Anguished over Romantic Choices? A Lesson from Jane Austen

What do you do when you are anguished by some choice, especially when it comes to Romance? What do you do when you have too many or too few options to choose from and don't quite know how to make a choice? Jane Austen is brilliant in navigating through the inner psychology of this anguished choice. Jane Austen provides a crucial lesson in navigating the romantic choices; relevant for people living in modernity, sometimes paralyzed choices we face.

To understand the anguished choice of Jane Austen's society, it helps to know the social ramifications of the emerging Industrial Revolution and the vestiges of the Feudal world. This double-wammy was deeply consequential for women back then. Before Industrial revolution so much of the work was happening in house holds. For example, clothing was made in homes. Back then the terms "spinsters" referring to unmarried was not a pejorative term, rather it was their esteemed,occupation. Unmarried women stayed in the home of the joint family spinning threads to fabric in order to earn their keep. 

With the advent of industrial revolution, and manufacturing moving outside of home, into the domain of men primarily, women no longer could contribute to the economy. This meant that the woman's survival was dependent on getting married off well. In this setup the choice of who to marry is enormously consequential to the woman. If a woman got married to a guy with an huge estate, she was settled for life. Darcy represents this gentry class, at the top of this food chain as the most eligible bachelor in town. If she missed the gentry class, then the second best option was a barrister or a parson. In the book, Collins represents this class of men. If a woman cannot land at this level, then she was doomed to be reduced to become a governess for life, if not servant or a peasant. This meant that women, deprived of any economic freedom, often had to choose between their desire for romance and riches. A tyrannical predicament for women!

In Pride and Prejudice, this tension between romance and riches provides an intimate glimpse into the internal workings of the mind of an intelligent woman of that time. Pride and Prejudice has some really intelligent women and men and some really foolish women and men. Collins is one of those really foolish men without an iota of self-awareness, but not lacking illusions of self-importance. Yet, Collins-like men try to shamelessly take advantage of women in finding themselves in a precarious position. Collins' proposal to Elizabeth is that if she turns him down, she would not have another offer. Speaking of creepy proposals!

In this world, so unkind to women, Elizabeth has the choose between two alternative way of deciding where to fall in the romance vs riches spectrum - pragmatism and emotionalism. Pragmatism means she has to marry the one who is rich enough even if there isn't any romance in the relationship. Emotionalism is to just go with the feel of things, this would value romantic feelings over whether the other person is worthy of it or not. Elizabeth's Mom is a pragmatist, she is upset that Elizabeth turned down Collins. Elizabeth's Dad is on her side, but cautions that romanticism comes with a sense of big risk, if she does not find love - she may never be married again, or worse relegated to a peasant life.

In the movie different women opt for different sides of the romantic decision making process. Jane's friend Charlotte opts for pragmatism and marries the stodgy, self-important, stupid Collins because he is a parson and has a steady income. He is her fail safe against getting chucked into the peasant class. Her reasoning is not different from Jane's Mom. Jane Austen disagrees with her reasoning telling her she shouldn't marry for purely pragmatic reasons.  What is romance worth? As per Charlotte, not worth waiting beyond 27!

Then on the other end of the spectrum is Jane's sister Lydia who marries by the logic of pure emotionalism. She opts for the dashing Whickam, in spite of his being a scoundrel. Whickam had professed false love for Darcy's sister to get his hands on her inheritance, then broke her heart when he realized he wouldn't get that money. In fact, Darcy paid Wickham a handsome sum get him to marry Lydia. Of course, Elizabeth's Mom is happy for this shame marriage. What is romance worth? As per Lydia, getting married to a scoundrel, if he is dashing enough!

Now here is the problem for Elizabeth. She cannot genuinely go down the way of Charlotte's pragmatism or of Lydia's  emotionalism. She has turned down Collins. On a side note, Jane Austen, in her own life turned down the proposal from a guy who was Collinish. Speak of art imitating life! Now, here is the kicker... Elizabeth gets proposed to by Darcy, the richest, handsomest and most eligible guy in town. Shockingly, she turns him down because she, among other things,  thinks his "proud" character is not worth being in love with. What is romance for her? This is the key question. How does Elizabeth decide who the right person for her is in this world where the odds are stacked against her? If she did not find the guy, she would risk becoming a peasant. Is waiting to find love, worth risking a peasant life. 

