Family and Situation
Mr. Bennet married Mrs. Bennet née Gardiner 23 years ago and, while they started having children almost immediately, they were unsuccessful at having sons. They did ultimately have daughters Jane, Lizzy, Mary, Kitty and Lydia.Was cousins with a Mr. Collins who is dead before the novel begins; Mr. Collins’ son Rev. William Collins is Mr. Bennet’s closest male relative. Assuming Collins senior is a first cousin, this means that Mr. Collins’ mother would have been Mr. Bennet’s sister; in any case, it’s likely that Collins’ is the son of some close female relative.
Mr. Bennet has Longbourn House, presumably the family home where he grew up, from which he derives 2,000 pounds per anum. The line has been entailed, however (likely because of the distrustful or just poor financial management of a forefather) and it will default to Mr. William Collins upon Mr. Bennet’s death. We’re told “Mr. Bennet's property consisted almost entirely in an estate of two thousand a year, which, unfortunately for his daughters, was entailed, in default of heirs male, on a distant relation.” Based on Mr. Bennet’s statements about providing for Lydia, it is implied that he could have saved up to provide respectable dowries for the girls, but didn’t bother to because of the assumption that he and Mrs. Bennet would have a son who could inherit the estate and look after his sisters.
Habits and Hobbies
Fond of the country and books. Has been known to go shooting, but seems to avoid balls. We’re explicitly told he doesn’t have many vices.Character
We’re told that Mr. Bennet is “odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice” and that he hates London. This has implication for his marriage. Though Mr. Bennet was initially “captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good humour which youth and beauty generally give, had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her. Respect, esteem, and confidence had vanished for ever; and all his views of domestic happiness were overthrown.” Based on this, we’re left to believe that Mr. Bennet at one time preferred women who were quite bubbly -- it is strongly implied that Mrs. Bennet’s behavior as a young woman was not so different from Lydia’s; evidently, his tastes have since changed.Despite this disappointment, we’re told that he is “not of a disposition to seek comfort for the disappointment which his own imprudence had brought on, in any of those pleasures which too often console the unfortunate for their folly or their vice”, and that instead “He was fond of the country and of books; and from these tastes had arisen his principal enjoyments. To his wife he was very little otherwise indebted, than as her ignorance and folly had contributed to his amusement.” Specifically, we’re told “In his library he had been always sure of leisure and tranquillity; and though prepared, as he told Elizabeth, to meet with folly and conceit in every other room of the house, he was used to be free from them there.”
Much is made of how close Mr. Bennet is to Lizzy, though we’re told “Elizabeth, however, had never been blind to the impropriety of her father's behaviour as a husband...and to banish from her thoughts that continual breach of conjugal obligation and decorum which, in exposing his wife to the contempt of her own children, was so highly reprehensible.” His relationships with his other daughters appear to me more distant; he’s constantly making fun of the younger girls and Kitty often doesn’t understand his humor.
Mr. Bennet seems to have mixed feels about his daughters’ eventual marriages. Bingley and Mr. Bennet go shooting together while we’re waiting for Bingley to propose; we’re told “There was nothing of presumption or folly in Bingley that could provoke his [Mr. Bennet’s] ridicule, or disgust him into silence; and he was more communicative, and less eccentric, than the other had ever seen him”. When Bingley finally asks Jane, Mr. Bennet is observably pleased, but doesn’t explicitly say anything until after Bingley has left. With Darcy, on the other hand, Mr. Bennet has significantly more reservations, in part because he hardly knows the man.
