Reviewing Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility"

I’ve already discussed a lot about Sense and Sensibility at length, so I’ll try not to retread familiar ground. Instead of the overall plot or characters, then, I’d like to talk about why this novel is relevant now.

When I suggest Jane Austen to teens (mostly girls, but I think the books could be profitable reads for guys too), I usually have S&S in mind. While Pride and Prejudice is Austen’s best, most famous, and most influential work, Sense and Sensibility has the most relevance for adolescents. Why?  Because it’s about walking the minefield of romantic relationships, a perilous journey that all too many teens embark upon unprepared.
One could argue that romance was more perilous back in Jane Austen’s time, I suppose.  After all, in Austen’s culture, if a lady was seen with a man alone her reputation was ruined and her chances for a good marriage disintegrated. In a world where a woman’s survival relied almost solely on marriage, her reputation was pretty much the same thing as her life. 

Our world today is so much more different. The unforgivable from Jane Austen’s time (premarital intimacy, pregnancy out of wedlock, extramarital affairs) are nearing the norm now.  Maybe readers today are confused by the “improprieties” that Marianne commits with Mr. Willoughby (riding alone through town?  SCANDALOUS!). Personally I think that instead of judging Jane Austen’s time as prudish and restrictive, we should reevaluate our own culture and its tendency toward minimizing the importance of purity. Seventeenth Century Britain may have had its faults (all times and cultures do), but one of the 21^st Century’s is to throw away precious things and instead of mourning their loss to pretend they were never precious at all. 

In addition to this treasuring of virtue, S&S also is an important read, particularly for young women, because it talks about the qualities to look for in a man. We can judgy-judge Marianne all day about how prematurely she got attached to Willoughby or her fanciful, romantic ideals. But to be honest a lot of what Marianne wanted in a husband was high in ideals: she wanted someone noble, caring, intelligent…a soul mate. In this Marianne has at least the same standards as the average modern woman. 

(I would even argue that she has slightly higher standards: she fell in love with Willoughby not because of popularity or even how handsome he was, but his reading was also a consideration!)

So instead of judging Marianne because she was too idealistic, or feeling self-righteous because we aren’t such stick-in-the-muds as Elinor, reading Sense and Sensibility should challenge us readers. What are our standards? What are our goals? What do we look for in a husband (or wife)? How do we think about romance, love, and relationships? Is the way we think about these things sensible, or are we carried away with our sensibilities?