The Gardiners are sensible, lively and an intelligent couple. " Mr. Gardiner was a sensible, gentleman like man" and "Mr. Gardiner whose manners were easy and pleasant". This gives the impression that Mr. Gardiner is a sensible and very down to earth man. "Mrs. Gardiner was an amiable, intelligent, elegant woman, and a great favourite with all her Longbourn nieces". Mrs. Gardiner seems very similar to her husband. They see to love each other and they work well together. Mr Gardiner is Mr Bennet's brother. The couple live in Gracechurch in London. They seem to be better parents to the Bennet girls than the Bennets are.
Mr. Collins is a distant cousin to the Bennets and he is to inherit Longbourn after Mr. Bennet's death. Charlotte is the eldest daughter of the Lucas's. She is 27 years old and is Elizabeth's best friend.
Mr. Collins is introduced to Charlotte by the Bennets at Netherfield Ball. At the time, Mr. Collins was paying attention to Elizabeth. Charlotte 'helps' Elizabeth. 'She owed her greatest relief, Miss Lucas, who often joined them and good naturally engaged Mr Collins' conversation to herself'. The day Mr. Collins proposes to Elizabeth, Charlotte is there. She overhears the conversation. The Bennet's were invited to dine at the Lucases. Elizabeth is grateful to Charlotte for keeping Mr. Collins company. Charlotte is really out to get Mr. Collins, 'Its object was nothing less, tan to secure her from any return of Mr. Collins addresses, by engaging them towards herself'. The next day, Mr. Collins goes to Lucas Lodge and proposes to Charlotte, who immediately accepts. Charlotte doesn't like Mr. Collins; 'His society was irksome'. She also knows that he doesn't love her, 'his attachment to her must be imaginary'. Charlotte just accepts the value society places her on. At twenty-seven, with little money, plain looks and younger brothers and sisters, Charlotte sees marriage as her best chance of securing a reasonable standard of living. 'I am not romantic you know. I never was. I ask for only a comfortable home; and considering Mr. Collin's character, connections, and situation in life, I am convinced that my chance of happiness with him is as fair, as most people can boast on entering the marriage state'. She clearly is only interested in security, comfort and a place in society. This shows her attitude towards marriage. She is willing to sacrifice love and companionship for material gain. "Miss Lucas, who accepted him solely from the pure and disinterested desire of an establishment..." This shows that Charlotte only wants an established place to live; She wants an income. She is considered to be sensible not romantic. While Mr. Collins is desperate for a wife. Nearly anyone will do in his opinion; "Independence of his character, for it led him to escape out of Longbourn House the next morning with admirable slyness, and hasten to Lucas Lodge to throw himself at her feet." He wants a respectable wife to make him look good.
After they are married, Charlotte seems to be happy enough, she keeps a straight face and ignored her husband's silliness, "In general Charlotte wisely did not hear". She does her best to ignore any silly remarks made by Mr. Collins. She tries to keep Mr. Collins out of the way, for example, by encouraging him to do the gardening, "when Mr. Collins was forgotten, there was a great comfort throughout'. She likes peace and quiet without Mr. Collins. She is always loyal to him though. She never says anything bad about him. "Little had she dared to hope that so much love and eloquence awaited her". She respects him and knows he's to inherit Longbourn. She sees a lot of success for her.
The Lucases are not very well off as they immediately allowed Charlotte to marry Mr. Collins. They are very status minded and interested in money.
The marriage between Lydia and Wickham was the result of irresponsible behaviour. They met at a dance. When the reader first comes across Wickham, he is paying attention to Elizabeth.
Mrs. Forester, Lydia's friend, invites Lydia to accompany her to Brighton. Once they arrived, Wickham invites Lydia to run away. Wickham didn't mean to elope with Lydia, but he had to run away because he had a series of debts. Wickham married Lydia thanks to Darcy. He bribed Wickham and took care of all the finances.
