Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice opens with the sentence, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife,” (5) revealing the most important concept of Jane Austen’s time: marriage. For the majority of the population, marriage was the goal and the center of everything. It was the reason girls were taught their social skills and mannerisms. Marriage was used as a tool in unite powerful families. It was used as a bargaining tool by fathers in matters of business. Until a female was married, her life’s goal was to get married. Afterwards, if she had daughters, it was her job to teach her daughter the same process to follow. In the midst of all these uses, love was rarely mentioned-at least not in its literal form. Unlike today’s said notion of only marrying for love, it was rare in practice in Jane Austen’s time. In Pride and Prejudice, Austen uses love as a main factor in marriage Elizabeth, while at the same time she presents several other views about marriage for various characters.
During chapter one, Mrs. Bennet is prattling on about the new, wealthy bachelor that has moved nearby, and she is literally begging Mr. Bennet to visit him, showing how much it means to her to have her daughters married to a wealthy man. At this time she knows absolutely nothing about him except his social station in life-and that is good enough to satisfy her. Her exasperated and overzealous behavior over Mr. Bennet’s refusing to visit the newcomer reveal just how silly she is over the entire matter of marriage. His humorous replies show how little regard he has for his wife and her whims. Mrs. Bennet dedicates the majority of her time trying place her daughters in what she thinks are “good matches.” The reader sees just how important marriage is to her when she says to her husband, “If I can but see one of my daughters happily settled at Netherfield, and all others equally married, I shall have nothing to wish for.” She excellently sums up her life.
It is true that for the young ladies, besides their family, marriage was the only respectable way for them to survive economically. The older the females got, the more pressure they felt to marry. Elizabeth’s best friend, Charlotte Lucas, is older than the average bachelorette. Elizabeth greatly likes and admires her friend until she sees deeper into her character. Elizabeth is abashed that Charlotte would marry such a pathetic, social climbing man as Mr. Wickham, just so that she can have economic and social security. Charlotte’s condescending to marry Mr. Wickham reveals that unlike Elizabeth, she views marriage as many of today would view a job: “will it provide economically for me?” Along with that and Wickham’s social acceptability, Charlotte is content to marry him. She may fancy love in the way that Elizabeth does, but she does not view it was something necessary to a marriage. One cannot blame Charlotte for her actions; it was simply the way she and many young ladies were taught to believe.
Elizabeth, despite her mother’s reasons and views of marriage, desires to marry for love. In fact, she states that she will marry for no other reason than love. Therefore, when Darcy first proposes to her, she adamantly refuses. She by no means feels any love for him. In addition, during his proposal, instead of focusing on love and her attributes, he seems to make it a point of expressing how much he did not want to propose by saying to her about his proposal, ” In vain I have struggled…My feelings will not be repressed.” (185) Austen goes on to describe how Darcy elaborates in his proposal on “his sense of her inferiority-of its being a degradation (to marry her)…” (185). The reader is lead to wonder about how Darcy could be so vain to think that he could put numerous insults in a proposal and still expect positive results. Elizabeth’s answer to this is simply that Darcy is too full of pride. When he says in his second proposal to Elizabeth, “My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever,” (346) he reveals that he knows he was wrong, and knows that she may still refuse him. At this point, Elizabeth’s feelings for Darcy have changed because of his letter of explanations, his courtesy towards her aunt and uncle, and his salvation of her sister’s reputation. She loves him, therefore she accepts his proposal.
Charlotte Lucas, who basically married for money, turns out to be content with her life with Wickham. Jane and Elizabeth, who marry for love, end up very happy. Austen uses these outcomes to say that love should be the reason for marriage-not money. She seems t imply that people must look deeper than status (Darcy’s case), money (Charlotte’s case), and first impressions (Elizabeth’s case) to find love. Even though she lived in a time when many motives and mannerisms were based on such things as class and reputation, Austen seems to use Pride and Prejudice as a means of protest against the norms of the time. On the surface, marriage may look to be the silly motive Austen plays it to be, but upon closer inspection, it may be an excellent literal lesson, as well as a small application used to represent every situation of life.
