“You are not going to introduce yourself to Mr. Darcy!”
In this book there is demonstration of different types of marriages. There was marriage of convenience. This marriage was when a woman would marry a man to be supported by him even if she did not love him. This applies to men as well.
Mr. Collins wants to marry for convenience of himself, by being able to choose out of his 5 cousins the one he desires the most. He first considers marring Jane because she is the most beautiful out of his cousins, but then when he hears about Bingleys interest in Jane his eye wonders over to Elizabeth.
Eventually he proposes to Elizabeth and in his proposal to her, he tells why he wanted to marry her. His reasons are,
“For every clergyman”, “to set an example”
“I am convinced it will add very greatly to my happiness.”
His last reason is Lady Catherine De Bourgh his patroness thinks that he should marry. This shows Mr. Collins is obsequious, by doing what his patroness wants him to do and not what he wants.
These are very strange reasons for are point of view in the 21st century. Most of us would have married for love but Mr. Collins does not even mention that word in his proposal. He just wants to marry Elizabeth for his benefit. Elizabeth would benefit by marring Mr. Collins, but she think the idea is ridiculous.
After Elizabeth declined Mr. Collins offer he proposes to Charlotte Lucas one Elizabeth’s very good friends. Charlotte confesses to Elizabeth that she is not a “romantic” and she desires only a “comfortable home”. She is also content with Mr. Collins “character, connections and situation”. This shows us that Charlotte is marrying for convenience.
Other marriages of convenience which were thought of in the book would have been if Wickham married Miss. King. She was due to inherent a large amount of money which they both would have been able to live off of.
There were marriages wished by others as well which would have been for convenience. These included Lady Catherine de Bourgh wanting Mr. Darcy to marry her daughter Lady Anne de Bourgh. This would have united the families and put them into a higher social status.
Miss. Bingley wants Bingley to marry Georgiana Darcy so it would bring their families closer together. This would (she thought) give her more chance of marrying Darcy. This would be a very large convenience for her, for Darcy is very wealthy and of a higher social status then the Bingley family.
Pride and Prejudice also demonstrates courtships/ and marriages which are based upon appearances and infatuation. This is shown when Elizabeth takes interest in Wickham, and in the marriage which Wickham later has with Lydia.
These courtships/ marriages are based purely on the sexually attraction between the characters.
There is also the marriage of Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Bennet. Jane Austen makes it clear that the passion of the moment is a poor foundation for lasting happiness. Mr. Bennet had been ‘captivated by youth and beauty’ but Mrs. Bennets ‘weak understanding and illiberal mind’ stopped any lasting affection.
Then final example of a type of marriage in Pride and Prejudice is the courtships/marriages which are based on love and mutual respect. I believe that examples of these types of courtships/marriages are Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, Elizabeth and Darcy, and Jane and Bingley. These are the courtships/marriages which have a respect for each other and which a long lasting happy marriage may be built upon.
I think that Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner have a good marriage on a strong foundation. I believe this because Mrs. Gardiner warns Elizabeth about letting her ‘fancy run away with her’ and telling her that ‘she must not disappoint her father’. This shows that they have an understanding about what a marriage should be and she would not be able to make such a comment if she didn’t not have a functional marriage and if her marriage was based on infatuation she would be being hypocritical. She also said not to disappoint her father, not Mrs. Gardiner herself. I think that this because she knows that her brother in law’s marriage was a failure and that he did not want his favoured daughter to go through the same thing. But Mrs. Gardiner marriage has not been a failure so she would not be as disappointed as Mr. Bennet would be, because he knows what it feels like.
I believe that you can see that Jane and Bingley have a marriage which is based on love and mutual respect. I think this because Bingley being form a very wealthy back round could have easily married the most attractive woman that he came across because of that. They would have acceptant a proposal from him for a marriage of convenience. But he did not propose to anyone else when he was away from Neatherfield from around 3 months. I think that this tells us that when he was with Jane for that short period of time he fell in love with her and kept true. I believe that Jane did not accept his proposal for her own convenience because when she was telling Jane that Bingley had proposed she did not say anything about how happy she was going to be because he made so much money. In fact she did not even mention to Elizabeth once about how much money that he made. If she was pleased about that I would have thought that she would have said something to Elizabeth because she was closest to her.
Elizabeth and Darcy also had a courtship of love and respect and at the end of the book were married. Although they were not all was in the same position that they ended up in.
Elizabeth and many of the other characters see Darcy as proud, and it can be seen from this quote just how quickly this judgment of him is formed.
"The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which tuned the tide of his popularity; for he as discovered to be proud, to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared with his friend".
It is not only what she believes to be pride in Darcy's character that makes her judge him harshly, but also her prejudice against him because of the lies Wickham has told her. Darcy sees this fault of prejudice in Elizabeth, stating that her defect is "willfully to misunderstand everybody." In the end Elizabeth realizes her folly in trusting her first impressions and prejudices about the men, and states, "how despicably have I acted… I, who have prided myself on my discernment, – I, who have valued myself on my abilities…"
These explanations of the characters show the diversity in reasons for marriage at the time when the book was written. I actually find some of the reasons quite disgusting and not flattering for the persons whom someone has chosen to marry. Marrying someone for there money was thought as something that was common and not as shameful. This fact I find quite disgusting, how somebody could abuse someone’s trust if they did think that they married for love. Marrying for looks is also something that I do not think highly of.
