#Jane Austen clearly wasn't thinking about ease of search on Tumblr

[bethanydelleman]

Have you ever done/do you know if there is a ranking of Jane Austen couples based on how long they knew each other before the proposal? Every time I reread Pride and Prejudice I can’t help but think about how little time Jane and Bingley have actually spent together

Jane Austen Charted #11!

This is a wonderful idea! I have it ready. Here are all the couples that marry in each book with sufficient data for me to record. This is from meeting to engagement:

Now if we put them in order of length, we can see just how very short some of these relationships were:

Caveats: I was as exact as possible, so for example, despite "knowing" Mr. Bingley for about a year, Jane only spent 6 weeks in his actual presence. I also took out Wentworth's absence from Anne from Dec to Feb 15 etc.

I want to say something about time not being the same. Harriet and Robert Martin were staying at the same house for 2 months, so that's a lot more face to face time than say Jane and Bingley, but I don't have a great way to represent that.

We do not have sufficient data for Jane Fairfax & Frank Churchill or Maria Bertram & James Rushworth, though I would estimate about 8 weeks for the latter couple. John Willoughby also knew Sophia Grey for an unspecified amount of time before the more official courtship and marriage. Mr. Weston and Miss Taylor is also unknown, Emma predicted it 4 years prior, but we can assume they had met before that time.

Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Collins knew each other for about 10 days before the proposal, but that did not result in a marriage. Henry Crawford and Fanny Price is again difficult, because while Henry and Fanny were introduced and “knew” each other, he didn’t pay attention to her until the Miss Bertrams left. Also did not end in a marriage. From "hole in her heart" to proposal was only about a month.

If we take out the outliers (Marianne and Colonel Brandon, Emma and Mr. Knightley, and Fanny and Edmund), we can see the longest period of knowing is Lydia and Mr. Wickham! But most are under 15 weeks or about 3.5 months

Of course, the length of time may not be important after all, Mrs. Croft says, "“We had better not talk about it, my dear... for if Miss Elliot were to hear how soon we came to an understanding, she would never be persuaded that we could be happy together. I had known you by character, however, long before.” - Persuasion

But yeah, from a modern perspective these lifelong decisions are happening pretty darn quick!

Sources:

David Shapard's The Annotated Pride and Prejudice

And these wonderful online calendars

http://mars.gmu.edu/bitstream/handle/1920/999/emma.calendar.html http://www.jimandellen.org/austen/persuasion.calendar.html http://mars.gmu.edu/bitstream/handle/1920/999/mp.calendar.html http://www.jimandellen.org/austen/na.calendar.html

#jane austen charted #jane austen #excellent question #interesting data #I just thought up another idea... #more charts on their way! #and now all the tags #pride and prejudice #sense and sensibility #northanger abbey #mansfield park #emma #persuasion #stupid meta posts and all their tags #I doubt emma is useful anyway #Jane Austen clearly wasn't thinking about ease of search on Tumblr