这位《傲慢与偏见》的作者曾有过结婚的机会，但她选择了拒绝。历史学家露西·沃斯利（Lucy Worsley）探讨了简·奥斯汀为何终身未婚，以及她那个时代的女性所面临的困境。
简·奥斯汀终身未婚。这常常被认为是件憾事，一个关于错失爱情机会的故事。但真相更引人入胜：奥斯汀确实有过机会，但她选择了拒绝。这揭示了她所处时代单身女性生活的严酷现实。
简·奥斯汀
故事始于1795年12月的一个夜晚，地点在汉普郡斯蒂文顿的牧师住所。简当时20岁。晚餐后，一位客人——来自邻近迪恩教区的爱尔兰年轻律师汤姆·勒弗罗伊（Tom Lefroy）——正在“极其愉快地”与她调情。简在给姐姐卡桑德拉的信中描述了这一场景。她写道：“想象一下我做过的一切最放荡、最令人震惊的事情。”
第二天早上，简和汤姆在舞会上再次相遇。简在信中戏谑地提到“我与他坠入爱河”，并描述了他如何“只与我跳舞”。但这段萌芽中的罗曼史很快被扼杀了。汤姆的监护姨婆（也是他的赞助人）认为简·奥斯汀小姐社会地位不够高，不配做汤姆的妻子。汤姆被匆匆送离了这个郡。
许多人认为勒弗罗伊就是《傲慢与偏见》中达西先生的原型。但简·奥斯汀生命中还有另一次更严肃的求婚。
1802年12月2日，在拜访老友凯瑟琳（Catherine）和阿莱西亚·比格（Alethea Bigg）姐妹时，她们的弟弟哈里斯·比格-威瑟（Harris Bigg-Wither）向简求了婚。哈里斯21岁，比简小六岁。他可能并不英俊（据说他“粗笨”、“口齿不清”），但他非常富有。他刚刚继承了位于汉普郡曼尼唐（Manydown）的宏伟家族庄园。
简接受了。
然而，经过一夜的思考，她改变了主意。第二天早上，她收回了承诺。简和卡桑德拉匆忙收拾行李，在家人吃早餐前就离开了曼尼唐。这引起了轩然大波。简的侄女卡洛琳后来写道：“（奥斯汀）家没人知道这件事，直到一切结束。”
简的传记作者们认为，她拒绝哈里斯是出于一个简单的原因：她不爱他。但露西·沃斯利（Lucy Worsley）在其著作《简·奥斯汀在家》（Jane Austen at Home）中提出了另一种观点。她认为，简的拒绝不仅仅关乎浪漫，更关乎生存。
经济现实
沃斯利写道，简拒绝哈里斯的原因，在于她意识到婚姻对她来说意味着什么。婚姻会让她成为“比格-威瑟太太”，一个富裕庄园的女主人。但这也意味着她要放弃写作。
在摄政时期的英格兰，已婚女性没有法律权利。她们不能拥有财产，不能签订合同，也不能保留自己的收入。简结婚后，她拥有的一切——包括她写作可能带来的任何收入——都将属于她的丈夫。
简的家人并不认为写作是严肃的职业。她的兄弟们有体面的工作：詹姆斯是牧师，亨利是银行家，爱德华是富裕的地主，弗兰克和查尔斯则在海军服役。简的父亲乔治·奥斯汀牧师曾尝试让简的作品出版，但未获成功。在奥斯汀家，写作被视为一种无害的爱好，一种“淑女才艺”，就像刺绣或弹钢琴一样。
但简视写作为她的职业。1802年时，她已经完成了《理智与情感》、《傲慢与偏见》和《诺桑觉寺》的初稿。她可能已经意识到自己的才华和潜力。
“老姑娘”的困境
拒绝哈里斯意味着简要面对成为“老姑娘”（spinster）的严酷现实。在奥斯汀的时代，单身女性是社会的弃儿。她们没有法律地位，没有收入来源，也没有自己的家。
简的处境尤其艰难。1805年父亲去世后，她、姐姐卡桑德拉和母亲的生活费每年只有区区250英镑（约合今天的15,000英镑）。这笔钱仅够维持最基本的生活。她们被迫过着“漂泊的生活”，从一个亲戚家搬到另一个亲戚家。
简的哥哥爱德华（曾被富裕的亲戚奈特家族收养）最终在查顿（Chawton）为她们提供了一处小屋。但即使在那里，生活也很拮据。简曾写信给卡桑德拉，抱怨买不起新衣服：“我可怜的老想买衣服的念头似乎被彻底压垮了。”
简的哥哥弗兰克曾提出收养她的一个侄子，以减轻她的负担。但简拒绝了。她不想成为别人的负担。
写作作为出路
沃斯利认为，写作对简来说不仅是一种激情，更是生存的手段。通过写作，她可以为自己和母亲创造收入。
1811年，《理智与情感》出版。简获得了140英镑的版税（约合今天的8,500英镑）。这笔钱对她来说是一笔巨款。她兴奋地写信给卡桑德拉：“我终于有钱了！”
《理智与情感》的成功为《傲慢与偏见》打开了大门。简最终成为了一位成功的作家，尽管她从未署上自己的真名（她的作品署名是“一位女士”）。
结论
简·奥斯汀终身未婚，但这并非因为她没有机会。她拒绝了哈里斯·比格-威瑟的求婚，因为她明白婚姻意味着牺牲自己的写作事业。
在摄政时期的英格兰，单身女性的生活异常艰难。她们没有法律权利，没有收入来源，也没有社会地位。但简·奥斯汀选择拥抱这种生活，因为她珍视自己的独立和写作的自由。
通过写作，她不仅养活了自己和家人，还为世界留下了六部最伟大的英语小说。正如沃斯利所写：“如果她接受了哈里斯，世界将失去六部杰作。简·奥斯汀的单身状态并非悲剧，而是文学史上的重大幸事。”
The real reason Jane Austen never married
Jane Austen's literary heroines famously enjoyed romantic wedded bliss, yet Austen herself remained unmarried all her life. Here, expert David Lassman asks why…
One of the greatest writers in the English language, Jane Austen (1775–1817) is famed for her works of romantic fiction including Sense and Sensibility (1811); Pride and Prejudice (1813); Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816). Her present-day popularity derives chiefly from the fact her heroines, although two centuries old, act as romantic beacons for the modern age. With a universal message of marrying for love rather than money, they provide examples, albeit fictional, of women choosing husbands due to strings of the heart and not of the purse.
