"From your reading and viewing, compare Darcy, Bingley, Collins, and Wyckham as suitors/potential husbands"
There are several ways of comparing the potential of a man to be a suitor, ranging firstly from the possible social gain that the woman might achieve from marrying up a class, to the security that the man could offer them in terms of life quality and economic status, and lastly that they might actually be in love with each other and make each other happy.
Mr Darcy, as a man, on first viewing, would appear to be the perfect suitor for any eligible woman. He is a man of great wealth (definitely within the top 1% wealthiest families in the country), and a man who offers a possibly massive step up in social hierarchy - that could increase the height of their family on the social ladder hugely. To most of the women in Hertfordshire, he would be seen as an ideal husband before they have met.
He has a good reputation amongst his class as being a superbly mannered man, who is a brilliant dancer and a good friend, but the impression that he gives to the whole of Hertforshire is immensely different. When they first encounter him, he is seen by the mothers as a great prospect to marry one of their daughters (indeed he is seen as much more attractive than Mr Bingley), but this quickly changes. He is seen to be far too proud - he deems but one woman at the Netherfield Ball to be good enough for him to dance with (Bingley's sister), and although his manners are gracious, he is merely going through the motions; not being even nearly as sociable as Bingley. By the end of the evening, every person in Hertfordshire perceives him to be a stuck-up, prejudiced man who is nowhere nearly as amiable as Mr Bingley, and Mrs Bennet, having suffered the indecency of having a public insulting of one of her daughters, fervently hates the man. However, most of the population would still have accepted his hand in marriage had he proposed to them, but Eliza declines due to the false information that she has been given about Darcy's actions towards Wyckham. When she discovers the truth about this information, she is able to see how she has misperceived Darcy's character, and realises how blind she has been, indeed she has been prejudiced against Darcy since their very first meeting, and once both Darcy and Eliza let down their guards, they realise that they are perfect together.
