Pride and Prejudice #10

In this section, we read of Lydia and Wickham's disappearance, and later, of their marriage announcement. When this news precipitates, Elizabeth is shocked and confused. She wonders how long her sister and Mr. Wickham have had contact, and why Wickham even wants to marry Lydia. Unlike the rest of the Bennet family, the news of the marriage of one of her daughters brings felicity to Mrs. Bennet. When the news spreads, Mr. Collins writes a letter to the family. He says, "...this licentiousness of behaviour in your daughter has proceeded from a faulty degree of indulgence, though at the same time, for the consolation of yourself and Mrs. Bennet, I am inclined to think that of her own disposition must be naturally bad, or she could not be guilty of such an enormity at so early an age...you are greviously to be pitied...this false step in one daughter will be injurious to the fortunes of all the others..." (Austen 248). Mr. Collins accuses the Bennets of poor parenting, and notes that Lydia’s behavior reflects poorly on the family as a whole. He also says that this mistake made my Lydia will also affect the posterity of the other Bennet daughters. Collins' rude remark is not the first one made to the Bennet family.