In Defense of Matchmaking

Matchmaking and Imagined Sentiments: Jane Austen's Emma by Mitchell Kalpakgian

What do matchmakers know that eludes the common man? What does the common man know that escapes the matchmakers? Austen’s novel shows that true romance originates from equality of social background and education, compatibility of temperaments, similarity of moral ideals and manners, natural attraction based on reason and feeling, and mutual admiration. Matchmaking ignores these facts and truths on which good marriages are founded, exaggerating the role of the feelings and ignoring the importance of the mind, moral character, and the virtue of prudence in marital choices. Matchmaking imagines sentiments that do not exist and does not let love follow its natural course in which like is attracted to like.

Is Emma an argument against matchmaking? Or are her attempts marked by her lack of wisdom and lofty, perhaps even romantic expectations? The problem is not matchmaking, but the one doing it (and her principles of judgment). Could it even be said that Emma is fortunate to be saved from herself by an older, wiser man? I don't think that would be an exaggeration. The equality of education that is needed is not in book-learning (though it may be important for some men), but in moral formation and culture. In  the androsphere it is said that the current situation is the result of women being left to their fallen nature and their own judgment about what is best for them. They might actually benefit from the services of a matchmaker, an older person situated in a social network, if they had the humility to admit that their judgment may not be that good. They'd also need the beginnings of a good character which would aid in governing or diminishing their more wild or base impulses.