about John is not if he loves his wife or not, and whether this guides his choices. To love his wife is not a sin, and it is the best reason in the world to marry, even if others do not find her to their taste. What worries me about him is his easy readiness to give up a promise to his own father on his deathbed. And clearly, he is presented in the novel as a respectable man, with lots of money, and this equals "power", and lack of it we can see, produces limitations, as experienced by the Dashwoods, in the wake of his decision.