I also get the impression that Mary Crawford might feel that she is herself not quite a suitable person by temperament to be a clergyman's wife. It is not actually a degredation -- her sister was a clergyman's wife, and she was making her home with the Grants.

Edmund is by birth much higher on the social scale than Mr Elton -- Edmund was the younger son of a baronet. Emma thinks it is presumptuos for Mr Elton to propose to her, because he was without alliances, except in trade -- it would cerainly not be presumptuos for Edmund to propsoe to Emma. Edmund had a good living to step into as soon as he had taken orders, as well as another in the future -- Edmund and Henry Tilney were gentlemen clergymen with good prospects of advancing in the church because of their connections. But Mary, used to fashionable London society, I think felt uncomfortable at the prospect because she knew that a clergyman and his wife could not lead the fashionble world.

I sometimes think that with a baronet and Member of Parliament as his father, Edmund might have good propsoect of becoming a Bishop one day. But Mary might well feel herself awkward and unsuited to the possible role of Bishop's wife. She would rather be a Judge's wife in the future -- she would prefer Edmund to go into the law -- like Mr John Knightley, also a younger son -- and it would mean the senior branch of the legal profession i.e. as barristers from whom Judges were appointed, and not what was the junior branch i.e. attorneys/solicitors such as Mr Cox in Highbury.