Lydia and Wickham

            The relationship that develops between Lydia and Wickham is not one that has love as its foundation. Rather is a relationship in which physical desire has become more important than love. In addition, Lydia’s decision to run away with Wickham is one that shows her true character and society’s view on marriage during the time which the novel takes place. When describing their relationship, Austen does not have a direct dialogue between them. Instead it is based off what others say about them, which adds a sense of mystery to the entire marriage. In addition Austen characterizes Lydia as very flirtatious and her relationship with Wickham starts rather abruptly from her excessive flirting.

 Lydia is an energetic young girl who loves social functions and is always in the pursuit for pleasure. Unlike Elizabeth who passively searches for love, Lydia actively and energetically pursues Wickham who she is attracted to simply on the basis that he is an officer and is physically attractive. Although she knows that the two of them do not connect on a romantic level, and that Wickham wants to make his fortune by marrying a wealthy woman, she stakes her claim to Wickham and says “I will answer for it that he never cared three straws for her,”(p.186) after she finds out that he has lost interest in Miss King. The seemingly care free tone from the quote proves how Lydia does not really care about Wickham’s past love interests or even what he is looking for in a woman. She is selfish and only desires Wickham for pleasure and Wickham will never forgo the pleasure of sex when available. He is completely aware that Lydia is “crazy” about him. Looking only for pleasure, Lydia runs of too Brighton with Wickham, unaware of the shame that this action would bring to her family. Elizabeth says “you were aware of the great disadvantage to us all, which must arise from the public notice of Lydia’s unguarded and imprudent manner.”(p.195) In addition Elizabeth also finds out that “Wickham never intended to go there, or marry Lydia at all.”(p.229) This comes as a big shock because in the time period during which the novel took place, it was unheard of for a women to run away with a man if they were not married. Women weren’t even allowed to kiss a man who was not either their husband or family member. Therefore when Lydia ran off with Wickham it ruined her reputation and damaged her families reputation also. By doing so she also ruined her sisters’ chances of having eligible marriages. In order to save their reputation, Wickham was bribed into marrying Lydia

Thus it is evident that relationship between Lydia and Wickham is not one that can be considered as successful. Wickham had no intention of marrying Lydia. Lydia simply threw herself at Wickham and he could not pass up the opportunity to use her for his own pleasure. After they ran away Wickham slept with Lydia. He did not care for her reputation or her families one. However Darcy did care, and therefore paid off Wickham’s debt in order to make him marry her. In the end they do get married, but for all the wrong reasons. The relationship that Austen creates between Lydia and Wickham shows how two unintelligent and selfish people are brought together in marriage based only of physical desire and bribery rather than love.