Persuasion 4-6: “Safe and Secure”
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The landscape is changing for Miss Anne as the other Elliots leave for Bath. We’re talking about the things that contribute to feeling secure in life — and how that gets interpreted differently depending on gender.
Transcript
Reclaiming Jane Season 5 Episode 2 | Persuasion 4-6: “Safe and Secure”
Emily: [00:00:00] This is Reclaiming Jane, an Austen podcast for fans on the margins.
Lauren: I'm Lauren Wethers.
Emily: And I'm Emily Davis Hale.
Lauren: And today we're reading chapters four through six of Persuasion through the lens of security.
Emily: Once again, we had such an excellent topic for this section.
Lauren: We're two for two so far, honestly.
Emily: Yeah. Let's keep it up, Persuasion.
Lauren: The tarot cards have been working in our favor.
Emily: Yes. The universe is listening.
Lauren: Yes. we have much to talk about just in general and with, with regards to our theme for today.
So I'm really excited to dig into these three chapters.
Emily: I guess we should go ahead and recap.
Lauren: We should, and you get to go first.
Emily: Yay.
Lauren: Joy of all joys.
Emily: I have not looked at these recap notes since I read, so we'll see how it goes.
Lauren: Oh, this is gonna be great.
Emily: Yeah. Super fun.
Lauren: That's okay. Well, I'm cheating off of you, so I hope your notes are good. All right. Are you ready?
Emily: As I'll ever be.
Lauren: 30 seconds on the clock. Ready. Set. Go.
Emily: It turns out that Anne was engaged to a Captain Frederick Wentworth, but everybody said it was a bad connection-- connection, so she was persuaded to break up with him, but never got over it. She continues to be an NPC in her own story, and it's decided that she will stay behind while her family goes to Bath right away. She's concerned about Elizabeth's friend going with them, but everyone ignores her. Her sister Mary demands that she come and stay with her, which Lady Russell is upset about, but she goes anyway. the Crofts move into Keli-- Kellynch and Anne finally meets them.
Lauren: The end.
Emily: Okay. That wasn't too bad.
Lauren: That was good.
I liked it. Also, NPC, you have to stop [00:02:00] trying to make me laugh in the middle of these recaps because I'm over here trying not to burst into laughter while you're recapping and you're saying things like NPC in her own story, I can't.
Emily: No regrets. I will not apologize, but I will set your timer. Are you ready?
Lauren: Yep.
Emily: All right. Three, two, one, go.
Lauren: Anne was engaged to a different Wentworth. We did have a misleading Wentworth in the previous section and she's still really mourning him and mourning the loss of the fact that she was persuaded to give him up. the family is getting ready to move to Bath. She is not allowed to go with him because her sister says that she's not useless and then invites her other friend to go, which is such a slight, Mary thinks that Anne needs to be there to cater to her every whim, which is really annoying for Anne, but also pretty in line with Mary.
And then she gets to meet the Crofts when they move into Kellynch Hall.
Emily: Wow, you had like a full second and a half left.
Lauren: Hey, Hey. It was still a little bit chaotic, but that's okay.
Emily: That's all right. Yeah, they're thirty second recaps.
Lauren: Even of only three chapters. It's still hard.
Emily: It's still hard. So yeah, we were definitely led astray by Wentworth in the first section. Literally the first thing that I wrote down on reading was, well, I called that one wrong.
Lauren: I couldn't say anything. Last time you were like, yeah, it's gonna be Wentworth, and I was like... Mm-hmm. you're not technically incorrect.
Emily: No. It's his brother.
Lauren: Yeah, you were close.
Emily: Yeah, close enough. But yeah, Captain Frederick Wentworth, who stayed nearby for like six months, eight years ago, and apparently they fell very hard for each other because they were engaged. Briefly.
Lauren: And so hard that Anne is still mourning the loss of that connection eight years later, still thinking about what could have been, still kind of beating herself up for listening to the people around her and, letting herself believe that it would be right for both of them if she ended the engagement when really deep down, I think she knows that she, at least, is miserable, and she doesn't believe that he's married, but she also doesn't want any [00:04:00] confirmation either for or against that because that would just be too much.