If the old adage ‘write what you know’ is applied to Austen’s writing, then she should have had one of the happiest marriages in the history of matrimony. But here lies the paradox. One of the supreme purveyors of romantic love in English literature, and the creator of numerous blissful couplings in print, never took her own trip down the aisle.
The National Portrait Gallery attributed this unfinished portrait to Jane Austen’s sister, Cassandra, and dated it to circa 1810. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
The whitewashing of Jane's public persona began almost immediately after her death in 1817 with the autobiographical note her brother, Henry, wrote to preface the publication of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. This meant that the question as to why this was so never really entered the equation. The mere fact that Jane did not find a Mr Darcy in real life and so lived – it seemed – as a virtuous Christian ‘spinster’ was enough to satisfy Victorian curiosity.
By the middle of the 20th century, however, this somewhat distorted view of the now much-admired and studied author began to be challenged. Literary critic QD Leavis protested in 1942, for example, against the “conventional account of Miss Austen as prim, demure, sedate, prudish and so on, the typical Victorian maiden lady”. Her essay was just one of many that would bring into question and then rewrite the received biography. And with this rewriting came the desire to know exactly why Jane Austen had remained single.
Was Jane Austen gay?The most contentious hypothesis puts forward the assumption Jane Austen did not marry for the simple reason her sexuality was orientated towards other women. In other words, she was a lesbian. The evidence, however, is simply not there to support this. We know of the early romance with Tom Lefroy, who would later become Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, which was called off not by Jane due to any burgeoning doubt about her own sexuality, but by his family due to the penniless status of the would-be lovers. And this was the age, lest we forget, at least for the middling classes and above, when marrying for money was a fact of life and the yardstick by which all potential partners – male and female – were measured.
