Mrs. Norris was most zealous in promoting the match, by every suggestion and contrivance likely to enhance its desirableness to either party.
-Mansfield Park
As a mother, it is the business of your life to see your daughters married, and if you can offer assistance to your nieces in that capacity, all the better. Even though you may not wish to be going out in public quite as much as when you were younger, nothing should stand in your way when it comes to launching your girls.
1. Identify a likely suitor. Pay attention to your daughters’ dance partners for likely prospects at social gatherings. Determine which ones she seems to like best, and weed out the fortune hunters, half-pay officers, and other undesirable candidates.
2. Cultivate his mother. She is as concerned in this matter as you are–and it is always better to get along well with your in-laws.
3. Invite the prospect to your social gatherings. Provide opportunities for your daughter to become better acquainted with her potential husband by inviting him to dinner and evening parties. Feed him well and his heart will no doubt follow. Make sure that he knows that your daughter will be able to provide the same kind of excellent dinners for him and his guests.
4. Chase off the competition. If he is a desirable partner, there will be other mothers sniffing around, hoping to snag him for their daughter or niece. Run them off! You were there first!
5. Talk up your daughter at every opportunity. Let the gentleman and his friends know how difficult it will be for you to part with your angel, but assure them that you will do it for her own good in the face of such an excellent match.
6. Give your daughter a taste of what she can look forward to. Arrange a trip to her suitor’s house and make sure there is someone to show you around. Encourage your daughter to imagine herself as mistress of the house.
7. Contrive to leave the couple alone together. Invite him to your home, then summon your other daughters to your dressing room one by one so your plan is not too obvious. Do not let them resist the summons; if you have raised them to be dutiful daughters, they will do as they are bid. Time alone will provide him with the opportunity to propose.
8. Remind your daughter of the advantages of the match. Tell her how rich and how great she will be. Point out the carriages and pin-money that will be at her disposal. What young lady can resist such an argument?
9. Remind her of her duty. If she is a do-gooder type, remind her that she has a duty to her family to marry well and take care of her widowed mother and orphaned sisters once your husband is deceased.
10. Prevent your husband from talking her out of it. You know what’s best for your own daughter, after all. If a man has twelve thousand a year, it doesn’t matter if he is stupid.
11. Threaten her if necessary. If the silly girl refuses to marry a perfectly acceptable young man because he is stupid or for some other trifling reason, explain to her that you will never speak to her again if she does not marry him.
12. Cry at her wedding. After all your hard work to promote the match, you deserve the release!