Emily: There is later a sort of one off line of like, 'oh, did you hear that, you know, Mrs. Croft's brother is married now,' but it, it doesn't linger for too long before it's confirmed that it was the Mr. Wentworth of the clergy who is now married and not the captain.
Lauren: And though Anne does have a minor heart attack when that is first introduced, which is relatable. But she, of course has to mask because you can't let on that you are still head over heels in love with this man who you broke off an engagement with eight years ago.
So she just has to be very intentional about either not asking questions or asking the right questions so that she gets the information that she needs without being too obvious.
Emily: It was very, shades of Sense and Sensibility, where they say that Mr. What's his name is married and no one thinks to ask Which one, which one?
I'm sorry. I've already forgotten their last names. It started with an F. Ferrars?
Lauren: Yes. Yeah.
Emily: Yeah.
Lauren: It was not Edward who had gotten married.
Emily: Right. It was Robert.
Lauren: Correct. Yeah. Poor Anne. Now we kind of see why one of the reasons why she's allowed herself to be an NPC in her own life is that she's still just depressed.
Emily: Which is, it sounds really reductive to say That's so sad, but it's so sad.
Lauren: It is. I, I think regardless of how short their connection was, it was clearly something that was very deep and meaningful to both of them to where it's still having such a great impact on Anne's life to this day. And Lady Russell has been concerned that Anne has not met someone else. She was convinced that, okay, you know, we've persuaded Anne to give up this connection because she's going to find someone better, except for eight years have gone by and Anne doesn't even seem inclined to try to find someone better.
And so Lady Russell isn't necessarily second guessing her opinion and what she thought was right, but she is concerned that [00:06:00] Anne is not behaving the way that she thought she would.
Emily: There was one possibility of a marriage for Anne. it was Mr. Charles Musgrove.
Lauren: Yep.
Emily: Who's now married to her younger sister.
Lauren: Yeah. So he definitely pulled a Mr. Collins and said, okay, well this sister told me no, but let's just go down the line. Let's see. ,
Emily: there doesn't seem to be any weird feeling about it, at least.
Lauren: No. And certainly there's no love lost between her and Charles. She was never interested in him. He doesn't seem to be pining over Anne at all.
He and Mary somehow actually kind of work together.
Emily: Sort of.
Lauren: Sort of. for the most part, he seems to at least understand how to work with her quirks even if he doesn't understand where they are coming from.
Emily: Yeah. That seems like a good assessment.
Lauren: Yeah, but I don't think, it does not look like Charles and Anne would've been a good match.
So it's a good thing that he ended up with Mary instead. But I can imagine, at least for the first year or so, it was a bit awkward that proposal of marriage was just handed off down the line of sisterhood. Like, oh, no, we'll, we'll try for the youngest instead.
Emily: Yeah, a little odd, but, oh well. But of course Anne does end up in the house because when Sir Walter and Elizabeth leave for Bath, they decide, we don't need Anne.
She can stay here for a couple months. That's fine, whatever.
Lauren: Anne is being left out again. There's nothing that she could possibly do. There's nothing for her to do in Bath, so you might as well just stay behind. Except then all of a sudden, Elizabeth could not possibly ready the house by herself, and so she has to bring a friend.
And even Lady Russell can feel the slight of this. Like, okay, this is ridiculous. You could have just brought your sister.
Emily: And Anne's not even so much offended on her own behalf as she is concerned about the effect that Mrs. Clay's presence will have on the reputation of the Elliots. Mrs. Clay, as I think we learned a little bit in the first section, is [00:08:00] not of the greatest repute. she has freckles for one, which is terrible.
Lauren: How dare.
Emily: And what do they also say? Like crooked teeth and, something like that?
Lauren: they're really going in on this poor girl's face.
Emily: Yeah. But she's just like, she's not the same level of genteel. And is also a young widow, so it seems that Anne is a little concerned that Mrs. Clay might be after, Sir Walter.
Lauren: Yes. Anne herself was become hardened to such affronts, but she felt the imprudence of the arrangement quite as keenly as Lady Russell, with a great deal of quiet observation and a knowledge, which she often wished less, of her father's character, she was sensible that results the most serious to his family from the intimacy were more than possible.
