Mary Crawford (Mansfield Park) - Mary and Edmund

Mary and Edmund

While Mary Crawford is becoming interested in the younger Bertram brother, Edmund, he also quickly becomes interested in Mary. However, Mary is at odds with herself in liking Edmund, as he is a younger brother without a large inheritance to look forward to. Furthermore, his intention is to become a clergyman and support himself by taking a family living. Mary and her wealthy London friends do not consider being a clergyman to be a sufficiently prestigious and stylish occupation. When she learns that Edmund is to take orders, she strongly expresses her opposition, believing that profession to be unworthy, filled only by lazy and gluttonous men, such as her brother in law, Dr Grant. She encourages Edmund to become a soldier or a lawyer instead, but to no avail. (Mary's attentions to Edmund displease Fanny Price, who is secretly in love with him). Mary begins to use her wiles in a half-joking way to try to get him to renounce his decision to be a clergyman. After promising him the first (two) dances at a ball soon be given at Mansfield Park, Mary tells Edmund it will be the "last time" she will dance with him, because the next time they meet he will be ordained, and... "she never has danced with a clergyman... and she never will".

On the other hand, Mary cannot bring herself to really cut herself off from Edmund, even though marrying him would be a betrayal of the values she was raised with (that seeking money and status is paramount). She recognizes his quality, respects him, and is in love with him. Fanny believes, and Austen states at the end of the novel, that Mary would have eventually altered her views and married Edmund if not for the scandal that ends up dividing them.

On Edmund's side, he often has doubts of Mary's character. Edmund is a very religious person, serious and strict in his morality. Mary, conversely, conforms herself to speak and act more or less in compliance with the morality of the day, but has been raised in London society, which prizes money and status. Edmund is troubled by some of Mary's comments and actions that reveal that she really does not have the same religious or moral principles that he does. But because he is in love with Mary, he explains away these "lapses" to himself and to Fanny until the end of the book, when Mary's real morals are revealed to him in his final conversation with her. He is also often swayed away from his doubts by Mary's cheerfulness, intelligence, and kind actions—particularly her kindness to Fanny.