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What is it with women and Mr Darcy? He’s rude, arrogant and anti-social. Not the kind of thing most girls look for in a guy, right? In fact,  if he came up to you in a club, you’d probably hit him with your handbag, then stamp on his foot before pouring your drink over him … and yet he is one of literatures most enduring fictional romantic icons, capturing the hearts of women from 1812 right up untill now.

He hardly seem ‘relevant’ to us modern ladies, and yet he has survived the centuries, having had many incarnations since his debut on the pages of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice!  You remember Rhett Butler,  what about Mr Big or even James Bond?  Yes, they all have that something that makes them irresitable to women (and I’m talking more than money here!) while at the same time being less than perfect.

So what is it that makes Mr. Darcy so attractive? Surely, it doesn’t come down to the high collars and cod pieces?

I have my own theories and here are just a few of them.

1) The Fariytale Never Gets Real

“Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.”

Pride and Prejudice ends with the promise of marriage but we never get to see Mr Darcy five or ten years into marriage. And probably just as well, because I’m sure if we did, he wouldn’t be so alluring. Part of what we love about Fitzwilliam Darcy is the adoration he has, at first secretly and then openly, for Elizabeth. Ending the novel as she does, Austen leaves us with a Mr Darcy suspended in a perpetual state of adoration for Elizabeth. So, we love our Mr Darcy because we want him to adore us.  A pretty selfish reason, I know!

2)  We want to Save Him From His Emotional Pain

We love him too, because we want to be that special woman who has the power to deliver him from his angst. There’s no doubt, Mr Darcy is a man who is shy and struggles with it, his stand-offishness being a ruse because he is  scared  to reveal the more vulnerable part of himself.  There’s the promise for us of something softer beneath that hard austere exterior that makes him very hard to resist. We want to be the woman who can win the battle over his conscience. We want to be bigger than his principals, so desirable that he would sacrifice all he believes in for us. Now that would make us very special indeed! Still being selfish!

3 ) He is A Good Old Fashioned Man

Dare I say it, but we love Mr Darcy because he is a good old fashioned man! For us romantics the age of chivalry is not quite dead and gone.  Mr Darcy is rich and successful! He is fabuously good looking (yes, I’m thinking of you Colin), morally upright and would likely make a devoted husband, since his principles, at the very least, would dictate it.  Money, looks and devotion … the perfect package!

At the end of the day, what makes Mr Darcy so desirable isn’t necessarily his gentlemanly-ness.  It is his battle with his self-expectations and the norms of his social class. This coupled with the intense shyness that he struggles with as he tries to recognise this new feeling of love for Lizzie endears him to us;  as he gradually opens himself up her, we see the great changing love of an already great man, and that makes him adorable.   Mr Darcy is the perfect romantic hero.

If you’re still not getting what all the fuss is about …..

And if you are wondering hy Mr Darcy is so befuddled in this scene …

Do not remove your waistcoat, Mr Darcy!

To be seen in shirtsleeves was considered positively indecent; a shirt, after all, was the man’s last undergarment. Poor Mr Darcy, he completely lost all composure on being discovered positively nude!

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