She did not imagine that her father had at present an idea of the kind. Mrs. Clay had freckles and a projecting tooth and a clumsy wrist, which he was continually making severe remarks upon in her absence. But she was young, and certainly altogether well looking and possessed in an acute mind and assiduous pleasing manners, infinitely more dangerous attractions than any merely personal might have been." So she's not all that and a bag of chips and she's not that nice to look at, but she is young and she is around, and that poses a threat.
Emily: Mm-hmm, it'll be interesting to see where that goes, if anywhere.
Lauren: We shall see.
Emily: But Elizabeth, when Anne intimates these concerns to her, like, takes high offense. She's like, no, no, no. Mrs. Clay knows her place. She's not gonna try anything. And like, how dare you say that? She would have a bad effect on her reputation and things along those lines. Anne's just like, all right.
Lauren: If you say so.
Emily: Sure.
Lauren: She'll know nothing of it.
Emily: I'm so frustrated on Anne's behalf.
She's just the only sensible person around here, just like trying to get listened to and everyone refuses. And at a certain point when no one is listening to you, all you can say, [00:10:00] as Anne says in this section, is, they can't say that I didn't try. I'll give my warning, that's my duty. But, if they choose not to take that advice, then that's on them.
Lauren: And you wonder how long it's going to take for them to realize that perhaps they should just listen to Anne. Because if it's not something as drastic as having to move to Bath because you cannot afford your country seat anymore? When Anne almost certainly told you, this kind of spending is not long-term realistic.
I don't really know what the, what the tipping point is going to be, where they say, oh, you know what? Actually, this person gives us some pretty good ideas. Perhaps once in a while we could listen, not all the time. Just like two times out of 10.
Emily: Two out of 10. Oh!
Lauren: I'm being, I'm being very generous , because right now it's zero out of 10.
Emily: Yeah, that's true. So Anne has been left behind by the Bath party, but she has gone off to Upper Cross Cottage, which is where her sister Mary lives. Nearby Mary's in-laws, the Musgroves, who are a bunch of characters.
Lauren: Honestly, I, I don't agree with Mary needing to make her afflictions, heavy air quotes, everyone else's problem. However, the introvert in me does kind of understand because if I were tasked with being around that family all the time, I also would fake sick to get out of it. It's simply too much.
Emily: Anne immediately becomes everyone's confidant. Probably because she has that middle child energy, just like, oh, you're quiet and you keep the peace.
And so we'll just, you know, casually ask like, could you ask your sister to stop being weird about some things?
Lauren: you go talk to her. We don't wanna talk to her.
Emily: Yeah.
Lauren: And then Mary also needs Anne to come over like, 'Ugh, I'm wasting away. I can't possibly move. I need you to come and talk to me.' And then when Anne does [00:12:00] go like the good sister she is, and keeps her company, then Mary's upset.
Well, why didn't you ask me about the event last night? And Anne says, well, you're feeling so poorly, I didn't think you would've gone anywhere last night. Mary says, that's ridiculous. Of course I went, now ask me about the event so I can talk about it.
Emily: Absolutely ridiculous. Less frustrating than some siblings we have seen in other Austen novels, but definitely irritating.
Lauren: Yes. That would grind my gears, especially when of course it then later on goes on to say that she forgot she was supposed to be wasting away and is up and about the room talking about different things that she wants to do. She's not supposed to be better yet, but she, you know, her mind has moved on.
Emily: Mm-hmm. she's forgotten the little act she was putting on for sympathy.
Lauren: Mm-hmm. she got what she wanted. She has company now, so. It can all be forgotten. Mary, Mary, Mary.
Emily: I feel like we're, we might be saying that a lot depending on how much she appears in the rest of the book. Oh, Mary. Mary, Mary.
Lauren: Most likely.
The other thing that I noted, because it was one of the most savage paragraphs I have ever read. Yeah. Okay. This is in chapter six where--
Emily: I'm wondering if I marked the same one.
Lauren: I'm sure you must have, because it cannot possibly be a different paragraph talking about, the pathetic piece of family history.
