Extract from Bridgerton, by Julia Quinn
Daphne forced herself to exhale. After nearly two seasons in London, the mere mention of the word “husband” was enough to set her temples pounding. She wanted to marry, truly she did, and she wasn’t even holding out for a love match. But was it really too much to hope for a husband for whom one had at least some affection?
Thus far, four men had asked for her hand, but when Daphne had thought about living her days in their company, she just couldn’t do it. There were a number of men she thought might make reasonably good husbands, but the problem was — none of them was interested. Oh, they all liked her. Everyone liked her. Everyone thought she was funny and kind and a quick wit, and no one thought her the least bit unattractive, but at the same time, no one was dazzled by her beauty, stunned into speechlessness by her presence, or moved to write poetry in her honour.
Men, she thought with disgust, seemed interested only in those women who terrified them.
No one seemed inclined to court someone like her. They all adored her, or so they said, because she was so easy to talk to, and she always seemed to understand how a man felt. As one of the men Daphne had thought might make a reasonably good husband had said, “Deuce take it, Daff, you’re just not like regular females. You’re positively normal.”
Which she might have managed to consider a compliment if he hadn’t proceeded to wander off in search of the latest blond beauty.
Daphne looked down and noticed that her hand was clenched into a fist. Then she looked up and realized her mother was staring at her, clearly waiting for her to say something. Since she had already exhaled, Daphne cleared her throat and said, “I’m sure Lady Whistledown’s little column is not going to hurt my chances for a husband.”
“Daphne, it’s been two years!”
Daphne’s fingernails bit her palm, as she willed herself not to make a retort. She knew her mother had only her best interests at heart, she knew her mother loved her. And she loved her mother, too. In fact, until Daphne had reached marriageable age, Violet had been positively the best of mothers. She still was, when she wasn’t despairing over the fact that after Daphne she had three more daughters to marry off.
Extract from Emma, by Jane Austen
“I do so wonder, Miss Woodhouse, that you should not be married, or going to be married! so charming as you are!”—
Emma laughed, and replied, “My being charming, Harriet, is not quite enough to induce me to marry; I must find other people charming—one other person at least. And I am not only, not going to be married, at present, but have very little intention of ever marrying at all.”
“Ah!—so you say; but I cannot believe it.”
“I must see somebody very superior to anyone I have seen yet, to be tempted; Mr. Elton, you know, (recollecting herself,) is out of the question: and I do not wish to see any such person. I would rather not be tempted. I cannot really change for the better. If I were to marry, I must expect to repent it.”
“Dear me!—it is so odd to hear a woman talk so!”—
“I have none of the usual inducements of women to marry. Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing! but I never have been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall. And, without love, I am sure I should be a fool to change such a situation as mine. Fortune I do not want; employment I do not want; consequence I do not want: I believe few married women are half as much mistress of their husband’s house as I am of Hartfield; and never, never could I expect to be so truly beloved and important; so always first and always right in any man’s eyes as I am in my father’s.”
“But then, to be an old maid at last, like Miss Bates!”
“That is as formidable an image as you could present, Harriet; and if I thought I should ever be like Miss Bates! so silly—so satisfied—so smiling—so prosing—so undistinguishing and unfastidious—and so apt to tell everything relative to everybody about me, I would marry to-morrow. But between us, I am convinced there never can be any likeness, except in being unmarried.”
“But still, you will be an old maid! and that’s so dreadful!”