Et tu, Edmund?

But let me observe that all histories are against you--all stories, prose and verse. If I had such a memory as Benwick, I could bring you fifty quotations in a moment on my side the argument, and I do not think I ever opened a book in my life, which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men." ~Persuasion

Woman’s fickleness? What about man’s weakness? I do not think I have ever watched a movie in my life, which did not have a man cheating, flirting, or being tempted by a woman with only her looks to recommend her.

I don’t have much experience with men other than what my screen tells me. What about the man that eloped with his fiancé even after she did not show up to the wedding shower his mother threw for her, then did not return anyone’s call weeks before the wedding? Now they are married? Really? After she treated you like that?

This thought was born when I watched Miss Pettigrew lives for a Day this morning, when I woke up too early. Cirian Hind’s character is supposed to be a stand up man, someone we are all supposed to hope ends up with our heroine; but I wonder if he is good enough for her? Why would he be involved with a scandalous younger girl that he suspects is only after his connections? Yet she wooed him back even after he met our Miss Pettigrew. It is not unlike what a woman would do, I suppose. Run back to a man, if he only apologizes, because I guess we all just want to feel loved and needed. But what if we wait? What if we breathe? What if we think? Let the right one come to us? Or would we all just be sitting back waiting? No one would ever search. We would miss each other.

Even Jane wrote a situation such as this. Edmund. Our beloved Edmund. Maybe my favorite of Austen's love interests. What did he see in Mary Crawford, other than her looks? Could someone as lovely as Edmund really imagine himself in love with someone like that? But you cannot argue that all these stories were all written by one sex because they were not. So both see how weak and inconsistent men can be, more so than woman, arguably.