Emily: Yes. Yes. I literally in the margin wrote, damn Jane!
Lauren: I just, okay you guys, so this is them talking about the Musgroves and the narration goes on to say, "the real circumstances of this pathetic piece of family history were that the Musgroves had had the ill fortune of a very troublesome, hopeless son and the good fortune to lose him before he reached his 20th year; that he had been sent to sea because he was stupid and unmanageable onshore, that he had been very little cared for at any time by his family, though quite as much as he deserved. Seldom heard of and scarcely at all regretted when the intelligence of his death abroad had worked its way to Upper Cross two years before."
Emily: I screamed.
Lauren: Oh my God. And then [00:14:00] the next thing says, "he had, in fact, though his sisters were now doing all they could for him by calling him Poor Richard," in quotes, "been nothing better than a thickheaded, unfeeling, unprofitable Dick Musgrove, who had never done anything to entitle himself to more than the abbreviation of his name, living or dead."
Emily: screaming. That prompted me to immediately set the book down and go look up the etymology of, Dick as a crass term. Yeah. So it doesn't, it doesn't appear in writing until like 1897, I wanna say.
Lauren: Interesting.
Emily: But Dick has been slang for just a guy since like the 16th century, so it's very likely that it was a vulgar term at this point.
Lauren: That's incredible.
Emily: In my personal opinion. Yeah, so Jane Austen's, just like this guy sucks as much as he possibly could, and no one cares that he's dead and he kind of deserves it.
Lauren: I honestly have to wonder if that amount of vitriol was because she based this character off of somebody who she really hated because oh my god, such vim for someone who's not even in the book, he's already dead.
Emily: Yeah, sure. I'll make you a character in my book, Richard.
Lauren: Asshole!
Emily: Maybe this is for Prince George.
Lauren: Maybe. You're entitled to nothing more than the abbreviation of your name. And I hate you very much.
Emily: Absolutely iconic. This, that I can't, can't believe that I had forgotten that paragraph in the last two days because it was it.
It was absolutely incredible.
Lauren: That's one of the most savage paragraphs I think Jane Austen has ever written. I love it.
Emily: But the reason that he came up was that the Musgrove family found out about the connection of the Crofts, who are now inhabiting Kellynch Hall, to a Captain Wentworth. Mrs. Musgrove went back through the letters, the few letters that poor Richard had written before his death, realized that he was under the command of a Captain Wentworth.
And so now they're like, oh, this must be the same guy. And now that they're finally regretting their sad [00:16:00] son, are having all kinds of emotions about it, apparently more emotion than they ever felt at his actual death.
Lauren: The reappearance of somebody from your son's past will do that to you. You know, dredge up the handful of good times you had.
Emily: I'm not sure they even had a handful.
Lauren: It doesn't sound like they did.
Emily: Sounds like he really, really sucked.
Lauren: And what on earth did he do?
Emily: He clearly didn't like gamble away the family fortune because they're still doing fine.
Lauren: But brought shame upon the family somehow because, I don't know, they were like, oh good, you go have to see because you're doing nothing.
Nothing but harm to the family name on land. So you gotta go. Goodbye. Who knows?
Emily: I want the Dick Musgrove back story.
Lauren: I just, cause I just need to know why they weren't even upset that he died. Like what was he doing? Running around impregnating women? Like what? What was happening?
Emily: Where is the pulp novel about his youth? He was a teenager.
I was like, why are you grateful? They're just like, oh God, thank God you didn't make it past 20. Jesus! What happened? Yeah, I need that backstory immediately.Misadventures of Dick Musgrove .
Lauren: Yeah. Where's Dick Musgrove's Guide to Vice and Virtue?
Emily: Sounds like it would be much less delightful than the actual Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue.
Lauren: Most likely.
Unless you just decided to write it and make it a romping good time.
Emily: That's true.
Lauren: You know?
Emily: Yeah. Maybe he was just misunderstood.
Lauren: He might. He might have been. Maybe he just doesn't understand why his family hates him so much. All he's trying to do is have a good time. Okay. Sleep with some men.
Emily: I'm back on board with this.
Lauren: Maybe that's it. Maybe he's gay.
