Little Love in Pride and Prejudice

Little Love in Pride and Prejudice

In Pride and Predjuice life is not all fun and games. There are many

pressures in life: mothers with high expectations for a good marriage and a

girl's own expectation of what life and hopefully marriage will be like.

Charlotte Lucas is the oldest daughter in a large family, she is not the most

beautiful girl, and she is twenty-seven, well beyond the marrying age.

Charlotte is Elizabeth Bennett's best friend and Mr. Collins, the man Charlotte

finally marries, is Elizabeth's cousin. Charlotte Lucas will marry to solidify

her life, not because she loves, for many people are unkind about her ability to

marry well; thus after her marriage to Mr. Collins, she spends all of her time

avoiding him.

Charlotte knows that even though she wants to marry more than anything

in the world, she does not expect love to come about; thus, she decides that it

is probably even better if you don't know a thing at all about the person you

are marrying. While Charlotte is speaking to Elizabeth about her sister, she

expressed her opinion as to Jane Bennet's relationship towards a gentleman. She

says it is probably better not to study a person because you would probably know

as much after twelve months as if she married him the next day. Charlotte even

goes as far as to say that "it is better to know as little as possible of the

defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life" (p.21). Charlotte

considered Mr. Collins "neither sensible nor agreeable" but since marriage had

always been her goal in life, "at the age of twenty-seven, with having never

been handsome, she felt all the good luck of it" (p.107). Charlotte is

speaking to Elizabeth on her marriage to Mr. Collins, "I am not romantic, you

know. I never was. I ask only a comfortable home; and considering Mr. Collins'

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" (p.110). Charlotte is optimistic in entering her marriage even though

Elizabeth is not.

The people associated with Charlotte, even her dear friends, have little