The Other Bennet Sister and The Lie of Freedom

What Mary Bennet understood, and modern women are rarely told, about love, dignity, and the courage to say no.

In 1995, at the age of seventeen, I watched what would become, in my mind, the definitive adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. I loved it so much that I saved up a little pocket money from my Saturday job at Tesco coffee shop and bought the VHS box set.

Sadly, my then boyfriend (who I thought would be my Mr Darcy) dumped me to become a rock star and I spent the following weeks sobbing and imagining myself like Mary, perpetually single, singing badly and reciting scripture at inopportune times – only two of those things came to pass. Little did I know that my Prince was out there and I would one day become a Bennet(t) myself.

As the years went on, my love of Jane Austen and the BBC boxset of Pride and Prejudice fell by the wayside. The publication of ‘The Other Bennet Sister’ in 2020 passed me by, so busy was I reading worthy and weighty Catholic tomes/interior décor magazines. When I heard about the BBC adaptation of said other Bennet sister book I had little interest in watching it. Nothing could surpass Jennifer Ehle’s Eliza, Duck Face’s Miss Bingley and Alison Steadman’s Mrs Bennet, so why bother?

We all know how these things go. A traditional story, especially one centred on young women, love, and marriage, is inevitably reworked through a modern lens where independence replaces relationship, feminism replaces femininity and the ‘oppressive’ institution of marriage is no longer necessary. Who needs a man, hey?

As it turns out – the other Bennet sister does.