It is a truth universally acknowledged that once a year, no matter how many times I've seen it, I will sit through the entire 6 hours of the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice, and wonder, yet again, will Lizzie and Mr Darcy get together at the end. I will go through the agonies of his refusal, her critique, his growing affection, her rebuttal, his acts of redemption, her growing affection, and the final declarative snog.
What is it about Mr Darcy? Is it the fact that he fulfills a female fantasy of having our bad boy but only under our own terms? Is it because he's loaded and able to supply Elizabeth with the 18th century equivalent of a Bergdorf account and Jimmy Choo shoes? I'm defaulting to sexual selection and strictly biologically induced behaviour and therefore it's not my fault. As psychology studies among university students repeatedly show ... women prefer wealthier men, or at least men 'with prospects', and men prefer attractive women with child bearing hips. Makes perfect sense. Women have to invest in child rearing so we need men who can invest in us, just like a fish needs a bicycle.
So we shouldn't feel guilty about making him pay for dinner. It's just testing his capacity to pay the rest of his life for fish and bicycles. And we shouldn't feel guilty that thousands of us objectify poor Colin Firth, as he dives into a weedy pond to emerge the other side a dripping sex god.
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