Emily: Maybe he's gay. I was gonna say we made it gay, now I'm in.
Lauren: Yep.
Emily: That's what this podcast is really about. We'll find a way to make everything gay
Lauren: I support it. This is my new head canon.
Emily: Absolutely.
Lauren: We just didn't, they ostracized him because he was queer and Dick Musgrove deserves better. That might be completely incorrect, but I don't care.
Emily: Justice for Dick Musgrove, all we know about him is a single paragraph, [00:18:00] but we will extrapolate.
Lauren: That's what we do best.
All right. Now that we've gone off the rails, where do we see security?
Emily: I saw security mostly in the consideration of people's situations in life. So right off the bat in the section we get the explanation of why Anne was persuaded to give up Captain Wentworth, and it's because at the time he was a sailor in between assignments.
He had recently been promoted, but like he was onshore for six months, didn't really have much going for him, aside from that little bit of accomplishment. And so the argument was like, he's not gonna be able to provide for you. You're gonna be miserable. Leave it. And then comparing that to, you know, Mary and her relative comfort at the Musgroves and her very comfortable situation in life.
also then compared to where the Elliots are right now with having to rent out their home, horror of horrors. yeah, so that's, that's where I saw security the most in, in all of those juxtapositions.
Lauren: Yeah, I think I read it similarly. and then the other thing with Wentworth and Anne is that Anne thinks that she's ensuring his security by refusing, and it says that that's really the only reason that she was able to allow herself to be persuaded to give him up because if it had just been for her sake, she maybe would've dug her heels in a little bit more. But when it was concerning this other person who she loved, because she was persuaded this would be better for him too, then she could say, okay, well I suppose this is the best course of action because I'm doing right by him, and I suppose doing right by me, even though I don't really believe you.
But very in line with Anne's character that she said yes because it was for someone else, not for her.
Emily: Absolutely.
Lauren: And I think all of the characters are looking for security in some way. not just marriage security, I suppose. Like [00:20:00] Mary is using Anne for security, not for security of station, but just mental security because she doesn't seem like she's able to self-regulate her emotions at all.
And so to have any kind of. mental or emotional security and peace of mind. She relies on Anne in this instance, and I'm sure she's done the same to other people as well. Whoever she can finagle into being her sounding board for the day, but Anne seems to get this quite a lot, because nobody thinks Anne has anything else to do and so Mary is constantly using Anne as like her emotional support.
And I would argue Mrs. Clay is seeking security too. I think Anne has it right in pegging her as, placing herself in the right situation to potentially elevate her station even higher. And Elizabeth doesn't wanna see it because that's her friend, but Anne and Lady Russell are a bit more objective when it comes to Mrs. Clay and they can more accurately see what she's angling to do. She may not be actively doing anything right now, but she is being very strategic about where she is placing herself.
Emily: And I think the Mrs. Clay situation also reveals insecurity on especially Elizabeth's part, but also Sir Walter. The implied accusation that they could ever be seen to be doing anything inappropriate that, that they would have such bad judgment.
Like how dare you? Sir Walter is described right off the bat in the first section as being vain, but I think he's also extremely insecure.
Lauren: And would want somebody who makes him feel as though I don't know, that he's a perfect version of the man that he sees himself as, and whoever he's with would need to help him reflect that image back at other people, or at least reflect that self-image back at him.
So I think he would, even if there's somebody who like stroked his ego enough, [00:22:00] he could be persuaded because that's really the biggest thing with him. What a man. I still can't get over it. Just, I read the family pages in the book. That's it.
Emily: That's the only book.
Lauren: Every time I pass by. That's it. It's the only book I read. I just reread the family history. That's a page long. It hasn't changed in literal years.
Emily: That's what extreme vanity will get you, man.
Lauren: Anne really needs her mother. This poor girl.
Emily: Poor thing thing. Maybe. Maybe she will find a friend in Mrs. Croft. When they, they met, it seemed like they got along quite well.
This is, although it seems that Captain Wentworth is coming to stay. So we'll see what kind of interactions they have in the near future.
Lauren: I don't know, we'll find out. I love a good re-meet cute.
