It's my understanding that the Regency was something an aberration in terms of fashionable figures, in that fashion moved from the full-figured woman to the idea of being delicate and sort of fairy-like. Lady Caroline Lamb had this sort of small, delicate frame and set the fashion. At least that's what I have read.
This is not an argument against Lizzy being full-figured, as we're told her figure isn't perfect one way or the other. I've always tended to picture her as petite and not so busty myself, but to me the most important thing is not what kind of figure she had, but that Darcy didn't primarily fall in love with that figure--that he fell in love with her, and then physical attraction followed. She didn't have to be gorgeous, she didn't have to be a sexpot, she didn't have to make him fall in lust with her the moment he saw her.That's what every woman who's less than physically perfect wants to know--that she can still get the guy anyway.
.
This is not an argument against Lizzy being full-figured, as we're told her figure isn't perfect one way or the other. I've always tended to picture her as petite and not so busty myself, but to me the most important thing is not what kind of figure she had, but that Darcy didn't primarily fall in love with that figure--that he fell in love with her, and then physical attraction followed. She didn't have to be gorgeous, she didn't have to be a sexpot, she didn't have to make him fall in lust with her the moment he saw her.That's what every woman who's less than physically perfect wants to know--that she can still get the guy anyway.
.