Marriage in Jane Austen’s society is very important. Marriage is the status all the women live to achieve. Money and looks are important for a good marriage. If a woman never got married, because she was poor or had bad looks, she would go and live with a married sister or brother. Marriage was mainly to advance in a social position. People tried to go up from their social position or stayed on the same level, but hardly moved down. To move up they would have to marry someone with the money, respect and so a good job. To move down they would marry someone like a blacksmith. Men who women were going to marry held the couples social status because women never worked.
The first sentence in the Pride and Prejudice.
‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife,’
This introduces the theme of marriage, and money. Jane Austen starts off using intelligent sounding words to show the hunt for a rich husband. The sentence contains comedy, humour and irony because it describes a wife as a product of some sort therefore humour, comedy and irony will continue throughout the novel.
The law of entail prevented women from owning land and property. This is a reason why women had to marry in the time of Jane Austen. This then prevented women depending on relatives or family for shelter and other needs. And so Mrs. Bennet wanted to marry one of her daughter to the rich Mr. Bingley, before Mr. Bennet passed away.
“A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!”
By Mrs. Bennet cleverly thinking forward about the future of her daughters and herself, she is working to avoid the law of entail. The other clever point she makes is that she sets her eyes on a rich man, therefore this means that if one of her daughters should marry him, he could afford to take care of all of them if Mr. Bennet were to pass away. So Mrs. Bennet sees the marriage of one of her daughters to a rich man as an insurance policy for her old age.
The role of women in the days of Jane Austen was mainly to entertain visitors. Yes there were jobs such as cleaning and cooking, but it was done by servants in the rich households and so all women could do in this case is socialize and take part in other activities suitable for their status, these include painting, interest in fine arts, playing piano, singing, embroidery and much more.
People in this time socialized mainly at houses, but also at churches, balls, dinner parties and other areas. In Jane Austen times invitations were sent out to inform people about parties ,but this is also the time when the females or male get sneaky and so plan how get their man or women or even set a couple up.
The rest of the evening was spent in conjecturing how soon he would return Mr. Bennets visit, and determining when they should ask him to dinner.
This shows a plan for inviting Mr. Bennet. Life in that time was very boring and so much talking was done in much detail. Proper relationships could not take place by their selves because the parents normally would get involved and sometimes others.
