personally I DONT think Jane Austen intended for Mr. Bennet to be paying Mrs. Bennet a genuine compliment when he said she was as beautiful as any of their daughters. He seems kind of incapable of paying his wife a real compliment.
BUT
I still think we should have MILF Mrs. Bennet. I think everyone should be like “damn” when they see her and then she opens her mouth and they’re like “oh”. I want them to go through the same process Mr. Bennet did, in a much shorter time frame.
I think Mr. Bennet is saying that Mrs. Bennet is still beautiful, but for him that wouldn't be a compliment. In his perspective, her beauty ruined his life. So it's probably like he's saying, "Mr. Bingley better watch out, your beauty STILL might tempt him into the worst marriage ever unfortunately."
and totally yes to the second statement. But I want her to also have a very sexy voice, that you quickly realize is spouting nonsense.
Yes to all of this! In some future adaptation, let’s have a youngish Mrs. Bennet (because honestly, if she married as young as Elizabeth does, she would be 44 or 45, and if she married as young as Lydia does, she would be just 39 or 40!), who may be slightly overweight (from giving birth five times), but otherwise is still stunning, so we see where Mr. Bennet’s mistake came from.
For that matter, give us a Mr. Bennet no older than 50, to reinforce that he married his wife out of blind youthful infatuation, and make him good-looking too, to reinforce that it was mutual. (Although of course the future Mrs. Bennet also had the motive of social climbing.)
a youngish Mr Bennett also makes Mrs Bennet acting like he's going to drop dead any moment even more ridiculous.
I've always taken that to be a joke in the book, that Mrs Bennett and indeed Mr Collins talk about Mr Bennett's death as if it's imminent when he's not even old.