Anne Hathaway as Jane Austen and James Mcavoy as Tom Lefroy in the 2007 film [size=0.8125]Becoming Jane. (Picture by Alamy)
There was also the mystery seaside rendezvous, where it is said Jane fell in love with a young clergyman and he with her. Their infatuation blossomed over several weeks during one of the Austen family’s regular summer breaks while they lived in Bath, and the lovers made arrangements to meet the following year. Sadly, when the time came for their reunion, news arrived saying that the clergyman had died during the intervening period. In 2009 Dr Andrew Norman named this clergyman as Samuel Blackall, but claims Blackall did not die but rather went on to marry someone else.
And then, of course, there was an actual proposal of marriage and acceptance of it. While Jane and her sister, Cassandra, were staying with friends, the Bigg sisters, at their residence, Manydown, Hants, in December 1802, their younger brother, Harris Bigg-Wither (the additional surname having been adopted for males of the family during the late 18th century) took it upon himself to integrate the families further by one evening proposing to Jane. Although he was six years younger than her she accepted, but after what can only have been a dark night of the soul rescinded it the following morning and hastily bid a retreat by carriage back to Steventon and then to Bath.
It could be argued that if there were any hint of lesbianism in Jane then surely she would simply have not accepted the offer in the first place, or else would not have changed her mind (enjoying the financial security the marriage brought, while at the same time free to enjoy her sexuality outside of the relationship). The reality is that any relations Jane did have with the same sex were either genuine friendships, or else those normally shared with relatives.
Jane's relationship with her sister CassandraAnother theory was later put forward; that of an incestuous relationship. This ‘sisterly love’ theory, which suggested a sexual bond between Jane and her sister, Cassandra, came into public consciousness in 1995, the same year as Colin Firth’s shirt-drenched Darcy became lodged there; the former through a review essay by Terry Castle.
Castle’s piece, which appeared in the London Review of Books, was a critique of the latest edition of Jane Austen’s collected letters. In the essay Castle pondered on the closeness of the sisters to the point where she mused about the true nature of their relationship and what had transpired between the sheets of the double bed she believed the sisters shared throughout their lives.
It was of course Cassandra, in one of the greatest acts of literary vandalism in history, who burnt the majority of her sister’s enormous correspondence to her, thus depriving posterity of an insight into a more authentic character study of Jane, other than the whitewashed, virginal one that prevailed. The burning of Jane’s letters also gave rise to endless speculation as to what exactly they contained.
A letter from Jane Austen to her sister Cassandra. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)
Whether it was ever Castle’s intention to call into question the sisters’ sexual orientation – she later stated it was not – there was seemingly enough in the review to warrant a sub-editor on the periodical (with one-eye on circulation, no doubt) to title the review “Was Jane Austen Gay?” and then emblazon the headline on the front cover.
The ensuing fallout from the article – which included a media maelstrom – made at least one thing certain: not the bedtime habits of the Austen sisters, but the reverence held for Jane by various devotees (or ‘Janeites’, as they are called) around the globe. Indeed, many fans were outraged at the mere suggestion that Austen could have been anything other than a heterosexual, virginal singleton.
The final nail in the coffin of this theory seemed to come with the disclosure of an invoice. The whole episode had revolved around Castle’s assumption that the two women slept together in one double bed, but this assumption was completely shattered by a piece of paper that showed that Mr Austen, on his daughters reaching adolescence, had ordered a single bed for each of them.
And let us not forget, either, that Cassandra herself was engaged to be married, before her fiancé died in 1797, leaving her bereft but determined to embrace spinsterhood out of respect for him and not through any sexual orientation towards other women.
Is this the real reason Jane Austen didn't marry?With that contentious theory hopefully put to bed (no pun intended), we can come to the real reason, I believe, Jane Austen did not marry. It was because she already had developed a deep, lifelong relationship with her art – writing – and believed there was a good chance any gentleman she uttered the words ‘I do’ to would insist on that artistic expression ceasing forthwith.
