As I often find posting here, our disagreements seem to be on minute issues, and our agreements on the great. But it is more fun to be talking about the differences of opinion, is it not?

If you insist that connections are part of social standing, then our only disagreement may be semantics. You have my permission to re-read my posts, substituting 'social standing' and 'social status' with the words 'family's standings' and 'birth status' and see if you then agree with me. I stated that Elizabeth's connections are objectionable to Darcy in all of my posts. But if you say Darcy disapproved of a marriage to a woman of a gentleman's family only because that gentleman was not descended from an Earl or better? then we continue to disagree.

The refusal to 'raise Elizabeth's consequence' at Meryton had nothing to do with her birth, connections, or fortune - Darcy knew none of those at the time. How could he? He had refused any introduction to the locals, and Mr. Bingley was too busy dancing to catch Darcy up on the local standings. She COULD have been an Earl's granddaughter...or a Harriet Smith, brought out for an evening by a gentlewoman. He did not enquire. The only 'consequence' that makes sense for him to be speaking of at that time was whether or not young men found her pleasing enough with which to dance.

Yes, I DO believe Elizabeth was grading her father's respectability above Darcy's when she thought that comparison through. I had always assumed it implied that the Bennett family was longer settled, had more history, etc., than the Darcys, but Jane Austen never explains, so I simply take Elizabeth saying Darcy could never reach Mr. Bennett's respectability at face value. How do you parse it?