In its attentiveness to both class and romantic fantasy, Eligible shows Austen’s marriage plot all the reverence and ambivalence 21st-century America bestows on the institution itself. To quote Sittenfeld’s Darcy, it’s “how socioeconomic stratification works.” This misrepresentation is understandable even the Supreme Court’s landmark decision on same-sex marriage describes the institution as a kind of super-serious commitment, embodying “the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family.” Eligible, however, shrewdly connects wedlock to class, pointing out that no matter what we want marriage to mean, it continues to do what it has done throughout human history: consolidate wealth and privilege. Prior adaptations have been too willing to equate Regency wedlock with contemporary long-term relationships, misrepresenting not only their source material but also the status of marriage today.
But Curtis Sittenfeld’s Eligible, the latest and sharpest reworking of Pride and Prejudice, reminds us that marriage is never just about love. You can’t have anything to do with her oeuvre unless you’re willing to lump your protagonists into happy romantic dyads. After all, Austen’s name is virtually synonymous with the marriage plot. TO SAY that a Jane Austen adaptation is revolutionary in its attention to marriage might seem oxymoronic.
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