Posted by Jessamyn on July 20, 1997 at 16:03:29:
In reply to Re: Frank Churchill and Edward Austen Knight posted by Kathleen (Kaf) on July 20, 1997 at 11:33:05
] Frank's father dumped him on the Churchills
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I don't think Mr. Weston is meant to be held up as an example of a poor father, necessarily. I mean, he's not a great father, but he's not a bad guy, either.
I think that in handing his son over to much better-off relatives, he was doing what everyone would have considered the best thing for the child. Rather like today's teen mothers being paired with childless couples, where the couples give the child "a better life" but don't cut the birth mother off completely; generally people don't stand around saying, How could that girl care so little for her baby?
Austen says:
. . . when his wife died after a three years' marriage, he was rather a poorer man than at first, and with a child to maintain. . . . and Mr. and Mrs. Churchill having no children of their own, nor any other young creature of equal kindred to care for, offered to take the whole charge of the little Frank soon after her decease. Some scruples and some reluctance the widower-father may be supposed to have felt; but as they were overcome by other considerations, the child was given up to the care and the wealth of the Churchills . . ."