Conduct Books and Pride and Prejudice

Like many families in Regency England, the Bennets of Pride and Prejudice owned a copy of Fordyce’s Sermons for Young Women (1766). Lydia Bennet’s horror at the thought of hearing it read aloud, and Elizabeth Bennet’s failure to satisfy those who thought themselves qualified to speak for society have led critics to think the novel a rejection of conduct-book morality. I read the novel differently. however, and argue that Elizabeth marries Fitzwilliam Darcy and becomes mistress of Pemberley because she follows the advice of Fordyce and his peers, managing her life with the touchstones of virtue, sense and prudence. She does not, as some critics have suggested, throw over conventional ideas about female propriety and deference, but interprets them within the tradition Fordyce helped to create so that, by the end of the novel, the middle-class morality of Samuel Richardson and the conduct books triumphs over the superficiality and display of those (like Lady Catherine de Bourgh) who are devoted to society and the season.