How does she navigate through this anguished choice? Here is where Jane Austen is brilliant. MacIntyre is a Scottish philosopher who says that Jane Austen's heroines often are very intelligent women who start off with some kind of flaw in how they see themselves and the world. Then in the process of the story they realize the mistake in how they see the world around them and get in touch with their true self, thus  getting in touch with their true telos, then they know who to fall in love with. What does telos mean how is it related to who you love?

MacIntyre borrows the word telos from Aristotle. Aristole says that there are 4 causes to all things. The first cause is the formal cause. If there is a pen the formal cause is the form of the design of the pen. The second is the material cause. In a pen the material cause is stuff with which the pen is made from - the plastic, the steel, the ink. Then there is the efficient cause, which is the maker of the pen - with the pen unless it is a hand crafted fountain pen, a machine makes the pen. Then there is the final cause, the true telos, - the purpose of the pen... to write something meaningful. MacIntyre's point is that in the transition through enlightenment, the final cause was missed. In modernity we have improved on the formal cause, efficient cause, material cause but missed the final cause. 

How does MacIntyre's telos principles apply to Jane Austen's anguished romantic choice? Elizabeth starts off with a persona of irony... she uses irony as a way of laughing at people and keeping her distance. As a satrist, she judges Darcy too harshly and turns him down. After turning down Darcy's proposal, she visits his castle-home, Pemberly. Here two things happen.

1. She sees the refined taste with which he has decorated the place. She hears how his servants appreciate him as a wise and kind employer, "He is the best landlord, and the best master... that ever lived". This servant's esteemed appraisal revises her view of Darcy. In fact in the book Austen comments on how Elizabeth as a new vision of Darcy, "As a brother, a landlord, a master, she considered how many people’s happiness were in his guardianship!" 

2. As she see Darcy differently, she also thinks of herself differently. Beneath the satirist single woman persona, she really desires to be the wise wife of an intelligent man, "And this place (under Darcy's guardianship)... I might have been its mistress." She realizes that her real telos, or true goal, is to be a wise wife of the wise Darcy instead of putting on the satirical woman persona.

Then she realizes that he is the only guy whose intelligence is her match - and she realizes her true telos is with him. It is only with him that she can be her true intelligent self. 

Here is the lesson on dating - if one is not in touch with ones telos - one's true purpose in life, one cannot escape the anguish of dating choice. Without the true self-recognition of telos, one's choices is relegated to pragmatism or emotionalism. Elizabeth is able to navigate through that anguish when she realizes that her true self aligned with Darcy's. The key turning point is that of her getting in touch with her own telos through the process of seeing Darcy in new light. 

I want to shift to theology a bit now... Can this principle help us understand the Bible better. In the Roman world... when Christianity was spreading Christians had a similar choice in front of them... do they go down the pathway of Stoicism which is similar to the Charlotte rationale of pragmatism or Epicurianism which is the Lydia rationale. So when talking to them Paul, towards the end of his letter 1 Cor, goes into a long section of talking about the Gospel. Here is the fascinating piece he does not talk about the Gospel as forgiveness of sins the way we normally do, rather, he talks about it from the point of view of Resurrection. Having Resurrected life as telos means that Christians do not need to fear death, freeing them to choose wisely. What he is really trying to do there is he is making a move similar to Jane Austen - he is helping the Corinthians see that their true telos or true purpose is the resurrected life. Paul's hope is that aligning with the telos of resurrected life will help Corinthian church to make healthy choices.

Jane Austen's lesson to us is that when one is anguished with one's own personal romantic choices, instead of following Charlotte in her pragmatic rationalism, or Lydia in her emotionalism, we can follow Elizabeth in aligning ourselves to our true end. To recognize your one's true end, one has to be willing to accept faults and look at others and oneself with new eyes. As Paul says for Christians this telos is the resurrected life. This telos is what C.S.Lewis refers to as he says that Christians of the ancient times were people who had a heavenward view of life, but in the transition to modernity we have become too focused on happenings of  this earthly life. Losing that heavenward view, has caused us to be traumatized by the existential freedom to choose (Thanks Sartre!). Perhaps, it shouldn't be surprising that we, the modern, this-worldly neurotics, stymied with limitless choices find Jane Austen's world quaintly attractive!