“Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance” – P&P
Who has happy marriages?
Elizabeth believes that the “charm” of Charlotte’s “home and her housekeeping, her parish and her poultry, and all their dependent concerns” will fade. She believes Charlotte will ultimately be unhappy in her marriage, her earlier thought was that “it was impossible for that friend to be tolerably happy in the lot she had chosen”.
In the new adaptation The Other Bennet Sister, Mary Bennet tells Charlotte Collins that she learnt from her father that it was possible to be both married and miserable. (Video below) The book has a different fate for the Collins marriage: Mary’s connection with Mr Collins makes Charlotte jealous and prompts her to work on her relationship with him. In the series, Charlotte is jealous of Mary’s life choices, but Mary tells her Mr Collins has hidden depths.
Austen tells us that Mr Bennet, “captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good-humour which youth and beauty generally give, had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her. Respect, esteem, and confidence had vanished for ever; and all his views of domestic happiness were overthrown.” [italics mine] The only “happiness” he “owe(s) to his wife” is amusement at “her ignorance and folly.”
But he appears to have learnt his lesson. He warns Elizabeth that she can never be “happy or respectable” if she were “unable to respect (her) partner in life.” [italics mine] Just as in The Other Bennet Sister, Charlotte learns to make efforts with Mr Collins.