Loving Longest
“I should deserve utter contempt if I dared to suppose that true attachment and constancy were known only by woman. No, I believe you capable of everything great and good in your married lives. I believe you equal to every important exertion, and to every domestic forbearance, so long as--if I may be allowed the expression--so long as you have an object. I mean while the woman you love lives, and lives for you. All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one; you need not covet it), is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone."
That's a speech by Anne Elliot, towards the end of Jane Austen's novel Persuasion. Possibly my favorite Austen novel. I recently listened to the Librivox recording, waiting for this speech, which was much further along than I remembered. It made me think about whether there is a difference in how women and men mourn.
In Babylon 5 we see many instances of mourning. John Sheridan mourns the death of his wife Anna. Delenn mourns the loss of her husband, John Sheridan. Susan Ivanova mourns the loss of Marcus Cole. Marcus Cole mourns the death of his brother William. Garibaldi mourns the loss of his friend Frank Kemmer. Neroon mourns the loss of Branmer. And on and on. Because death, and loss, is a part of life.
The setting in which Anne Elliot declares that women love longest is Bath, and she is talking to Captain Harville, whose sister has died some time past. That sister's grief-stricken fiancee, Captain Benwick, is a friend of Captain Harville's. Benwick has recently become engaged to another young lady. Captain Harville thinks little of his friend's new happiness and makes a confusing argument that woman are inconstant and can't understand a man's profound and lasting pain, while acknowledging that his friend's upcoming nuptials don't bolster his own argument. Anne, in the past, rejected marriage to now-Captain Wentworth, but found she couldn't reject, or deny, her love for him. In fact, she has come to realize that she'll love him without any return at all, and for as long as she lives.
'Dare not say that a man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death.'
Those words are written by Captain Wentworth, as he admits to Anne that he never managed to forget her, as hard as he had tried. In Babylon 5, John Sheridan mourns his wife Anna for years; he sinks all the energy of his life into his work, avoiding new entanglements. He certainly remains constant 'when existence or when hope is gone.' John sincerely mourns Anna, yet he moves on when the emotional opportunity arises. Was his commitment any the less for that? Was Benwick's?
'We do not forget you as soon as you forget us. We cannot help ourselves. We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us.'
Delenn goes further than John, mourning her loss for decades with a constancy that alternately impresses one as pathetic or obsessive. Even though she is a political power within the Alliance for years after her husband's death, the impression is that she closes down her personal emotions, remaining invested only in the past and in her son. Anne's life is circumscribed by family and home, with no other outlet for her emotions; and although she never forgets, she does lose hope.
Everyone mourns in their own way, and for their own reasons. Guilt informed both John's regrets and Delenn's pathos, Wentworth's anger and Anne's resignation. Individual decisions on how to mourn, how long, and in what way; these are reflections of culture and personality than gender. Harville cannot reconcile his thesis with his friend Benwick's actions because you can't dictate the actions of the human (or alien) heart. Benwick and Sheridan fall in love again because the time, and the respective person, is right.
“...loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone."
Sometimes existence is gone, but hope is not. Perhaps mourning keeps hope alive, and maintains a connection to the lost. Was Delenn honoring John's memory, or keeping it alive with her daily vigil? Anne's way of dealing with loss was acceptance. She prided herself on her ability to adjust to the new situation, but she never forgot or stopped loving her Captain. Loving longest does not count for more, as Anne realizes. It is not the best evidence of depth of affection. It is just another way of dealing with loss.
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