Mrs Bennet’s ‘business of life was to get her daughters married,’ and to her it was important to do this before anybody else. This is why when Lydia marries Mr Wickham, Mrs Bennet fails to see their unsuitability because she is so happy that her youngest was married; ‘she will be married at sixteen.’ Lydia is like her mother in many ways so her marriage to Mr Wickham will end up like that of her parents. Lydia and Mr Wickham’s marriage is unbalanced so it is unlikely that it will last; ‘their elopement had been brought on by the strength of her love, rather than by his’
Jane and Mr Bingley are well suited because Jane always sees the best in people; ‘never…speak ill of a human being’ and Mr Bingley was ‘good looking and gentlemanlike’ with a ‘pleasant countenance, and easy, unaffected manners.’ Mr Bingley doesn’t care about social status; ‘if they had uncles enough to fill all Cheapside it would not make them one jot less agreeable,’ and he loves Jane for who she is. Jane has the ‘most affectionate, generous heart in the world’ and was ‘all loveliness and goodness’ so her and Mr Bingley were able to overcome their obstacles to be the perfect match.
Elizabeth also wants to marry for love so when Mr Collins proposes to her she rejects him because she doesn’t love him and he doesn’t mention that he loves her. At first impressions Elizabeth finds Mr Darcy the ‘proudest, most disagreeable man in the world’ which was contrary to her ‘lively, playful disposition’. Elizabeth is prejudice against Mr Darcy because he is ‘proud and conceited’ and even though he believes that someone with his high social status shouldn’t form a romantic attachment to someone of a lower status he ‘began to feel the danger of paying Elizabeth too much attention.’
Elizabeth falls for Mr Wickham’s charms and believes his story about Mr Darcy which leads her to not just dislike him but to hate him and when she finds out that it was he who warned Mr Bingley off her sister Jane she chooses to hate him even more. Mr Darcy proposes to Elizabeth and confesses how he ‘admires’ and ‘loves’ her but at this point in the novel they aren’t suited to each other because they both still have narrow views. Also at this point in the novel they are both guilty of pride and prejudice.
As the novel progresses we see that Elizabeth’s prejudice gradually disappears and is replaced with love for Mr Darcy, but by then she thinks it is too late and that he will never want to marry her after the shame Lydia put their family to. However he proves that he is not ‘proud and conceited’ anymore by paying off Mr Wickham and when she thanks him thinking all hope is lost in him ever asking her to marry him again, he does.
Charlotte’s idea of marriage is very different to that of Jane and Elizabeth; she would rather sacrifice love for security. She believes that ‘a woman had better shew more affection than she feels’ or she may ‘lose the opportunity of fixing him’. This is why she agrees to marry Mr Collins who only wants to marry because he thinks it will be good for his image and she ends up avoiding him throughout the day because he is a ‘pompous’, ‘odious man’. Mr Collins doesn’t show any sign of wanting to marry for love because he first turns his eye to Jane but when he finds she is already taken, he turns his eye to the next best thing: Elizabeth.
