Sibling Rivalry

Eighth in the series We Want More Austen! about the less-known works of Jane Austen.

Three Sisters

How to draw a character in four sentences: At the start of Jane Austen’s youthful fragment “The Three Sisters,” Miss Mary Stanhope writes to a friend, “I am the happiest creature in the World, for I have received an offer of marriage from Mr Watts. It is the first I have ever had & I hardly know how to value it enough. How I will triumph over the Duttons! I do not intend to accept it, at least I beleive not, but as I am not quite certain I gave him an equivocal answer & left him.”

Ugly Guy Proposal

Do we need any more information than this to take Miss Stanhope’s measure? Or to pity Mr. Watts—even as we learn that he is plain, disagreeable, ill-tempered, peevish, jealous, stingy, and willing to marry either of Mary’s younger sisters if she should refuse him?

This is the Marriage Mart at its most baldly cynical. Mary Stanhope’s mother urges her to make up her mind immediately, under pain of losing Mr. Watts’s proposal to one of her younger sisters, “because he wishes to be allied to the Family & because they are as pretty as you are” (shades of Mr. Collins!). Lest you imagine that this tale will be softened by sisterly affection, we soon learn that Mary’s sisters, Sophy and Georgiana, are scheming to trick her into accepting Mr. Watts so they won’t have to—though they will, for the money and position he offers, if she doesn’t.

Almost resolved to marry Mr. Watts, Mary negotiates. She demands a new carriage, painted blue spotted with silver; Blue Star Carriage
two hundred pounds a year in pin money; a saddle horse, a suit of fine lace, Jewels “and an infinite number of the most valuable Jewels”!

The list goes on, to the point of hilarity—added servants, his house refurnished, seasons spent in Bath and London, a greenhouse . . .

Greenhouse And her mother gets in on the act, supporting her claims like a procuress. The story continues:

          —“And pray Miss Stanhope (said Mr Watts) What am I to expect from you in return for all this.”
          —“Expect? why you may expect to have me pleased.”
         — “It would be odd if I did not. Your expectations Madam are too high for me, & I must apply to Miss Sophy who perhaps
               may not have raised her’s so much.”

Sophy promptly ups the ante by saying that in addition to Mary’s demands she expects her husband to be

          —“good-tempered and Chearful; to consult my Happiness in all his Actions, & to love me with Constancy & Sincerity.”
          — Mr Watts stared. “These are very odd Ideas truly young Lady. You had better discard them before you marry, or
               you will be obliged to do it afterwards.”

The negotiations continue for a considerable stretch in this vein, but ultimately neither Mr. Watts nor Miss Stanhope is deterred from the match, and as the fragment comes to an abrupt end, preparations for the nuptials are under way.

What are we to make of this unromantic farce? It is a far cry from the satires of sentimental fiction that make up the bulk of Jane Austen’s juvenile work. The tone most closely approaches that of Lady Susan, but it seems even more starkly mercenary.

There are a few clues we can tease out. First of all, despite the fact that the story is written in the epistolary form, the majority of it is direct dialogue. My guess is that it was heavily influenced by the sort of comic plays that were popular in the late eighteenth century such as Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer, many of which had plots focused on romantic scheming and arranged marriages. And we should note that the story was dedicated to her brother Edward, who was adopted out of the family by wealthy, childless relatives, the Knights. Could there have been a corner of the young Jane Austen who was a bit shocked by this transaction—little more than the selling of a child—and transmuted her emotions into this fiction?

Young Edward Austen being given to the Knights.
Young Edward Austen being given to Mr. and Mrs. Knight.

 

We’ll never know what motivated Jane Austen to write “The Three Sisters,” though I tend to believe that in general, her engagement with stories so alien to her personal experience was more a matter of challenging the norms of literary genres than a form of personal therapy. Many of the lines of this brief tale are laugh-out-loud funny, but the unrelieved cynicism leaves a sour taste in any romance-lover’s mouth. We can be grateful that Jane Austen mellowed as she aged—enough that, in the end, she “pierced our souls.”

 

• Abigail Bok is the author of the short story “A Summer in Sanditon” in Sun-Kissed: Effusions of Summer and of the novel An Obstinate, Headstrong Girl.

6 Responses

  1. Sheila L. M.
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    I have not read Jane Austen’s Juvenilia but you didn’t say it was taken from there. It is interesting and hard to imagine a young girl daring to negotiate in this manner. And you say this led to then marriage planning? Oh, my.

  2. Abigail
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    Yes, my series of posts is all about Jane Austen’s minor works, which are all juvenilia except for The Watsons and Sanditon. The juvenilia are so different from her published novels, much more outrageous and vicious! And with slapstick and broad comedy—quite the eye-openers. I highly recommend reading them—most very short and easy to swallow in a single sitting. You should take a look at “Jack and Alice,” which is about drunkenness and gaming!

  3. Sheila L. M.
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    Yes, you are correct that I should read that. I just can’t seem to get to everything on my plate. I will…some day, some time.

  4. Suzan Lauder
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    A tweet about your series is on the Suzi Love Board! They’re updated every 12 hours, so if you can’t see it on the link (search for my name), message me for a screen shot. https://www.rebelmouse.com/suzilove/
    https://www.facebook.com/SuzanLauder/

  5. Abigail
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    Thanks so much, Suzan! I am grateful for the interest. I’m not on Facebook or Twitter (I tend to live exclusively in earlier centuries), but I saw it on the Suzi Love Daily Gossip sheet. Much appreciated!