I love the last sentence of this bit from chapter 25 of Northanger Abbey, where Catherine is speaking to Henry and Eleanor Tilney (emphasis mine):
“I do not believe Isabella has any fortune at all: but that will not signify in your family. Your father is so very liberal! He told me the other day that he only valued money as it allowed him to promote the happiness of his children.” The brother and sister looked at each other.
An answer to an AskHistorians question about first names in Jane Austen! From the question text: At home, Elizabeth is called ‘Lizzie’ by her family. Her friends and acquaintances (same gender) sometimes call her Miss Elizabeth Bennett, sometimes Miss Eliza Bennett, and in Charlotte’s case, just plain Eliza. Mr Darcy never calls her Elizabeth until he proposes the second time (Dearest, loveliest Elizabeth). I figured that was to do with permissible familiarity. But Elizabeth’s parents never refer to each other by first name. Is that because they’re in the presence of their children, or is it an indication of the (lack of) warmth in their relationship? That’s without even getting into 'Emma’, and the affront around Knightley and Mr E.
I just want to make a bit of a correction - Elizabeth’s family calls her “Lizzy”, and “Eliza”/“Miss Eliza Bennet” are used specifically by the Lucas family, and Caroline Bingley. Mr Darcy’s second proposal, in the original text, is simply:
You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.
First names were highly familiar, and not to be used lightly. To use someone else’s first name was to show that you were extremely close - which didn’t necessarily mean there was a long acquaintance. By the second chapter of Isabella Thorpe’s appearance in Northanger Abbey,
… they passed so rapidly through every gradation of increasing tenderness that there was shortly no fresh proof of it to be given to their friends or themselves. They called each other by their Christian name, were always arm in arm when they walked, pinned up each other’s train for the dance, and were not to be divided in the set; and if a rainy morning deprived them of other enjoyments, they were still resolute in meeting in defiance of dirt and wet, and shut themselves up, to read novels together.
On the other hand, in Pride and Prejudice the Lucases are the Bennets’ closest and long-time associates in the immediate neighborhood, so it makes sense that the families are on close enough footing for the Lucases as a whole to refer to the Bennet daughters by their first names.
However, it was certainly possible to be over-familiar - and many travelogues by English people who’d gone abroad contain a shocked description of how people in America, Spain, Germany, etc. jump so quickly to a first name basis. From this perspective, Caroline Bingley’s use of “Eliza” can be seen as having been likely intended to be presumptuous, highlighting the unpleasantness of her character: she is neither a long acquaintance like Charlotte and Maria Lucas, nor is she abruptly becoming Elizabeth’s best friend.
The rules were slightly different for men. While family members would use their first names (as the Dashwood sisters do for their brother-in-law Edward Ferrars), the “friendship name”, generally just used between two men, was instead the last name - as in Emma, with Mrs. Elton calling Mr Knightley just “Knightley”. Just like Caroline Bingley, she is written as doing this so we can see her presumption - although while Caroline’s presumption is condescending (“see, I can be over-familiar and you can’t do anything about it”), Mrs. Elton is, on the contrary, trying to put herself up on Mr Knightley’s level and show everyone else that she’s on such terms with the preeminent landowner of the area.
“Miss Elizabeth Bennet” is a special case. In a family with multiple sons or daughters, the first would be “Miss Bennet” or “Mr Bennet”, and the younger ones would be “Miss Elizabeth Bennet” or “Mr Charles Bennet”. In direct address, however, a simple “Miss Bennet” or “Mr Bennet” would still be appropriate for a younger daughter or son. The main point of all of this was just for the purpose of clarity - if Jane were to have gotten married early on in the book, for instance, there would have been no need for anyone to refer to Elizabeth’s first name in this kind of title, as she would obviously be the “Miss Bennet”.
As far as married couples go, both first names and Mr/Mrs seem to have been somewhat normalized - neither was actually notable or strange in the period, but yes, would reflect the level of formality/intimacy between the couple, as well as where they are. In Sense and Sensibility, John Dashwood calls his wife “Fanny”, and in Persuasion, Mary calls her husband “Charles”; but as you noted, the Bennets call each other Mr/Mrs, and so do the Palmers in Sense and Sensibility. However, we only really see first-naming between husbands and wives in fairly private settings - in a domestic group, or just between each other. In public, it was not seen as appropriate to be too informal. As a result, the general public wouldn’t know if a couple were not on the closest footing because they would never have been witness to a married couple using their first names.
Transgressions would likely not be punished in a real sense, but would result in negative consequences of the “two red minus signs above the sim’s head” sense. When Caroline calls Elizabeth “Eliza”, it makes Elizabeth dislike her. When Mrs. Elton calls Mr Knightley “Knightley”, she makes the people around her think less of her.
You’ll find more of this kind of Regency etiquette nitpickery in Dandies & Dandyzettes!
Henry Tilney’s unabashed love of muslin and Ann Radcliffe, when contrasted with John Thorpe’s dull-headed dismissal of novels and refusal to shut up about his stupid, blinged-out carriage, is this perfect example of how modes of masculinity that depend on rejecting feminine-coded pleasures are sort of doomed to fail on their own terms. You cannot be a tough, self-assured man when you’re too self-conscious to allow yourself the pleasure of a genre containing such winning titles as Necromancer of the Black Forest just because it’s associated with the ladies.
I love that Henry starts falling for Catherine because her genuine and unconcealed interest in him spurred his in her, and not only because it is a situation more close to reality, but also because it brings to my mind this little sentence from a verse in the Divine Comedy:
“Amor, ch'a nullo amato amar perdona”
Due to the complexity of the original text we have more interpretations for it, but one of the most commonly taught and my personal favorite can be translated in English as, “Love does not spare anyone that is loved from loving back”, and I think it fits them quite nicely.
