Family and Situation
Born Miss Gardiner, to (presumably deceased) Mr. Gardiner Senior, likely of Meryton; sister to Mrs. Phillips and Mr. Edward Gardiner. Has been married to Mr. Bennet for 23 years, during which time she’s had Jane, Lizzy, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia.
Other Connections
Mrs. Bennet is also quite a gossip and seems to be friends with all of the matrons in the neighborhood. In particular, she seems to spend time with her sister Mrs. Phillips, Lady Lucas (who is a bit of a frenemy) and Mrs. Long.Appearance
May still be pretty (Mr. Bennet says the reason more husbands don’t worry about their wives attracting eligible young men is that many mothers often don’t have beauty to think of”). Was attractive and good-humored as a young woman.
Character
We’re left with very little information about the lifestyle and behaviour of the former Miss Gardiner. We’re told explicitly that she was once attractive and good-humored and that she was the daughter of a Meryton attorney. Furthermore, Mrs. Bennet’s insistence that Lydia is the best-humored daughter would seem to imply that she was outgoing, bubbly and even flirtatious by nature. Whether Miss Gardiner once shared Lydia’s tendencies towards the inappropriate is less certain. We do know that 25 years ago (so, two years before she married Mr. Bennet), she cried “for two weeks together” when Col. Miller’s regiment left Meryton.
In many ways, it is the relationship with her husband which is the most defining one of Mrs. Bennet’s life. We’re told that as a young woman, her “fortune, though ample for her situation in life, could but ill supply the deficiency of his [Mr. Bennet’s]. Her father [Gardiner] had been an attorney in Meryton, and had left her four thousand pounds.” Ultimately five thousands pounds are settled on Mrs. Bennet and the girls in the marriage articles, so the Bennet fortune must have supplemented what Mrs. Bennet brought into the marriage.
Unfortunately, it would seem this imprudent match did not pan out well for the Bennets. Mrs. Bennet is described as being “a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented, she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news.” Fundamentally, this puts her at odds with her husband who we’re told 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.” It’s somewhat unclear how aware Mrs. Bennet is of this disrespect.
Most certainly, Mrs. Bennet feels insecure about her future after her husband’s demise. More than once, she seems to blame Mr. Bennet for this insecurity, to the point where it seems as though she doesn’t understand how an entail works -- we’re told “Jane and Elizabeth tried to explain to her the nature of an entail. They had often attempted to do it before, but it was a subject on which Mrs. Bennet was beyond the reach of reason”. Alternatively, there is a reading of her which suggests she’s disappointed in her own inability to produce sons. We are told “Mrs. Bennet, for many years after Lydia's birth, had been certain” that they would have a son (which says they would have given up on such a thing around 10 years ago).
Mrs. Bennet consistently claims that Jane is the most beautiful daughter and that Lydia has the best temper (which presumably mirrors what Mrs. Bennet’s was as a young girl). Though it would be easy enough to say that she doesn’t care for Lizzy, but she does relay the whole overheard conversation with Darcy to her husband then says “‘[Lizzy] Not handsome enough to dance with! I wish you had been there, my dear, to have given him one of your set-downs. I quite detest the man.’”
