Criteria for a Successful Marriage According to Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
In this essay I will be writing: What the social and historical
context of the novel is. What the position of poor women who did not
get married was. What marriage offered to women in this situation?
What people looked for in their partner before getting married? How
the social behaviour was very strict about the conditions for
marriage. How people were judged against it, which could affect their
chances of marriage and the chance of the members of the rest of the
family getting married. Then I will look at various marriages within
the novel in order to examine the criteria for a successful marriage
according to the novel.
The social and historical context of the novel is shown through
Mr.Bennet “consisted almost entirely in an estate of two thousand a
year, which, unfortunately for his daughters was entailed, in default
of male heirs”. Pride and Prejudice reflects the social and historical
context in the way it was written in several ways, mainly through
characters describing affairs of the time and speaking of society in
Jane Austen’s time, this is shown through Lady Catherine De Bourgh who
emphasises her displeasure in the marriage of Mr.Darcy and Elizabeth
“The engagement between them is of a peculiar kind. From there
infancy, they have been intended for each other. It was the favourite
wish of his mother, as well of hers”. This quote is showing that in
that society it was also a custom of some people to arrange the
marriages when they were still in their cradles and this is what Lady
Catherine De Bourgh is trying to explain to Elizabeth. I think Jane
Austen’s feelings about this were very strong as she shows this in the
novel through Elizabeth and Darcy when Elizabeth refuses to reject
Darcy’s proposal for marriage and says “.... why is not he to make
another choice? And if I am that choice, why may not I accept
him....”? Here Elizabeth is trying to say that if Mr.