Jane Austen began writing at the age of 12 and did not stop until ill health forced it upon her, shortly before her death, at the age of 41. In between there were seemingly fallow years – in Bath – and even barren ones – in Southampton – but this did not mean she ceased in the development of her craft. There were voluminous letters to be written, so as to keep her wit and observations sharp, and large amounts of books devoured from circulating libraries or those of friends and relatives to stimulate her mind in readiness for an incredible six-year outpouring of literary creativity once ensconced at the cottage in Chawton.
Jane Austen's house in Chawton, Hampshire. (Photo by Peter Thompson/Heritage Images/Getty Images)
This ‘revelation’ and the whole mass of evidence that is slowly being recognised as supporting this theory is, in its own way, possibly even more contentious than any questions about Jane’s sexuality. Why? Because this suggests that she was not only a literary genius but a forward-thinking woman, an independent mind, an astute business person and a feminist pioneer – one who can easily take her place alongside such luminaries as Mary Astell and Mary Wollstonecraft – rolled into one.
And this at a time when women were supposed to love, honour and obey their husbands, and the only way for the majority of women – including Austen – to obtain financial security was to marry into it. Because God help them if they tried to make a living independently, say through the pen, as she chose to do! In hindsight, then, it is perhaps no wonder Jane’s brother, Henry, sought to soften the image of his sister, knowing a true portrait would most likely cause outrage in certain sections of the Regency, and then later Victorian, public.
Possibly Tom Lefroy would have encouraged Jane’s writing aspirations, as might the mysterious seaside suitor, but she was certain that Harris Bigg-Wither would not and ultimately, in my mind, at least, that is why she declined his proposal. But let us consider for a moment the pressure that would have been on Jane throughout that December night in 1802 at Manydown. Her family, although not poor, were not well off, and the marriage would have brought security for all of them, or at least the females within it: Jane, Cassandra and their mother.
I believe it was with a pragmatic mind that Jane accepted Bigg-Wither’s proposal. And then throughout the night, either within her solitary thoughts or in discussion with her sister, she pondered on what she might be losing herself, and changed her mind. It might have been the dutiful daughter who accepted the proposal, but it was the aspiring writer (and true artist) who descended the stairs the following morning, took Harris to one side, and declared she had made a mistake and the marriage was off.
With this knowledge of Jane’s literary aspirations, it is perhaps no surprise that on her return to Bath she subsequently revised Northanger Abbey (or rather Susan, as it was originally titled) and successfully sought a publishing deal for it, which saw her achieve the goal of finally being paid for her writing. The fact that, for whatever reason, the publishing firm chose not to publish the work merely taught Jane a lesson about the industry and made her more determined to see her work in print, if not bearing her own name, certainly on her own terms.
A print from an edition of Jane Austen's [size=0.8125]Northanger Abbey. George Routledge and Sons, London. (Photo by The Print Collector/Getty Images)
To this end, after revising Sense & Sensibility and once settled at Chawton, Jane used her own money to publish the book and saw a handsome return on her investment. And although she sold the rights to her next published novel, Pride & Prejudice, she quickly realised a mistake had been made and so subsequent books reverted back to this initial ‘business model’.
The fact that Jane Austen remained single all her life, while her literary heroines enjoyed both romantic wedded bliss and financial security, is one of English literature’s greatest ironies. The simple fact is, though, that even if Jane had herself experienced a happy marriage with a husband only too obliging for her to continue writing, with the prospect of possibly a large family to bring up Jane may not have had the time to write to the extent she did and so develop her incredible talent that is so revered today.
So, to reiterate, by not marrying, Jane allowed herself the time and space to develop her talent unhindered by domestic duties or conjugal obligations. She sacrificed financial security and matrimonial happiness in order to retain the freedom to write and develop as a true artist. It is perhaps because of that choice Jane Austen is considered one of the greatest literary talents of all time.
原文出处：https://www.historyextra.com/per ... sten-never-married/
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