“Cousins in Love, &c.” in Jane Austen
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[1] Miami University
Miami University
Township of Oxford, Estados Unidos
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- Localización: Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, ISSN 0732-7730, ISSN-e 1936-1645, Vol. 23, Nº. 2, 2004, págs. 237-260
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
This article offers a reinterpretation of cousin-marriage in the works of Jane Austen. While earlier scholars argue that Austen rejects cousin-marriage in favor of unions with strangers in order to challenge aristocratic power, these readings are complicated by the union of cousins Fanny and Edmund which Austen supports in Mansfield Park. Instead, the article posits that by reexamining ideas of the marriage plot in light of the historical realities of nineteenth-century courtship, marriage becomes subservient to the duties to the family and is primarily seen as a way of keeping or challenging these familial bonds. As Fanny’s status as a dependent in some ways frees her from being a valuable object of exchange (either among family members or strangers), she is allowed a unique agency to choose which marriage plot is best suited to her desires, not her family’s well-being.
