Realization of how little I've ever seen comparing Austen to her contemporary or earlier novelists. Most comparative work that I've seen on her is with later writers. Placements of Northanger Abbey in the Gothic tradition aside.

Tentative suggestion that Austen doesn't write about men in the company of men less because she can't imagine what it's like than because that's not what her novels are about. It would go in to realms which are not her own. Austen is a "narrow band of ore, but it's all gold" author, a metaphor I first saw used (by Le Guin?) to describe Dunsany.