Lydia is an irresponsible, immature girl who likes to flirt with nearly every man she comes across and she is insensitive to other people's feelings. ' She had high animal spirits', 'which the attentions of officers', 'had increased into assurance'. Wickham is an ambitious man who loves money. He had first tried to elope with Darcy's sister, Georgina, who inherited £30,000.
Lydia and Wickham's marriage wasn't a happily settled one. They were constantly in debt, and Lydia often wrote to her sisters asking them for money. They always moved houses and they stayed for very long periods with the Bingley's.
Marriage is a very important part of the book and is what the story is really all about. Once Mrs. Bennet begins to succeed her goal of marrying her daughters, the reader is able to evaluate values of Jane Austen's portrayal of The Age of Reason. Through the marriages in the book, Jane Austen explains what makes a good marriage and what someone must possess in order to fulfil the requirements of the age. All that is needed to ensure the success of a marriage, is communication, and the book is set in an age where society instead of individuals is stressed, so good communications would exist. Lack of communication almost cost Jane a marriage the first time round. In marriage, the man has to ask consent from the parents of the woman they wish to marry. Manners were very important. "Sir William and Lady Lucas were speedily applied for their consent". This shows manners and gives the parents a good impression of their daughter's husband to be.
Girls weren't allowed to come out unless their elder sister had been married off. This didn't happen all the time. Sometimes girls came out slightly earlier, this was the case for Kitty and Lydia. "The younger girls formed hopes of coming out a year or two sooner then they might otherwise have done". They girls started coming out in society as young ladies to meet young men. They always looked forward to balls.
The marriage between Elizabeth and Darcy shows to be the most successful. Evidently, they will always have something to talk about. They genuinely love each other and their marriage turned out to be the strongest where earlier in the book it seemed the most unlikely marriage to occur out of all. Darcy shared his feelings to Elizabeth very openly "In vain I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you". Darcy is a romantic man, and a man of Intellect, reason and stability. When Elizabeth refused to marry him, he was heart broken but did not want to show it because he wanted to still look manly. "His complexion became pale with anger, and the disturbance of his mind was visible in every feature…he would not open his lip, till he believed himself to have attained it". He was holding in his anger and it showed in his face but he didn't express it openly.
Jane Austen shows her judgement of the characters and their actions through their marriages. She shows that you don't need to be romantic to fall in love. In this age, women relied on their looks in order to gain a husband. This is evidence in the Bennet's case as Mr. Bennet was "captivated by the youth and beauty" of Mrs. Bennet. He ended up getting bored of her because she had no real character and is thick. In Elizabeth and Darcy's case, Darcy fell in love with Elizabeth because of her character. Elizabeth is very plain but she has character so Darcy fell in love with her.
Pride and Prejudice shows a society in which a woman's reputation id of the utmost importance. A woman is expected to behave in certain ways. The ill tempered, ridiculous behaviour of Mrs. Bennet gives her a bad reputation with the more snobbish Darcys and Bingleys. When Lydia elopes with Wickham, Jane Austen treats reputation as a serious matter. By becoming Wickham's lover without marriage, Lydia steps outside the social standards and her disgrace threatens the Bennet family.
Class is related to reputation and the lines of class are strictly drawn. The Bennets, who are middle class, may socialise with the upper class Bingleys and Darcys, but they are their social inferiors and are treated that way. Mr. Collins sees social class of utmost importance and his views are shared, among others, by Mr. Darcy, who believes dignity of his lineage; Miss Bingley dislikes anyone who is below her social class; and Wickham will do anything to get enough money to raise himself into a higher status. Mr. Collins views are the most extreme and the most obvious. The marriages of Darcy and Elizabeth, and Bingley and Jane, show the power of love and happiness overcoming the boundaries of class.
There are two Courtship's' in Pride and Prejudice, those of Darcy and Elizabeth, and Jane and Bingley. There are also other small courtships within the book: Mr. Collins cancelled wooing of Elizabeth, followed by his successful wooing of Charlotte Lucas; Miss Bingley's unsuccessful attempt to attract Darcy, and Wickham trying to get together with Elizabeth and then Lydia.