] fatherless ladies in the novel:

] SIngle:
] Elinor and Marianne

] Married - but it appears their fathers were gone before their marriages:
] Fanny
] Charlotte
] Lady Middleton

Mr. Jennings died about 8 years earlier, so he was certainly gone before Charlotte married. Lady Middleton has been married to Sir John for at least seven years because they have a six year old child. However, Mrs. Jennings does talk about getting her girls off her hands with some pride, as if it were all her own doing.

So, we have Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, Charlotte and Mary Jennings, possibly Fanny Ferrars, Sophia Grey, Miss Morton, and Eliza Williams who did not have a father living at the time of their marriages.

Many of those ladies had little input about whom they would marry. Mrs. Jennings may congratulate herself, but she could hardly have chosen spouses who were less temperamentally suited for her daughters! They almost seem as though they would have been better off with each others' husbands.

But to me, the interesting thing is that Brandon, Willoughby, and Edward--who have so many other parallels in their respective situations--were all either involved with, supposed to marry, or intending to marry a fatherless heiress.

] With so few fathers living, I begin to understand Marianne's ealier comments about Colonel Brandon's age :)

It was uncharitable of her to say, but also true. She is the same age as the younger Eliza Williams, whose mother was the same age as Colonel Brandon, so he is definitely old enough to be Marianne's father.