Pride and Prejudice 3

Beneath the surface of the romantic comedy Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen presents an underlying theme of the economic situation faced by women in the early nineteenth century. The best representations of this in the story is how two of the women in the novel approach marriage, and what they hope to achieve or gain through it. The two girls mentioned above are Elizabeth and Charlotte. Elizabeth is one five sisters in a family with …

…to make. Women of the day seemed to have faced one of two constraints in marriage. Either they had to have a husband that made them happy, or they had to have a husband that had enough money and promise to support them. The biggest constraint, however, was that they did not have the opportunity to provide for themselves and establish their own status. Without this constraint, all of the others would seice to exist.