Essay on "Challenges of the Marriage Market for Women in Pride and Prejudice"

Essay 5 pages (1562 words) Sources: 0

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Pride and Prejudice

All women love "Pride and Prejudice." And really, why shouldn't they? The story of the intrepid and, at times, impertinent Elizabeth Bennet is an alluring one. It's a story of a comely young women looking for her prince charming, it's a story of an iconoclast challenging antiquated social conventions, it's a story that juxtaposes bourgeois pride against blue-collar prejudice and, perhaps most importantly, it's a story about marriage and all the different reasons one has for getting married: love, money, improving social status, practicality, etc. In a lot of ways, Pride and Prejudice is an instructive expose on marriage and male-female relationships. And it's the purpose of this paper to examine how Austen's seminal work explores the institution of marriage from numerous angles while providing the reader with uncanny and insightful aphorisms concerning the dynamic between men and women, i.e. "Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing after all" (Austen 132).

To begin, one cannot talk about Pride and Prejudice, in particular the marriage market in Pride and Prejudice, without referencing one of the more famous quotes from the book, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife" (Austen 1). The first reaction a modern reader might have is, "My, how times have changed." But all joking aside, this quote, which appears at the very beginning of the book sets up a fascinating proposition about marriage, class and gender relations. In short it establishes the rudimentary idea that 'man has money; man wants/seeks wife.'

Obviously, 'man has money, man seeks wife' isn't all that fascinating, but what is compelling is the way Austen complicates the message by mixing in elements of provinciality, financial expediency, corporeal possession in the next paragraph, "However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters (Austen 1)."

This is a wonderfully enlightening paragraph because it inverts what a reader's expectation might be and what traditional, superficial wisdom was. That is, the idea that 'man has money; man seeks wife' is an overly simplistic way of rendering reality. In reality, women are seeking a rich man, who (depending on his views) may or may not want a wife. And when Austen's statement is explicated as such, the modern reader might say, "Wow, times haven't changed at all!"

The notion that women marry for money is a universal and eternal concept. Austen is keenly aware of this. And she's keenly aware of how provincial women are in want of a man who has money -- and that this is, perhaps, the more insightful observation. It's a case were the predator (the man) has become the prey. Moreover, speaking in terms of the objectification of women (corporeal possession), which was undoubtedly the socially accepted way of treating women circa 1813s (Caroline Bingley's desirability was enhanced by her twenty thousand pound dowry) Austen demonstrates in those first few paragraphs that it's really a matter of a women owning a man, "he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters (Austen 1)." In short, men are chattel to be possessed by the shrewdest and most resourceful debutante.

Elizabeth Bennet is the personification of this ideal. She is pretty (but not as pretty as her elder sister) she is smart and headstrong. While on the surface, and for much of the novel, it is the men who are pursuing her, she holds the power to ultimately determine her own fate and whom she marries. Like a Venus flytrap, she waits for the right man to come along, to pursue her faux nectar, and then she clamps her jaws down on him. See, Elizabeth holds the power and in the end, she winds up with the man she wants, Mr. Darcy. In this respect, Pride and Prejudice is about the power and influence women hold over men.

Mr. Collins comes to the startling realization that it's Elizabeth who has the control. And how Austen manifests this realization is compelling for the reader.

"Pardon me for interrupting you, madam," cried Mr. Collins; "but if she is really headstrong and foolish, I know not whether she would altogether be a very desirable wife to a man in my situation, who naturally looks for happiness in the marriage state. If therefore she actually persists in rejecting my suit, perhaps it were better not to force her into accepting me, because if liable to such defects of temper, she could not contribute much to my felicity (Austen 96)."

Boy, Mr. Collins is a pompous man, "she could not contribute much to my felicity." The bible says, "pride precedes destruction and a haughty spirit before the fall." Mr. Collins is a sterling example of this lesson. His pride precludes him from seeing his own pompousness. Moreover, his haughty disposition won't let him admit what he knows deep down inside his being: Elizabeth is not attracted to him. Instead of blaming himself for his own shortcomings, "Mr. Collins was not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature had been but little assisted by education or society," he blames Elizabeth's temerity, her independent nature, her indomitable spirit (which he mislabels foolishness), which is arguably one of her most attractive qualities to both the male and female reader.

It's the dynamic between Mr. Collins and Elizabeth that helps to turn the 'man has money, man seeks wife' social custom on its head. Elizabeth is tacitly suggesting, 'man has money -- so what?' And the reader can assume, by extension, that Austen is making a similar point about early nineteenth century society, i.e. there's more to marriage than money.

Now, it should be duly noted that Austen's narrative is carefully wrought and that she needs to (or is compelled to by traditional literary norms) add levity to her novel. That is, to underscore her point about the power that women have over men, she has to add ancillary scenarios, characters and situations that are representations of conventional paradigms. She does so via Elizabeth's sisters and friends and their respective male suitors.

Who can forget Charlotte's admission about her own practical view of marriage, "I see what you are feeling," replied Charlotte. "You must be surprised, very much surprised -- so lately as Mr. Collins was wishing to marry you. But when you have had time to think it over, I hope you will be satisfied with what I have done. I am not romantic, you know; I never was. I ask only a comfortable home; and considering Mr. Collins's character, connection, 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" (Austen 177).

Charlotte is a 19th Century realist. She recognizes that a well-heeled suitor like Mr. Collins, the heir to Mr. Bennet's estate, is about all she can ask for. She lacks a romantic spirit; she claims she never had it. But one can argue that this is betrayed by, to quote Jackson Browne, "the resignation that living brings." That is to say, (despite the lack of evidence in the book and hypothetically speaking) she probably had, at one point or another, a yearning for a torrid love affair with a strapping young buck, the desire for real romance, but real life has suppressed this yearning to the point where she now is willing to accept stately convenience over romantic conviction.

The reader cannot blame Charlotte for her attitude. Life was hard back then. Life is hard now. And, there is… READ MORE

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