Marriage Without Love in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

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The very first sentence of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen satirizes womens’ inability to be self sufficient and respected in society without a husband. Elizabeth Bennet resembles Austen as young women, as she chose to be old maid rather than be married inappropriately. Elizabeth cannot stand the frenzies her mother and sisters get in over superficial marriages. Unlike her sisters, Elizabeth is set on finding love, and will not sacrifice love for any absurd amount of money or status. Austen wrote during the uprising of the middle classwhich created an increase of individualistic views. Thus, Austen challenges class hierarchy by juxtaposing Elizabeth with the aristocracy in order to satirize the nobility’s divergence from the natural love of a man and women in holy matrimony, to marriages imposition as an artificial institution of society, used to preserve order and wealth. Austen challenges the ideals of class hierarchy and indicates ones’ status is independent of wealth, or heritage, and is decided by how close ones’ view of marriage matches the natural love between a man and women.

Jane Austen puts Elizabeth in charge of her rebellion against the gentry’s use of marriage as a way to attain social status and economic security. Elizabeth disgusted by their arrogance and rudeness, and unfazed by their wealth and status, surprises both Mr. Collin and Mr. Darcy by denying their marriage proposals. Elizabeth directs her defiance at the aristocracy as a group, for its endorsement of loveless marriage, to uphold their bloodline, as it engulfs society into a superficial lifestyle. Even though Elizabeth rejects these superficial relationships, she cannot escape aristocracy’s grip on her life, as her own mother and sisters are surrou...

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...op searching for Lydia, Mr. Gardiner fills his shoes by continuing to search for Lydia in order to clear the family’s name. In these ways, the Gardiners coax Elizabeth to open her heart and relinquish her prejudices, allowing her relationship to grow and finally bloom in the success of Darcy’s proposal. The irony behind the situation is that the lowly Gardiners below even Elizabeth’s class, are the ones that bring the couple together. Austen uses the Gardiners to challenge the paternal hierarchy as they are responsible for Elizabeth’s wedding. Though the ending is happy, it does not overshadow the social problems that Austen challenges up until the last page of her novel. Though the Gardiners experience love, and status, they will never experience the economic status of Darcy’s magnitude and therefore remind the reader of those less fortunate than Elizabeth.

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