The Business of Marriage

Emma Plans a Match
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"Ever since the day—about four years ago—that Miss Taylor and I met with him in Broadway Lane, when, because it began to drizzle, he darted away with so much gallantry, and borrowed two umbrellas for us from Farmer Mitchell's, I made up my mind on the subject. I planned the match from that hour; and when such success has blessed me in this instance, dear papa, you cannot think that I shall leave off match-making." Emma chapter 1.

Event:   JASNA CWNY November Meeting

Topic:    "The Business of Marriage" 

                A talk by Alice Villaseñor, JASNA CWNY member

When:    Saturday, November 20, 2021 at 1 pm EDT
Where:   Online through Zoom, pre-registration required

 Registratrion:    Click HERE to register

In Jane Austen's Regency, marriage was a serious business. Financial concerns were often just as important as matters of the heart. In Sense and Sensibility, Elinor and Marianne discuss just how much wealth is necessary for a happy marriage.

"Elinor, for shame!" said Marianne, "money can only give happiness where there is nothing else to give it. Beyond a competence, it can afford no real satisfaction, as far as mere self is concerned."

"Perhaps," said Elinor, smiling, "we may come to the same point. Your competence and my wealth are very much alike, I dare say; and without them, as the world goes now, we shall both agree that every kind of external comfort must be wanting. Your ideas are only more noble than mine. Come, what is your competence?"

"About eighteen hundred or two thousand a year; not more than that."

Elinor laughed. "Two thousand a year! One is my wealth! I guessed how it would end." Sense and Sensibility chapter 17.

In Emma the plot revolves around Emma's attempts to arrange a marriage for her young friend Harriet. Of course Emma is totally inept at the business of marriage and fails spectacularly in her attempts to arrange an appropriate match.

At our November meeting, Dr. Alice Marie Villaseñor, Associate Professor of English at Medaille College, will explain the economic and social structures of Regency England that frame the marriage plot of Jane Austen’s Emma. Please join us by registering using the link above.