…’I was very much attached to a young man of the name of Purvis, a particular friend of Robert’s, who used to be with us a great deal. Everybody thought it would have been a match.’A sigh accompanied these words, which Emma respected in silence – but her sister after a short pause went on – ‘You will naturally ask why it did not take place, and why he is married to another woman, while I am still single. – But you must ask him – not me – you must ask Penelope. – Yes Emma, Penelope was at the bottom of it all. – She thinks everything fair for a husband; I trusted her, she set him against me, with a view of gaining him herself, and it ended in his discontinuing his visits and soon after marrying somebody else. – Penelope makes light of her conduct, but I think such treachery very bad. It has been the ruin of my happiness.’Over and over, The Watsons makes it very clear just how dire the life of a poor spinster would be. When Emma rather piously proclaims “We must not all expect to be individually lucky… The luck of one member of a family is luck to all-” she is simply pointing out how tightly networked family life was in that era. One sibling’s good marriage offered a measure of support to everyone connected. In Lady Susan, when the lady in question is out of friends she sails straight for the home of the in-laws and settles in for a long visit. The more marriages, the more siblings, the bigger and more comfortable the net would be for any spinsters, widows, orphans or invalids caught in it. According to Austen’s outline, Emma would have to depend on her brother Robert (an attorney) for a home after her father’s death and judging by his and his wife’s behaviour this would not be a pleasant fate.