Emily: Right? I'm very excited about this. I mean, wow. I wonder if they'll run into each other again.
Lauren: even if you weren't vaguely aware of persuasion.
Just general story convention.
Emily: Yeah. If they didn't run into each other, it'd be like, what is this?
Lauren: Now why did you set this up? If you weren't going to give it to me, what's happening? That would just be bad writing,
Emily: and I trust Jane Austen too much for that.
Lauren: That would be, Game of Thrones writers, of subverting expectations.
Emily: Ouch.
just Dick Musgroved them! How hard would I have to work to make that a verb? ,
Lauren: I feel like you don't have to work that hard, at least in the context of this podcast, out outside of this. You might have to put it in some legwork.
Emily: I might be willing to do it. We'll see.
Lauren: I mean, if you just use his first name, you'd be fine, but then nobody would get the joke.
Emily: Yeah, and the joke is what makes it funny to me.
Lauren: Exactly. Any other places you see security?
Emily: I think that about covered it for me. Is there anywhere else that you saw it?
Lauren: I think just the easy thing of the Crofts have been provided with security with that house, but they're also providing the Elliots security by renting their home and throwing them some, some pound bills, if you [00:24:00] will.
Some pound notes. I know it's not pound bills, but I couldn't think of anything other than dollar bills.
Emily: That's totally valid. Yeah, that's interesting that that exchange of security.
Lauren: Mm-hmm, they're both getting something out of this, out of this arrangement. But yeah, that was it. I would love to hear which topic you chose for our historical context for today.
Emily: Well, we're going back to Captain Frederick Wentworth.
Lauren: Oh.
Emily: Because, Anne commented on how he must be rather rich by now. he must have some kind of fortune. She's been checking the naval lists. I was like, what does that mean, Anne? How would you know that?
Lauren: Why you creeping?
Emily: Why you creeping. So as a naval captain, Frederick Wentworth would be entitled to become rich off of captures off of prizes.
But hopefully he's not just like looting random ships. I would assume not if he's still in good standing with the Navy.
Lauren: This is true.
Emily: Yeah. So, so I, I wanted to figure out what's up with, with naval prizes and how are people getting rich off of that and why this is not a system in this particular Navy at that particular time where you just get your base pay and that's it. You could make a little extra in a completely legitimate way.
Lauren: Interesting.
Emily: So naval prizes are rooted in medieval maritime codes and in early modern international law. Both of these things establishing that during war, any goods captured from an enemy rightfully belonged to the monarch of the captor, but it was customary for that monarch to redistribute, some of those goods among the people who assisted in making that capture.
So interesting point. Prizes are specifically captured at sea, but booty of war or spoils of war are captured on land.
Lauren: Interesting.
Emily: Yeah. So just a little extra fun. [00:26:00]
Lauren: Okay, how did we get to Pirate's booty then? If the pirates were associated with the sea, but booty of wars on
Emily: land? I don't know. I, I couldn't dive far enough in to figure that out.
But, I mean, it, it might just be that it's a funner term.
Lauren: That --yeah, that makes sense.
Emily: And Pirate media loves the extravagant, so.
Lauren: That's a good point.
Emily: Yeah. but these early laws didn't make any distinction between prizes that were awarded by the Crown to the Royal Navy versus Profiteers. Elizabethan courts codified the crown retaining a certain percentage of the prize.
So it wouldn't just be the whole thing goes to the captors. The government gets a little bit out of it too. There was a 1708 act that effectively encouraged both navy ships and privateers to attack enemy warships, privateers, and merchant ships because although captured cargos were still being adjudicated by agents of the admiralty, these navy captors could now just pay a customs duty and then resell the cargo themselves at the best price rather than turning it all over to the admiralty for their assessors to distribute. Navy captors could also now appoint their own experts to dispute the value of captured goods.
So this is where the fortunes start being made.
Lauren: That does track. I can see how when you have more control over what goes where and what it's worth, we could just put a little extra gold in your pocket.
