By Mujtaba Syed
20 Bassett Gdns
Isleworth
Middx
TW7 4QY
Coursework Assignment 12640/W1
In this coursework assignment I am going to discuss the theme of love and marriage in Pride and Prejudice.
The novel, which was published in 1813, was set in a time period where marriage was regarded very differently compared to how it is regarded today. This was mainly due to how women were treated. They had very few rights and even fewer ways to make a living. The men in the society Pride and Prejudice focused on, middle-upper class, lived through their inheritance of land and money which was continually passed down. In the case of a person having no son, the land was passed on to the person's closest living male relative. There was no inheritance for a womn except for a fixed sum which was meant to be their dowry. Therefore the only way for women to survive was to marry someone and have her husband support her. This is the middle-upper class I am writing about and one can see how difficult life was for these women. It must have been even worse for women in lower classes.
Due to the described circumstances and the culture of the time, if a woman did not find a husband it would have meant complete humiliation for her and her family and in some cases it could have meant destitution. The women were constantly engaging in activities such as reading, singing and playing music to make themselves more appealing to their prospective husbands.
The Bennet family was a very 'unlucky' one as it was a family of five daughters and no sons. Mr Bennet's inheritance was going to leave the immediate family and be passed on to a Mr Collins, the family's closest male relative. This is discussed before the arrival of Mr Collins in chapter thirteen Mrs Bennet says,
"I do think it is the hardest thing in the world, that your estate should be entailed away from your own children"
It was shown in this chapter that the Bennet family's estate was going to be entailed to a stranger. Mr Collins, the stranger, wrote in a letter to Mr Bennet,
"I cannot be otherwise than concerned at being the means of injuring your amiable daughters, and beg leave to apologise for it, as well as to assure you of my readiness to make them every possible amends".
This suggests that Mr Collins had every intention of marrying one of Mr Bennet's five daughters as this would keep the estate in the family. At that time, Mr Collins would have been seen as doing Mr Bennet's family a favour. Once this is taken into account one can see why Elizabeth's refusal to marry Mr Collins can create a ...
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"I cannot be otherwise than concerned at being the means of injuring your amiable daughters, and beg leave to apologise for it, as well as to assure you of my readiness to make them every possible amends".
This suggests that Mr Collins had every intention of marrying one of Mr Bennet's five daughters as this would keep the estate in the family. At that time, Mr Collins would have been seen as doing Mr Bennet's family a favour. Once this is taken into account one can see why Elizabeth's refusal to marry Mr Collins can create a person's admiration of her strength of character. Other women of that time however, may have seen Elizabeth's actions as foolish because she risked her own well being as it was likely that she would never be proposed to again. This refusal by Elizabeth shows that she was still naïve and had dreams of marrying for love. Mr Collins on the other hand was only marrying because,
"first, I think it a right thing for every clergyman in easy circumstances (like myself) to set the example of matrimony in his parish. Secondly, that I am convinced it will add very greatly to my happiness; and thirdly-perhaps which I ought to have mentioned earlier, that it is the particular advice and recommendation of the very noble lady whom I have the honour of calling patroness".
This shows that his least important reason for this proposal was his happiness. The first and last reasons seem to have been more important to him. Mr Collins may have given the second reason just to make himself look good. He did not seem to be looking for love or romance. The only reason he was looking for a wife was because marriage was fitting of a person in his position. He did not appear to care who he married. This was apparent when he asked Charlotte Lucas to marry him almost immediately after asking Elizabeth and being rejected.
Charlotte Lucas, on the other hand, was not as naïve as Elizabeth. This aspect of Charlotte's character was determined in chapter six when she was giving Elizabeth advice on how Jane should behave with regards to Bingley. Charlotte said,
"if she were married to him to-morrow, I should think she had as good a chance of happiness, as if she were to be studying his character for a twelvemonth. Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance".
Charlotte believed that a woman in Jane's position should accept any marriage proposal she received and expedite any chance of marriage. A woman's happiness was "a matter of chance". This implied that a woman should not consider whether she would be happy in a marriage but instead whether she would receive financial security. In Jane's and Bingley's case this was as true as it was in Charlotte's and Collins' case. Elizabeth did not believe that Charlotte would behave according to her advice she was giving but in fact she did when the opportunity arose.
