Whatever Happened to Mrs. Gardiner?

     The world of Jane Austen is not so different from the media worlds of romance and intrigue today, with the protagonists cast as the single young men and women, and the community around them as supplementary, though important, to their journey to marriage and rest from the bustling, often dangerous world of possibilities--for everyone knows that, once married,  possibilities are limited and life gets safer. It's a trope due its truthfulness; the settled of society are the safest of society. But the difference between the fictional worlds of Ms. Austen and the fictional worlds today found in TV Series and film, is not found in the protagonists (you will find the same fresh-faced innocents, capable middle-aged romantics, and seductresses should you turn on the tube today), but rather the difference is in the lack of their married counterparts (minor and yet vital players in the bloody field of romantic conquest and adventure). 

    In Austen's world, before rampant industry and before globalization, there exists true community--in the neighborhood (think Ms. Woodhouses' deliveries to the poor and visits to the widow), in the church (think about the gossip-chain in Mr. Collin's rectory that often prompts Lizzie to action), and at the tables of the married and settled in the community (whether they be the colorful Middletons or the sensible yet lively Musgroves). It is in these safe, communal spaces that the love stories of old are written upon--Lizzie's agitation alongside Charlotte Collin's confusion, Marianne's moodiness alongside Mrs. Jenkin's pithy advice, Emma's questions of love played to the tune of the Coles' dinner party. So, where are the settled and married in the modern-day TV series and films? Do they play the same role in welcoming the singles of their community to their dinner tables? Do they serve the same purpose as an anchor in the storms of adolescent longing? Do they still give their advice, whether wise as the newly-married Mrs. Weston or clanging yet well-intended as the ramblings of old Mrs. Jennings? The answer, I find, is a resounding no. 

    While watching our newest obsession, namely the modern-take on Sherlock Holmes known as Elementary, I was hit with an epiphany. Where were the married people? Why yes, there is the empathy-inducing Captain Gregson who is having marital problems, serving as fodder for Holmes to question the institution of marriage, but I would hardly count that. In the world of Holmes and Watson who solve murders alongside their own emotional selves, there is no anchor of husband and wife to host them or show them the way in any form, and the church-house? Forget about it. The closest may come in the form of the female-pastor Holmes sleeps with...hardly an argument for any serious religious institution. Then I started thinking about other shows I have encountered over the years...Castle, starring Stana Katic and the infamous Nathan Fillion, stars starlett-mom, Martha, who is pro-divorce-and-single-life if anything despite her short episodic relationship with a man who dies, Richard Castle (Fillion), a multiple-divorce' who desires fun above all and though intrigued by Kate (Katic) from the start, sets himself up as part playboy and part good-example-dad for most of the series, turning to the hypocritical when his own daughter starts her sex life, etc. Despite the fact that this show, unlike most, does have Caskette (Castle + Kate) eventually marry after many a MacGuffin, they quickly develop marital problems involving secrecy and the show ends very quickly post-marriage, because everyone knows the flame settles after the ring drops, and today "lose the heat" amounts to "lost the drama." Slow-burn or not, the settled-flame with the ring on it has little space in the modern, passion-driven mind. 

    When I thought about it, there were really only 3-4ish shows I experienced in my "growing up" years with these married-and-settled couple types cast as mains who sometimes threw their single counterparts a rope in their ocean of struggle. Malcom in the Middle, which of course the point of which was to promote and simultaneously poke the middle-class family, so that checks out; How I Met Your Mother, which despite the hard-run of Marshall and Lily martial struggles, does have a couple that serves as an exemplar for their single-counterparts (rarity!); and One Tree Hill, anyone for Naley (Nathan + Haley)?, though admittedly the drama with the insane nanny proves that TV doesn't know what to do with heathy marriage, this couple was long-haul, and a good-ish example to their single friends around them. So yeah...it has happened, but does the modern world of media (be it books, film, or movies) really have a place for married and settled people as much as mimics reality?; I think not. There are far more typical, married couples with or without kids out there than is ever portrayed in media. This can perhaps even mostly be chalked up to the lack of religion in Hollywood--the old, porch-sitting couple down the street in the South may not appeal or even exist to the minds of writers in L.A. or N.Y., but they do exists in many a reality. But as shows become more-and-more marriage-averse/non-existent compared to those I grew up with (Gen Z's Netflix and Amazon is a different ballgame all together), the question is....Why? What happened to the Mrs. Gardiners of the world, and how can they be brought back?

    I learned about something called "the Mirror Effect" in college Sociology class. In effect it means that media reflects reality AND reality reflects media. They both serve to mirror each other. So, before casting the first stone at media, seek to know if it's simply serving to reflect reality. I'll buy that, but you can't blame all on the divorce rate (which by the way has trended somewhat downward, not upward, for a while)--and the fact is, I see more married couples in reality---older and childless, older with grown children, younger with children, younger and childless, middle-aged and childless, middle-aged with adolescent children, so much variety!--than I ever see in media. Again, the star is always single even if the model can now shift--you do encounter the occasional middle-aged single woman protagonist (rather than only the younger model), but you can guarantee she'll be done-wrong and recently divorced, tired-of-her-hum-drum-life and newly single, or lying about her age at a new job alongside all single people--anyone for Younger? Again, married and settled is apparently not "it." For the first time in my life, I can't find myself in shows. I, a married and happy 34-year-old, no longer exist in the worlds I watch for entertainment. I'm not "it," and my life is too tidy and happy to entertain others...at least that's what's the world of entertainment would like us to think. But I'm not buying it. 

