Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” is based around the concept that women must be married. While the novel comes across initially as a traditional marriage story, the underlying idea that marriage is socially necessary for women, at least at the time of the novel, undercuts the idea that “Pride and Prejudice” is only about love and marriage. Each of the sisters who gets married ends up marrying a man who provides a fitting match morally, and, excluding Lydia, a man who provides a steady financial basis for them. Jane and Elizabeth, through their wits and charm and morally sound personalities, are able to secure husbands that carry them up the rungs of the social ladder, from gentry to aristocracy. It is clear from the beginning of the novel that Jane and Mr. Bingley are a suitable match, although his financial status is significantly above her own. Where Mr. Bingley has a “large fortune; four or five thousand a year,” Jane has very little to her name (51). Even the Bennet sisters’ home is “entailed in default of heirs male, on a distant relation” (75). Yet, through her charm and her gentle disposition, Jane is able to woo Mr. Bingley into marrying beneath him. While the novel is insistent that the marriage is based on their mutual love, the obvious social elevation, along with the fact that Jane will not be removed from her home (a concept explored in another of Austen’s novels, “Sense and Sensibility”), shows that Jane’s marriage provided necessary social stability that could not have been achieved otherwise. Similarly, Elizabeth’s marriage to Mr. Darcy provides her with access to his “ten thousand a year” (58) and his large estate at Pemberley. Once again, the novel implies that the cause of their marriage is mutual love, but as a passing comment to Jane Elizabeth says she is uncertain of when she fell in love with Mr. Darcy, but she can “date it from [her] first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley” (382). While she may be in love with Mr. Darcy, it is clear that Elizabeth’s marriage to Mr. Darcy is even more advantageous than that of Jane and Mr. Bingley.
The option for Elizabeth to marry Mr. Collins and remain in her father’s estate, thus securing it for her family for the future, is quickly dismissed, because, while it would provide some sense of stability, that marriage would not have allowed her to make the social climb that she is designed to deserve based on her strong morals and personality. Mr. Collins is instantly unlikeable due to his obsession with Lady Catherine and his general social behaviour. He does not possess the refined personality that Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy do. While this means that Elizabeth does not love him, it also creates a boundary around the concept of staying put rather than making the social climb that Austen often writes her characters to make. Ultimately, the personalities of the older Bennet sisters and their general refinement allows them to make the socially advantageous marriages that Austen makes clear are necessary for them to maintain their happiness.
I think that Darcy's behavior early in the novel and the characters’ general opinion toward him show that Austen does not view marriage as solely a way for women of the time to move up in social standing. Darcy's attitude toward Elizabeth and her family at the beginning of the story demonstrates that wealth and social status cannot be the only considerations in forming a marriage. At the ball where readers are first introduced to Mr. Darcy, he clearly acts as though he is better than everyone else who is present. His behavior turns everyone at the party against him. Even Mrs. Bennet, who is hellbent on marrying her daughters off to rich men, remarks that she finds him “so high and so conceited that there [is] no enduring him” and that she “quite detest[s] the man” (15). It is only during Elizabeth’s visit to Pemberly that she learns of Mr. Darcy’s more favorable traits from Mrs. Reynolds, one of his servants. Mrs. Reynolds says she “[has] never had a cross word from him in [her] life,” and for Elizabeth, this description is “most opposite to her ideas. That he [is] not a good-tempered man [is] her firmest opinion” (238). This revelation sets in motion the change in Elizabeth’s understanding of Darcy, and eventually leads to her reevaluation and acceptance of Darcy’s marriage proposal. While the advantageous nature of Elizabeth’s marriage muddies the influence of love versus wealth in their union, I think that the general disgust toward Mr. Darcy early in the novel shows how Austen believes that marriage cannot exist solely on a foundation of social and economic benefit.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree with your point that marriage is socially necessary for women in Pride and Prejudice, I don't think that the message necessarily undercuts its themes about love in marriage. Austen points out the absurdity in marrying just for social standing, when she narrates Elizabeth's thoughts about Charlotte's loveless marriage to Mr. Collins: "Charlotte the wife of Mr. Collins, was a most humiliating picture!... the pang of a friend disgracing herself and sunk in her esteem" (123). The harsh language of "humiliating," "disgracing," and "sunk" all point to Austen's condemnation of a marriage used purely as a method for climbing social status. Austen further reiterates this point when Darcy proposes to Elizabeth the first time. He asks, "Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections? To congratulate myself on the hope of your relations, whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?" (188). By detailing Elizabeth's poor social standing and Darcy's condescending attitude towards her status, Elizabeth's rejection of Darcy only makes it clearer that marriage should ultimately be for love, not money. Elizabeth, unlike the other heroines that Austen condemns in their pursuit for money within marriage, denies Darcy's feelings despite his wealth, because she holds no love for him at that point in the story. Certainly Austen conveys the message that marriage is necessary for the vast majority of women. Far from undercutting her own ideas, though, I believe that the importance of love in marriage is further driven in home by the Bennet's marriages.
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