"Husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be vain"
About this Quote
Austen offers a wry, universal observation about the quiet politics of marriage. Long intimacy teaches couples where the fault lines lie, which arguments are worth mounting, and which will collapse under the weight of an unyielding spouse. Opposition becomes a calculated resource rather than an instinct; knowing when resistance will be vain is part prudence, part fatigue, and part love. It signals both the closeness and the constraints of domestic life, where harmony often depends on a tacit map of each others tempers and nonnegotiables.
The line sits most memorably in Pride and Prejudice, just as Mr. Bennet yields to Mrs. Bennets eagerness to send Lydia to Brighton. Elizabeth urges caution, but Mr. Bennet, long acquainted with his wifes importunities and his own distaste for household conflict, relinquishes the point. The narrator crystallizes the moment: he knows his refusal would be futile and chooses peace over principle. That private calculation becomes a public calamity when Lydia elopes with Wickham, exposing the costs of domestic complacency. What reads as a general truism about marriage doubles as a sharp critique of a mismatched pair whose habitual patterns leave their children ungoverned.
Austen makes the sentence do several jobs at once. It has aphoristic polish, as if it could apply to any household; it carries ironic bite, because the supposed wisdom of choosing battles here looks more like negligence; and it reflects the gendered economy of persuasion in Regency England. A wife like Mrs. Bennet, without formal authority but armed with persistence and social anxiety, can be irresistible to a husband who prefers retreat to confrontation. The result is not mutual respect so much as strategic surrender. By couching this dynamic in a dry generalization, Austen trusts readers to see both the tenderness and the danger in such pragmatism: marriages survive on compromise, but families suffer when the habit of giving way replaces the duty to guide.
The line sits most memorably in Pride and Prejudice, just as Mr. Bennet yields to Mrs. Bennets eagerness to send Lydia to Brighton. Elizabeth urges caution, but Mr. Bennet, long acquainted with his wifes importunities and his own distaste for household conflict, relinquishes the point. The narrator crystallizes the moment: he knows his refusal would be futile and chooses peace over principle. That private calculation becomes a public calamity when Lydia elopes with Wickham, exposing the costs of domestic complacency. What reads as a general truism about marriage doubles as a sharp critique of a mismatched pair whose habitual patterns leave their children ungoverned.
Austen makes the sentence do several jobs at once. It has aphoristic polish, as if it could apply to any household; it carries ironic bite, because the supposed wisdom of choosing battles here looks more like negligence; and it reflects the gendered economy of persuasion in Regency England. A wife like Mrs. Bennet, without formal authority but armed with persistence and social anxiety, can be irresistible to a husband who prefers retreat to confrontation. The result is not mutual respect so much as strategic surrender. By couching this dynamic in a dry generalization, Austen trusts readers to see both the tenderness and the danger in such pragmatism: marriages survive on compromise, but families suffer when the habit of giving way replaces the duty to guide.
Quote Details
| Topic | Husband & Wife |
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