Apropos
the wonderfully alliterative phrase "want of a wife" in the famous
first sentence
of Pride & Prejudice, it just occurred to me for the very first time
(after reading
that sentence a thousand times before) to check to see whether Jane Austen had invented
it, or if perhaps she had perhaps adapted it from an earlier source for some
satirical purpose.
Via
Google Books, look at the promising snippet I just found, in the Scots
Magazine, Vol.
37, (1775) at p. 53:
"Mr
William Merrett, of the parish of Bishopstoke, in the county of Southampton,
Yeoman, doth hereby advertise himself, that HE IS IN WANT OF A WIFE. He is a
stout jolly man, fair skin, and his age about forty. He would be glad of a woman
about the same age; is a man of good account, and endued with one article more than
commonly falls to the lot of man. Any woman whom this may suit, may apply to the
said Mr Merrett. None but those of good account will be looked upon."
I
cannot help but suspect, in Mary Crawfordian ways, about Mr. Merrett's extraordinarily
meritorious "article"-- I mean, really, if he was boasting about the size
of his house, or of his carriage, wouldn't he just name it explicitly? Sounds to me
like he was proud of the "good fortune" that Mother Nature bestowed
on him, but
he was prudent enough to know that he needed to be a little indirect about it,
or
he'd never get the ad published!
Even
if JA never actually read Mr. Merrett's ad, I do now suspect her of thinking of "a
good fortune" as encompassing more possibilities than riches in money, and
that suspicious
reading would make the maritally desperate housewives of Meryton, like Mrs. Bennet, sound more like the
Desperate Housewives of Whysteria Lane!
But
even if you dont share my suspicion, it seems to me safe to claim that at the very
least, JA deliberately chose that particular phraseology, precisely so as to subliminally
trigger in the minds of her readers an association to the idea of reading
a personal ad--which, when you think about it, is exactly the same mindset JA
wittily attributes to the parents of an eligible young woman in that famous
first sentence
of Pride & Prejudice--that the single man, just by showing up, is in effect intentionally publishing
a personal ad for himself--which fits perfectly with Mr. Bennet's witty
question
replying to his wife's mentioning Bingley's marrying a Bennet girl:
"Is that his design in settling
here?"
Indeed,
one places a personal ad with the design of finding a wife!
Now, anyone else skilled at Regency Era research, can you find any other examples
of personal ads during JA's lifetime in which the phrase
"is in want of a" is used in personal ads? I bet there were lots of
them, in ads looking for prospective spouses, but also (shades of the Tevya
stories) looking for a horse or an ox to buy. ;)
Cheers,
ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode
on Twitter
P.S.:
I also found the following in a 1740 jokebook:
"An
old Man who had married a young Wife, complained to a Friend, how unhappy he
had always
been: When I was young, said he, I went abroad for want of a Wife; and now I am
old, my Wife goes abroad for want of a Husband."
Worth
a cynical chuckle, perhaps, but I see no particular reason to infer that JA might
have been familiar with that joke, or one similar to it.
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