Through close examination of Chapter One and other appropriately selected episodes from the novel discuss the qualities of Mr and Mrs Bennet as parents in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.
...the same time flatters his wife, causing her, at first, a cerebral inflation, and then, when she realizes what he said a minute earlier, annoyance. We are soon introduced to the favouritism of each, Mr Bennet preferring Elizabeth, and Mrs Bennet preferring Lydia and Jane. Mr Bennet then degrades all daughters but Elizabeth, calling them silly and ignorant (an unhealthy criticism rarely heard from a father speaking of his daughters), while Mrs Bennet reveals to us that she is a hypochondriac, and he replies with cynicism saying that he does know that she suffers, and that he has befriended her nerves after hearing of them for the past 20 or so years. Austen then sums up their characters, which are clues to their parental ability. We learn that he is sarcastic, reserved, cunning and somewhat indiscernable character. This may make for an often-humorous father, but also a cynical one. She is a rather ignorant and moody woman, with little to do but gossip and have her daughters married, the former she constantly delights in, the latter she constantly strives to achieve. Austen says that 'The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news.' This may make for a caring, though embarrassing, mother. Chapter 2 begins by telling us that Mr Bennet does visit Bingley, being one of the first to do so, despite all his objections. This proves that he also shares his wife's ambition, but has one, already recognized, of his own. Like his wife, he wants to have his daughters happily married, but, as we have already seen, he loves to annoy his own partner. We see his objections are false provocations, and learn that a seemingly inconsiderate father is simply a mocking one. In this chapter he continues to mock her, with the children present, and he picks on Kitty as well. He then mocks sarcastically Mary's 'intellectuality', by saying, 'What say you, Mary? For you are a young lady of deep reflection I know, and read great books, and make extracts.' Mrs Bennet reveals her stupidity and childishness by exclaiming how she is sick of Mr Bingley, and then of how good her husband was to go and visit the man, and how this was what she expected the whole time. This childish nature in a mother is not good for her offspring, and is reflected in her younger daughters, Lydia and Kitty, the former she praises in the closing paragraphs. In Chapter 3 Mrs Bennet reinforces our views of her character and ambitions with the statement 'If I can but see one of my daughters happily settled at Netherfield and all others equally married well married, I shall have nothing to wish for.' The Bennets (or perhaps just Mrs Bennet) go to some lengths to have their daughters married, organizing further visits to Mr Bingley. Mrs Bennet, at the chapter's conclusion, sticks up for Elizabeth, and makes a somewhat rash character judgement of Darcy. This confirms that she is a rash and prejudicial women. Chapter 5 reinstates her stupidity and childishness, with her argument at the end with a young Lucas boy, having misunderstood, and stubbornly disagreed with, a hypothetical scenario. This, I am sure, causes a great deal of embarrassment to the more intelligent of the daughters, and is a very bad example for the remaining three. Mr Bennet, being the single male in the family, has no male heir. This presents a problem in that, should he die, his property would become that of a chosen relative. What magnifies this problem, is that Mr Collins is the recipient of the Bennet estate, and has very little chance of drawing one of the girls into a willful relationship, hence leaving the Bennet children without any hope of receiving the estate. This is a problem that Mr Bennet seems to have neglected in his foresight, and is perhaps, beginning to regret. In the same chapter do we witness the extremities Mrs Bennet is willing to breach in her limitless drive to get Jane married to Bingley. Bingley is a man of great stature and wealth, a member of the upper class, the aristocracy. Mrs Bennet's reasons for Jane marrying Bingley are more likely to be based around these facts (his social and financial standing) than the fact that Jane actually likes the man. She embarrasses her daughters later on (her argument with Dracy in Chapter 9), and proves that she can forget her need to get her daughters married and instead indulge in petty, childish argument in order to prove herself right. She also proves that she is spiteful, and does not forget in a hurry. Although these traits are not recognizable in her children, they are still not those expected of an "educated lady". On returning from Bingley's, the eldest girls are greeted by a truly caring father, who 'though very laconic in his expressions of pleasure, was really glad to see them' and who has noticed a lack of sense about the house and has truly missed them. Their mother displays very different emotions, they were 'not welcomed home very cordially'. Another moment in the novel when each parent acts very differently, is when Collins proposes to Elizabeth. We laugh at Mrs Bennet's anxiety and flurrying about, 'But depend upon, Mr Collins, that Lizzy shall be brought to reason. I will speak to her about it myself directly' later 'I will make her know it' but we must respect her motives. But, who loves the child more? The parent who wishes to see the child happily married, or perhaps not at all, or the parent who wishes to have the child wed. Perhaps this is a question that Austen herself was asking, and likely one prevalent in many girls hearts at the time. But Mr Bennet does not treat his wife well in this scene. Being a woman who usually gets her way, especially with her daughters, his refusal, as well as Lizzy's, must have pained her. But this also shows the lengths to which he is prep...