| Sweet 16
Written by Bridget D
(10/9/2009 4:26 a.m.)
in consequence of the missive, This theme of seducing 16 years old girls, penned by Outi
I think that the reason JA allows the seductions to happen with such young girls is that she wanted to make them more "excusalbe" on the girls' parts... Not that she saw a 16 year old as totally unable to know the right thing to do, but it was possible to say that a girl of that age IS young and often very foolish and "hormonal" and at the age when she might try to rebel against her elders, without really considering the consequences. Lydia at 16 was foolish, and so her seduction was not as much her fault as it would have been had she been say 21 or so... and so JA was able to rescue her and get her respectably married... Eliza wasn't so lucky, but to soem extent her guardian can excuse her folly as being due to her youth.
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