Emily: Mm-hmm. the crown was still retaining certain percentages, but when you're allowed to just resell the cargo on whatever market you can rake in the price that you want for under this Georgian system, and especially during the Napoleonic Wars, which is smack in the period that we're in right now. This was just a boom for prize money, which could be really important for officers who [00:28:00] would be on half pay when they were in between assignments like Wentworth was when he and Anne initially met.
So having that kind of stock of resources stored up from prize money could be really crucial, especially if you had a family to support on land. the abolition of slavery, among British holdings, or the nominal abolition of slavery among British holdings, in 1807 also opened up new avenues for prize money because the crown would pay out for every freed slave on a ship, plus the proceeds of that ship's sale after the crown auctioned it off.
Lauren: Interesting.
Emily: Yeah.
Lauren: Always an asterisk with these things.
Emily: There's always an asterisk. Yeah. Yeah. But for Wentworth, specifically as a captain, if his crew captured an enemy ship and went through this legal process, he would be entitled to two eighths of the total prize.
Lauren: That's not a small amount.
Emily: Yeah. There were some captains who on certain prizes made up to, at the time, like 50,000 pounds and more.
Lauren: Oh my God.
Emily: Yeah. And like I said, smack in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars, all kinds of naval warfare going on. So, There's plenty of enemies to go after and capture. So that can really add up. So Anne may be perfectly correct in her assessment of Wentworth having made a fortune.
Lauren: Wow, that's wild.
Emily: Right.
Lauren: Thank you for the history lesson.
Emily: Thank you for listening. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to learn these random
Lauren: things. That's gotta be such a shift being someone from either like a, You know, middle class background or someone who's not outrageously wealthy before entering the military and suddenly coming out with just like this amount of money that you don't even know what to do with, espe-- like 50,000 pounds in the age of no, what? How do you spend 50,000 pounds in the early [00:30:00] 19th century? What do you do?
Emily: Depends on who you are.
Lauren: Yeah, I mean, hey, if you're, if you're Sir Elliot, I'm sure you can blow through 50,000 pounds, no problem. That's true. .
Emily: Hopefully, captain Wentworth's been a little more circumspect about spending his prizes.
Lauren: I feel like somebody who falls in love with Anne is a bit more prudent.
Emily: Yeah, I could agree with that.
Lauren: For sure. That's nuts. That was excellent context. Thank you.
Emily: You're welcome. So what do you have for us in terms of security and pop culture today?
Lauren: So I was thinking about our original definition of security when we started thinking about our theme and thinking about security and romantic connections.
And so at first I was thinking, You know, what couples do we see where one partner is with the other to secure their station in life? and one of the examples that I came up with is the perceived actions of Rachel Chu in Crazy Rich Asians where, Nick Young's family, who is her boyfriend later fiance, thinks that she's only with him to secure her own station in life because certainly she must want to join the ranks of the other crazy rich Asians in Singapore, even though Rachel didn't even know that that was a thing when she was dating Nick. She's just with him because she thinks he's lovely, but to them the perception is, surely this is just a social climber who is here to kind of secure her own station in life through latching herself onto this man.
But then there's also another version of dating for security, which is securing your social station through like a socially legitimate partner. And so one of the examples I was thinking of was in Legally Blonde, where Warner, Elle's ex-boyfriend, who she runs off to Harvard for, has gotten engaged in record time to Vivian, who is the more acceptable version of Elle.
So when he was in college, he could date the quote unquote, bubbly, dumb, blonde. But now that he wants to be accepted as like a legitimate legal professional, he has to go for the Northeastern [00:32:00] pedigree, brunette, very serious, Vivian rather than Elle, because that's seen as the person who will legitimize him in you know, the eyes of the legal profession that he wants to join.
So then when I was thinking about the two of them, I started thinking less about just like what couples are in pop culture that are using one another for some kind of security and more about how. We focus so much on women using men to secure their status in romantic relationships, and less so about how men do the exact same thing.
It just looks different. And we tend to shame women for understanding that the odds are stacked against us in society and doing what we can to mitigate that. And maybe that is by choosing a partner who makes a lot of money because we can't solve all of our problems with money, but we can certainly solve a few of them.
less on the fact that most men, regardless of like, social status or income, are choosing to create security in their own lives by marrying at all. Like men's lives are materially improved by marriage. women's lives not so much. Women tend to be happier when they're single and divorced.
