future is sketched at the end of Mansfield Park:

It ended in Mrs. Norris’s resolving to quit Mansfield and devote herself to her unfortunate Maria, and in an establishment being formed for them in another country, remote and private, where, shut up together with little society, on one side no affection, on the other no judgment, it may be reasonably supposed that their tempers became their mutual punishment.

No such promise of punishment for Lydia! If she really stays "Lydia still; untamed, unabashed, wild, noisy, and fearless", perhaps she is allowed to skip through her unsatisfactory marriage with the same energy she skipped into it: flirting left and right, spending all her money, and thinking only of her own enjoyment.

Which is probably the kindest ending the story can give her, considering she insisted on marrying Wickham.

[bethanydelleman]

The Three Possible Fates of Fallen Women

Jane Austen offers three possible fates for women who are entangled in sexual misconduct: To be sure, it would have been more for the advantage of conversation had Miss Lydia Bennet come upon the town; or, as the happiest alternative, been secluded from the world, in some distant farmhouse.

"Come upon the town" means fall into prostitution. Now let's forget for a second how horrible Meryton is being (Wouldn't it be better for gossip if she was ruined forever?) Jane Austen has actually explored all three fates that are mentioned around Lydia Wickham.

In Sense & Sensibility, Eliza Brandon, the divorced and disgraced love of Colonel Brandon, was found by him in a sponging house, probably dying of syphilis, after falling into a life of either prostitution or becoming several people's mistress. "I could not trace her beyond her first seducer, and there was every reason to fear that she had removed from him only to sink deeper in a life of sin."

Then, in Mansfield Park, Maria Rushworth, also disgraced and divorced, ends up in a distant farmhouse with Mrs. Norris, "It ended in Mrs. Norris’s resolving to quit Mansfield and devote herself to her unfortunate Maria, and in an establishment being formed for them in another country, remote and private, where, shut up together with little society, on one side no affection, on the other no judgment, it may be reasonably supposed that their tempers became their mutual punishment."

We often think that Lydia has the worst fate, but of the three she seems to have the best. Eliza Brandon and Maria Rushworth suffered far more. All three women were failed by their male guardians/fathers and we see the three possibilities, prostitute/mistress, banishment, or married to an unworthy man. Fortunately for Lydia, her sisters will keep her from anything worse.