    If you're one of those reading who can name exceptions, that's fine and expected, but the fact remains that the generalization I am making is true. As one who constantly reads newer fiction works and delves into shows as well as knows her Classics section like the back her hand, I really do know my stuff, and I really did grow up with the T.V. as a part of my typical, daily life. So, aside from the Hollywood mind perhaps not knowing tons of happily marrieds and perhaps not wanting to promote the nuclear-family idea due to their removal from the institution of church or religion, what's going on here? Again, it's been a long-fall from the days of Seventh Heaven and Joan of Arcadia when wholesomeness and the family-unit was being clung onto following the Columbine shootings as comfort and perhaps even "the answer." We've long left "childish things" behind us as a culture; we're starring into reality like the brave Nietzschean children we are. We must (and so our protagonists must) create our meaning ourselves and neither God, nor country, nor institution, nor those who profess to have found meaning (the married and settled), can help us. We must celebrate our lostness and go through the sea of singleness with no buoy and no protection--at least that is what we would be led to believe by current media. To go out into the world without covering and to experience it and reality as it is, is the truly empowered thing to do; at least this is what the current young, single woman is taught. Today's female protagonist doesn't cling to church or family. She sets out in her own city, often lives on her own even if family is somewhere near; she is fiercely independent and leans on no one to define who she is--she must discover it herself, and that often means time with other single and lost friends, nights with new flames in new beds not her own, and new jobs that can help her access her inner meaning as she navigates reality's difficulties. Gone are the safe spaces at married couples' tables, so gone are the married couples themselves. They, according to the current, post-modern worldview, like church and nuclear family, are distractions from the finding of true identity; all boundaries for the empowered, modern woman must be removed so that she can thrive--that is the cultural paradigm being peddled; this is Nietzsche's woman--she can take on the world, and the only consequence she'll likely experience is a few broken hearts and job changes (and struggle only helps her search for meaning after all). 

    I will briefly mentioned the numerous problems with this philosophy, including the fact that pregnancy, disease, loneliness and depression, high-level anxiety drugs and panic attacks, rape, murder, etc. are also out there as very-real possibilities for this version of the free, empowered woman...I can recall my own single years in Colorado being times of fear due to being followed, being stolen from, going through deep depression, and coming close to being raped on more than one occasion (how much the Lord protected me from as one who was often unaware of my own vulnerability; as one who had bought the lie that I could be truly independent and still safe--empowerment comes from community, not aloneness).  So, back to our new favorite show--Elementary. The former Dr. Joan Watson (young, single, female) of the series is certainly as close to truly empowered as you can get from a non-directly-Biblical standpoint. Not only is she deeply concerned with self-care and incredibly aware of how to behave as an independent and non-co-dependent person, but she is also kind, empathic, strong and yet feminine, and morally conscious. There is so much going for this protagonist, who even keeps ties with her family and not only her single friends. And yet, there are no happily-married influences around her (not even in her family); there are no safe dinner tables to eat at in married friend's homes; there are few beacons of advice who have already done-a-lot-of-single-life before; the community around her is truncated because it doesn't include the very types of families in our own real lives, the types that Austen still included in her books because she wrote them to mimic her life and not the other way around. 

    So what is to do be done? Nuclear-family models need to make their way back into media, which means Christians and Conservatives in the Arts. And this is happening. We also need to fund and consume these types of productions and not only those which hold partial truths. And this is starting to happen. But the biggest way we bring the Mrs. Gardiners back is by being the Church. If you're newly married, be the Mr. and Mrs. Weston who shares of what you have. If you're established and older (even if silly) help the Dashwoods who, through cruelty, lost their place and fortune. And if your home is run amok by the lies of the culture, be patient in affliction and pray like Fanny for the Sir Thomas Bertrums of the world to return home to Mansfield Park and take their proper place of leadership and protection back. And if you're a 34-year-old who's been married for 9 years with no children, love the younger generation and teach them what you didn't know. Teach them to always have protection from the covering of the true Church. Teach them to keep a pastor and their father on speed dial wherever they may go in the world. Teach them to value community and maybe move in with established married couples from the Church instead of simply on their own. Teach them that to be empowered means to dwell in community, not a fake social-media version, but a real one where food is eaten, advice is given, walks are shared, and a single is trained up to become an established old tree, married or not, who can pass it on to the next generation.

Love Always, C. 

Small Note* In case you read this blog and are one of those who have watched "Sherlock" past the episode I referred to, "Sherlock" as well as the character Joan are actually a better example of embracing community than most. This is especially clear as the show develops the ideas of AA and Recovery through mentorship. That being said, I stick to my main point in the last blog. Our culture is deleting the married and idolizing a short period of time for most--that of singleness and dating. Life is more than that phase, and this should be "a truth universally acknowledged." We need married people and mentors in our lives! And we naturally develop feelings beyond those singleness pops and whizz-bangs; feelings that are important and connect more to serotonin rather than dopamine--let's grow and not stagnate, friends.