There sometimes is something a bit Austenesque about Hare, and I think the idea that people can be marred by bad marriages and put on the right path by good ones is part of it. It's not (in either case) the "reform a rake" trope, but it is about becoming one's worse or better self; take the comment in Mansfield Park about Frances Price (Snr) being just as good material for being a baronet's lady as Maria Bertram (Snr) but that Mrs Norris would have been a far more respectable mother of ten on a narrow income.