So Wickham Was A Pedophile?

First, Wickham tried to elope with Darcy's sister although it was more because he wanted her money than anything else.

Then he goes with Lydia Bennett and I never understood that. She was extremely childish, immature and annoying. Add to that, extremely poor. I never understood why he chose to run off with her.

At the time that P&P is set the age of consent was 13.

I think you're judging by contemporary U.S. standards. Fourteen was considered the ideal age for marriage throughout most of history. Also you're probably going by the American age of consent of 18, but the U.S. is the only country in the world with an age of consent that old. Every other country it's 14 to 16.

They're 15-16.

Hardly pedophilia.

But most certainly womanizing.

Wickham actually goes for Elizabeth first, although she is too mature to welcome any advances that are improper.

He targets Lydia because he knows her through Elizabeth and she the same way, she's young and pretty and mostly she is immature, shallow and stupid enough to welcome his advances and go along with whatever he proposes.

Until 1823, the legal age in England for marriage was 21 years--for men and women. After 1823, a male could marry as young as fourteen without parental consent, and a girl at 12. Most girls, however, married between the ages of 18 and 23, especially in the upper classes.

http://www.angelpig.net/victorian/engagement.html

I'll Be Your Huckleberry❇♒❇

I've just watched Pride and Prejudice again and thought I'd look at the reviews, so I'm quite late in replying to your post.
Although the film doesn't give her age, Lydia's particular friend Mrs Forster seemed to be in a similar age range to Lydia, and looked very young in comparison to her husband Col. Forster who looked 3 times her age - so this was probably the accepted standard of that time.

This is from the book, and explains it a bit further:

"Wickham's affection for Lydia was just what Elizabeth had expected to find it- not equal to Lydia's for him... their elopement had been brought on by the strength of her love rather than by his; and she would have wondered why, without violently caring for her, he chose to elope with her at all, had she not felt certain that his flight was rendered necessary by distress of circumstances; and if that were the case, he was not the young man to resist the opportunity of having a companion."

It's also mentioned earlier that:
"...Lydia had wanted only encouragement to attach herself to anybody. Sometimes one officer, sometimes another, had been her favourite, as their attentions raised them in her opinion."
"...Wickham has every charm of person and address that can captivate a woman."
"He simpers, and smirks, and makes love to us all."

So pretty much, Wickham was just doing his normal flirt act in Brighton with Lydia, who in turn believed herself in love with him; so when he had to run to escape his debts, he figured why not bring along a companion? It was just another example of his selfishness in not caring how it would affect her, since he had no intention at all in marrying her.

That's my interpretation, anyway :)