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Pride and Prejudice: Finding love in a time when love was not the priority.
Marrying someone for love was uncommon in the late 1700s. Most found suitable partners who elevated their status or wealth. Affluent women married well-to-do men. Women sought out men who could benefit their societal position. Jane Austen inferred this in her writings consistently and accurately. All six of Austen’s novels explore women’s pursuit of marriage in terms of social standing and fiscal security. In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen uses several relationships to model what the idea of a marriage in the late 1700s looks like, eventually revealing what her ideal marriage embodies through Elizabeth and Darcy.
The first relationship shown to us by Austen is the Bennett’s, who is married with five daughters and immediately seems to be a pair of unmatched minds. Although we do not know much about their backgrounds, the narration leads us to the understanding that Mrs. Bennet was of a lower social position before marrying Mr. Bennet. Mr. Bennet gains a wife of “mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper,” while Mrs. Bennet gains a place to live and the connections that come with Mr. Bennet’s status as a landowner (Austen, 39). This tells the reader the two were united superficially and to better social and economic positions. Austen is seemingly disparaging these motives as she goes on to describe their incompatibilities. “Had Elizabeth’s opinion been all drawn from her own family, she could not have formed a very pleasing picture of conjugal felicity or domestic comfort.” (Austen 338) We know from this excerpt the Bennet daughters were not given a positive example of how to choose a mate. Austen intended to point out this difficulty was generational.
The most scandalous and perhaps immature among the relationships Austen portrays is that of Lydia Bennet and George Wickham. This relationship blatantly defies social expectations by indulging in relations more than frowned upon during this time and revolves around desire and longing with no thought to the consequences, which leads to a forced marriage. “Lydia’s main interest relied only on the excitement of being in a relationship with someone attractive. She did not think about the fact that Wickham had no intentions to marry her.” (Kica 3) Although this relationship seemingly works out for the time being, Austen is demonstrating the unfortunate differences in the realities between genders during this period. A woman stands to ruin the reputation of her entire family while a man participating in the same shameful actions and with a checkered past is only as tarnished as his monetary means.
The relationship most typical for the times is between Mr. Collins and Charlotte Lucas. Mr. Collins, a distant cousin, and rightful heir to the Bennet estate has already been rejected by Elizabeth Bennet, so naturally moves on to her best friend, Charlotte. There seems to be little to no affection for Mr. Collins on Charlotte’s part but more a need for stability and assurances that only a man of Mr. Collins’ prominence could offer in these times. “Lydia marries out of pure passion and Charlotte marries out of sheer prudence”. (Prior ) Through this portrayal, Austen is making a point to show the most common way a woman of little means was expected to adhere to guidelines regarding marriage. It was more often than not, simply a gateway to survival for women.
Another relationship Austen focuses on throughout the novel is that of Jane Bennet and Charles Bingley, who may have had more urgency than any to merge due to social pressures. Jane, being the eldest daughter, the need to marry was extremely pertinent as her family’s position had become vulnerable. “Mr. Bennet, whose property consisted almost entirely in an estate of two thousand a year, which, unfortunately for his daughters, was entailed in default of heirs male, on a distant relation; and their mother’s fortune, though ample for her situation in life, could but ill supply the deficiency of his” (Austen 19) Mrs. Bennet and her daughters had no legal rights to Mr. Bennet’s property or money after his passing, thus, needed a partner of greater means to solidify their security. Fortunately, Jane’s beauty captured the attention of Mr. Bingley. Although Mr. Bingley’s sisters are against this union because they think Jane to be of too low a social stature, after some back and forth, Mr. Bingley is blind to that fact and follows his heart. With this relationship, Austen is shining a light on the exception to rules at hand and the traction marrying for love may have been gaining by the early 1800s.
The novel centers around the development of love between Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy. Although it was not love upon first impression, Austen seems to intend to portray the possibility of love everlasting built upon a fondness and loyalty that surpass these early struggles. While the union would prove extremely beneficial to Elizabeth, she finds Darcy to be rude and lacking in the qualities she would find attractive in a suitor. Darcy also found her to be mediocre and below his standards. Austen is using this initial disdain between the two characters to lay a foundation that symbolizes societal judgment that she will later tear down to express her contempt for these generalizations often made.
Austen allows Elizabeth and Darcy to overcome those surly first impressions through a series of chance encounters. “Chance is given significance in Jane Austen’s novels by her insistence on the value of its opposite-rational and deliberate choice.” (Weisenheimer 1) Austen steers her story in the direction of chance to reveal that love cannot be planned or plotted.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen is one of the most popular novels in the English language. Although it was written over 200 years ago, it still resonates with so many today as society is still challenging our most authentic selves. Austen was ahead of her time in telling the story of a heroine like Elizabeth. Among many other ways of mirroring her reality through Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen uses several relationships to model what the idea of a marriage in the late 1700s looks like, eventually revealing what her ideal marriage embodies through Elizabeth and Darcy.
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