Men see that their emotional status really declines because they don't have someone who's, who is making the decisions of the household, who is making sure everything runs, who is taking care of children, if you have any. And even in partnerships where it's ostensibly equal, women are still taking on a lot of the burdens of running a household. Even if you think that you are having really good conversations about let's split things equally, things as simple as making the list of things that need to get done in the house and then handing it to your partner. You still had to do the mental labor of thinking about what needs to get done and then assigning the tasks to someone else.
So it's really not as equal as people think that it is, and I think that we should pay more attention to the ways that men are seeking and gaining security in their own romantic partnerships and less time judging women for [00:34:00] doing the same thing. Because we don't think that women should entrap men or whatever justification is given for like slut shaming women who are, you know, whether true or not from the outside looking. So they're trying to climb the social ladder.
And if they are, then who cares? People do that all the time. And if that's not. Not your cup of tea, then that's okay. But, you don't have to actively shame women for wanting a different station in life than what they have. And I just wanted to be on my soapbox about why are we judging women for something that men do in a different form or in a similar form when we don't give men the same kind of vitriol or judgment or slut shaming for also using women to secure their own peace of mind.
and that was mostly a cultural connection and not a pop culture connection. But that was my, that was my soapbox for this episode.
Emily: We are always encouraging soap boxes, especially when they're calling out misogyny, so thank you.
Lauren: You're welcome. It ticked me off. I wrote that connection angry. I was like, this is stupid.
Once again, here we are shaming women for no reason. Yeah. I just, I just find it ridiculous. It is. Like men seek security all the time and whatever socially legitimate partners they choose, which also tends to shift as soon as they hit like 45 and then their socially legitimate partner tends to be 20 years younger somehow.
But you know--
Emily: Leonardo
Lauren: DiCaprio!
All right. Shall we move to our final takeaways?
Emily: Yes. Let's, I recapped first. So it's you on the docket.
Lauren: You know, I realized that as I said, should we go to final takeaways?
Emily: I saw your face changing as you realized.
Lauren: It's like, oh, no. I think that my final takeaway is that as long as it is not harming anyone, people should not be judged for the ways in which they find security.
What about you?
Emily: I think mine is that [00:36:00] placing certain interpretations of security above all others will not necessarily make you happy.
Lauren: Mm. Were you thinking of anything specific?
Emily: Anne! Anne being told that man has no money, you won't be happy. And her going okay, I guess, and then be miserable about it for the next eight years.
Lauren: Almost a decade.
Emily: Yeah, it's a long time.
Lauren: It's a long time. We want better for you. Anne, go get your man! Next time on Reclaiming Jane, does Anne go get her man? Stay tuned to find out.
Emily: Shall we go ahead and pull our tarot?
Lauren: Yes. Do I get to pull it this time?
Emily: Yes, you do.
Lauren: Yay. Okay. Our card is four of hearts.
Emily: Four of hearts is contemplation. And the illustration is of Colonel Brandon, who is silent, sensitive, rather grave, and given to contemplation.
Lauren: He is also very pensively reading a book in the illustration.
Emily: The sexiest thing a man can do.
Lauren: Very true.
Thank you for joining us in this episode of Reclaiming Jane. Next time we'll be reading Chapter seven through nine of Persuasion with a focus on contemplation.
Emily: To read our show notes and a transcript of this episode, check out our website reclaiming jane pod.com, where you can also find the fullback catalog and links to our social.
Lauren: If you'd like to support us and get [00:38:00] access to exclusive content, you can join our Patreon at Reclaiming Jane Pod.
Emily: Reclaiming Jane is produced and co-hosted by Lauren Wethers and Emily Davis Hale. Our music is by Latasha Bundy, and our show Art is by Emily Davis Hale.
Lauren: See you next time, nerd.
Emily: Oh, this is tangential to anything, but I loved the turn of phrase when they're talking about, Charles and Anne. It says she had been solicited when about two and 20 to change her name by the young man who not long afterwards found a more willing mind and her younger sister.
Lauren: Such a great sentence.
Emily: Solicited to change her name.