Charlotte was Elizabeth's intellectual equal and very close friend but Charlotte could see that she did not have much to offer the opposite sex and therefore was willing to accept whatever or whoever she got, even if it was Mr Collins. She based her acceptance of Mr Collins on her own financial insecurity and I do not believe she should be ridiculed for doing so.
Lydia Bennet and George Wickham's marriage was one that I believe was destined to fail. Lydia Bennet was empty headed, vain and out of control. An example of where she showed this was in chapter thirty nine where she rambled on continuously, irrespective of the people around her. In that particular chapter she bought a bonnet because it was the least ugly one in the shop although she disliked it herself,
"And when her sisters abused it as ugly, she added, with perfect unconcern, "Oh! But there were two or three much uglier in the shop".
In this same chapter she also spoke of marriage. One can determine her opinions in this small speech,
"Lord, how ashamed I should be of not being married before three and twenty! My Aunt Philips wants you so to get husbands, you can't think. She says Lizzy had better have taken Mr. Collins; but I do not think there would have been any fun in it. Lord! How I should like to be married before any of you; and then I would chaperone you about to all the balls".
Lydia saw marriage as a way to have fun. She showed her eagerness to jump into marriage purely to be able to chaperone her sisters to all the balls and to show off to them. There was no surprise when Lydia was the one to elope with George Wickham because she thought it would be fun. She did not think of any of the consequences of her actions. Wickham only married Lydia because he was given money by Darcy to do so. This is not surprising when one considers his character and his previous behaviour towards women. He attempted to marry Mary King for her money and to elope with Georgiana Darcy for her inheritance. This was Jane Austen's idea of a disastrous marriage. If one did not know what she believed a disastrous marriage was, they would not know what her idea of the perfect marriage was either.
Elizabeth and Darcy's wedding on the other hand was Jane Austen's idea of an ideal marriage. Lydia's foolishness was partly to thank for allowing Elizabeth to see beyond her prejudices of Darcy. This was a marriage of opposites Elizabeth being extrovert, outgoing, impetuous, irreverent and naïve and Darcy was introvert, reserved, steady, serious and experienced. They were the perfect match of opposites. However they both did share qualities of pride and prejudice. This was the reason that they did not get along from the start. As the novel progressed, Elizabeth and Darcy began to develop a deep attraction. Theirs is the only marriage based on love and security in Pride and Prejudice. They both had to grow as characters to overcome their pride and prejudices to see the other for what they really were. Darcy was able to do this early in the novel when Elizabeth visited Netherfield. As is explained by Jane Austen in chapter three,
"Darcy had never been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her".
Elizabeth, however, was not able to overcome her prejudices towards Darcy until she spoke with him in Pemberley and found out that he paid off Wickham to marry Lydia. In chapter forty three Jane Austen described Elizabeth's feelings after her encounter with Darcy:
"And his behaviour, so strikingly altered, -what could it mean? That he should even speak to her was amazing! - but to speak with such civility, to enquire after her family! Never in her life had she seen his manners so little dignified, never had he spoken with such gentleness as on this unexpected meeting".
From this point on Elizabeth began to see her prejudices were wrong and began to take a liking to Darcy. If it had not been for this encounter and Elizabeth hearing of Darcy paying off Wickham to marry Lydia, she would not have seen the good side to Darcy. She would never have accepted his second proposal. Their marriage was dependent on mutual feelings of affection between Darcy and Elizabeth and this is why this was the perfect marriage.
Pride and Prejudice is a romantic novel and explores the theme of love and marriage very thoroughly. I have studied the three marriages that took place in the novel and have shown that there were many different reasons for marriage. Charlotte's and Mr Collins' was a marriage of convenience. It was apparent that he would have married anyone as he moved from wanting to marry Jane then suddenly to Elizabeth then to Charlotte. Lydia married Wickham because she wanted to get married before her sisters and felt that this marriage would be fun. Wickham married Lydia purely for the money he received from Darcy to do so. Elizabeth's and Darcy's marriage was the ideal because it was based on love and trust. In that time period the right marriage could make a family and the wrong marriage or none at all could destroy one.
