Category Archives: Mary Crawford

May 25, 2012 · 7:00 am

Provided she could marry well…

“Miss Crawford was glad to find a family of such consequence so very near them, and not at all displeased either at her sister’s early care, or the choice it had fallen on. Matrimony was her object, provided she could marry well, and having seen Mr. Bertram in town, she knew that objection could no more be made to his person than to his situation in life. While she treated it as a joke, therefore, she did not forget to think of it seriously.”

Mansfield Park, volume 1, chapter 4 (emphasis mine)

I want to condemn Mary Crawford for this sentiment, but no doubt it was the way (nearly) everyone thought then. And I wonder — how much have we really changed? Although my definition of marrying well and Mary Crawford’s are completely different.

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Filed under Mansfield Park, Marriage, Mary Crawford, Money, Money and Marriage

May 17, 2012 · 7:00 am

Marrying properly

“I would have everybody marry if they can do it properly; I do not like to have people throw themselves away; but everybody should marry as soon as they can do it to advantage.”

Mary Crawford
Mansfield Park, volume 1, chapter 4

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Filed under Mansfield Park, Marriage, Mary Crawford, Money, Money and Marriage

January 25, 2008 · 12:49 pm

The transfer of unchanging attachments


“I purposely abstain from dates on this occasion, that every one may be
at liberty to fix their own, aware that the cure of unconquerable
passions, and the transfer of unchanging attachments, must vary much as
to time in different people. I only entreat everybody to believe that
exactly at the time when it was quite natural that it should be so, and
not a week earlier, Edmund did cease to care about Miss Crawford, and
became as anxious to marry Fanny as Fanny herself could desire.”

Mansfield Park, volume 3, chapter 17

See a preview on the PBS site.

Blake Ritson as Edmund Bertram. ©Jon Hall/ITV plc (Granada International) for Masterpiece™

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Filed under Edmund Bertram, Fanny Price, Love, Mansfield Park, Mary Crawford

January 24, 2008 · 11:30 am

On being taken in … er, getting married


“Everybody is taken in at some period or other. . . . In marriage especially . . . there is not one in a hundred
of either sex who is not taken in when they marry. Look where I will, I see that it is so; and I feel that it must be so, when I consider that it is, of all transactions, the one in which people expect most from others, and are least honest themselves.”

Mary Crawford
Mansfield Park, volume 1, chapter 5

More on the Masterpiece site.

Hayley Atwell as Mary Crawford. ©Jon Hall/ITV plc (Granada International) for Masterpiece™

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July 24, 2007 · 12:41 pm

A match-making sister

Mp
“She had not waited her arrival to look out for a suitable match for her; she had fixed on Tom Bertram; the eldest son of a Baronet was not too good for a girl of twenty thousand pounds, with all the elegance and accomplishments which Mrs. Grant foresaw in her; and being a warm-hearted, unreserved woman, Mary had not been three hours in the house before she told her what she had planned.”

Mrs. Grant matchmaking for her sister Mary
Mansfield Park, volume 1, chapter 4

Of course, Tom Bertram was a fool, in addition to being the eldest son of a baronet. (And, of course, Mary proves to have her own foolish tendencies as well.)

The image is from the new version of MP starring Billie Piper, which will run on the Masterpiece Theatre Complete Jane Austen Season starting in January.

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Filed under Mansfield Park, Marriage, Mary Crawford, Money, Money and Marriage, Mrs. Grant, Tom Bertram