Lady Susan

Throughout the novella, Austen demonstrates how important marriage is as it concerns one’s social positionality, an aspect of one’s character that is itself of the utmost importance to the 18th century landed gentry. Women within the wealthy class depended upon marriage to ensure their social standing as well as their economic security. When Susan writes to Alicia about the possibility of marrying Reginald, she mentions this dependence: “I cannot easily resolve on anything so serious as marriage, especially as I am not at present in want of money, and might perhaps, till the old gentleman’s death, be very little benefitted by the match” (19). More than anything, Susan constructs marriage as a nearly transactional event, wherein the woman would gain financial security and upwardly mobilize her social positionality in exchange for her partnership. Susan believes that marriage should solely serve to materially benefit her, and thus is not a covenant into which she can enter lightly. Susan depicts a cynical view of marriage, as she acknowledges its importance while simultaneously considering its many drawbacks.

One of these drawbacks is the freedom that women give up in exchange for stability. Susan very much enjoys the freedom to do whatever she pleases after her husband dies, as she no longer has a man whom she must answer to. Susan constructs marriage itself as a kind of imprisonment. However, Alicia believes that marriage restricts the freedom not only of women but also of men to pursue the behavior and flirtations with the opposite gender. In Alicia’s return letter that urges Susan to marry Reginald, Alicia acknowledges the other ways in which marriage constricts the men in her life, such as Mr. Manwaring: “Mr. De Courcy may be worth having. Manwaring will storm of course, but you easily pacify him; besides, the most scrupulous point of honor could not require you to wait for HIS emancipation” (19). Like her friend, Alicia believes that marriage represents a kind of imprisonment, something that requires one to be emancipated from its restrictions. She desires Manwaring’s emancipation so that he could then pursue Susan and possibly marry her. While marriage can serve as an imprisonment and an impediment to some, it is also considered a necessity for women within the 18th century. Susan’s husband has been dead scarcely a month before she and Alicia begin plotting her next marriage, suggesting that marriage itself represents a necessary evil for the women of this time period. Therefore, Susan’s attitude towards marriage—namely, that she should wait for the best possible option by which to increase her social standing and financial stability—reflects the fragile social positionality of women in the 18th century.

And yet, Susan also uses the idea of marriage to achieve her own kind of agency, primarily as she believes that she has attained the pick of a number of men above her social position and therefore holds a large amount of power. She believes that she can use men’s desire to marry her against them, believing that she could punish Reginald for his disrespect of her after the Frederica affair simply by marrying him. She acknowledges this power in yet another letter to Alicia:

I cannot forgive him such an instance of pride; and am doubtful whether I ought not to punish him, by dismissing him at once after this reconciliation, or by marrying and teasing him forever. Both these measures are too violent to be adopted without some deliberation (61).

Susan believes that the promise of marriage allots her an enormous amount of power. Although she knows her freedom will be restricted after she marries, she trusts that she can still torment Reginald by endlessly teasing him. Marriage represents not only imprisonment for the female characters within the novella but also their chance to exhibit a great amount of power to punish the men who hold their futures so delicately in their hands.

The ramifications of marriage not only involve the husband and wife within the landed gentry, however. Rather, marriage becomes a kind of family affair as it represents the joining of many different people. It links these people to one another in ways that then affect not only the husband and wife’s future, but that of everyone in the surrounding family. Sir De Courcy expresses this concern when he learns of Reginald’s familiarity with Lady Susan: “In the very important concern of marriage especially, there is everything at stake; your own happiness, that of your parents, and the credit of your name” (23). Not only is marriage important for the female’s social positionality, but the possibility that Reginald could marry Lady Susan threatens the rest of the De Courcy family. Sir De Courcy repeatedly urges his son not to marry her, suggesting it would ruin the entire De Courcy family: “It would destroy every comfort of my life to know that you were married to Lady Susan Vernon. It would be the death of that honest pride with which I have hitherto considered my son; I should blush to see him, to hear of him, to think of him” (19). Not only does De Courcy believe that his son’s marriage to Lady Susan would impact his own future, he also envisions that this marriage could potentially destroy the family name.

This fear demonstrates the network of familial ties in which the individual’s actions have severe social repercussions for the family’s social standing in general. Family itself constricts some of the freedom of the individual, as the person must always think of the ways in which his/her actions affect the family’s social standing. These consequences then demonstrate a kind of latent power that Lady Susan holds, as she seems to have the ability to bring a great family to its knees simply through the possibility of her marriage to Reginald, the heir apparent. Marriage itself is not an affair to be entered into lightly but is an event of the utmost social consequence for members of the landed gentry in the 18th century.