The social world of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is one in which women are reduced to commodities for marriage on account of their gender. In Austen’s world women have few opportunities to support themselves in society aside from becoming governesses or marrying into wealth and prestige. Females had little opportunity for employment, to become a governess was considered degrading, and when there are no brothers or heirs to the estate, as in the case of Elizabeth Bennett’s family, the family then has to entail its fortune, in this case to a distant cousin, Mr Collins. Women thus suffer on many counts on account of their gender, in the suffocating society of manners and class pretension that Austen depicts, marriage becomes a need for survival. Yet, Elizabeth remains an independent minded heroine who rejects Mr Collins’ proposal and initially Mr Darcy’s proposal as she does not believe in marrying simply for status or wealth, so it becomes a felicitous situation when she finds herself in love with the obnoxious Mr Darcy, who holds a large estate and is esteemed highly in society.
The novel depicts a social world highly stratified and laden with class struggle and pretension. Darcy is depicted as someone who is haughty, and initially does not think Elizabeth worthy of him because she originates from a family of no consequence, she is middle class and not beautiful enough for him to deign to dance with her because she ‘smiles too much’. However in their course of interaction he discovers that Elizabeth has a lively mind and a forthright and honest manner that contrasts with the artificial Miss Bingleys who are constantly flattering him and throwing themselves at him. Elizabeth initially also disdains Darcy because she finds him superior and condescending but discovers he has a heart when Darcy rescues the Bennett family from disgrace by intervening in the Wickham and Lydia sexual scandal which nearly brings the Bennett family to disgrace as Wickham tries to elope with Lydia and sexually taints her but is eventually coaxed into marriage by Darcy’s intervention. Elizabeth finds that she had misjudged Darcy and thought Wickham to be superior to him as well as believed Wickham’s lies about him but now becomes moved by the act to rescue her family honour, a move that can only be motivated by selfless motives of love.
Indeed a woman had to marry to survive in such a society, in Elizabeth Bennett’s case the situation is dire because Mr Bennett’s fortune is to be entailed to Mr Collins because there is no son and heir to the Bennett estate. An unmarried woman could only tutor and become a governess, which was then considered a very degrading vocation. Yet Elizabeth is not moved by her circumstances to play her mother’s game at fortune hunting rich husbands for her daughters. Darcy’s distaste of the Bennett family initially arises too from the vulgar Mrs Bennett who is quite a disgrace to Elizabeth because she is so crude and single minded and determined to marry her daughters off. Yet if one looks a little deeper, it is economic necessity that drives Mrs Bennett’s actions. With the fortune of the Bennett family to be entailed upon Mr Bennett’s demise, it is little wonder she is so driven and determined to get her daughter’s married in order to ensure their survival.
Elizabeth Bennett is thus a feminist before her time because she will not bow to the need for economic survival and turns down Mr Collin’s and initially Mr Darcy’s proposals of marriage because she believes in marrying for love and genuine affection. The novel shows a breaking down of Mr Darcy’s pride and Elizabeth Bennett’s prejudice. Initially Elizabeth had dismissed Darcy as a supercilious and smug misanthropist who thinks himself above most of society, but discovers there is more behind the arrogant demeanour when he rescues her family from scandal and disgrace. Darcy had initially also thought Elizabeth to be beneath him as she originates from a family of no consequence but discovers from his conversations with Elizabeth a lively mind and a woman who dares unlike others not to fawn upon him and flatter him but indeed be impertinent to him, stand up to him, challenge him and whom he eventually discovers is his equal in intelligence if not in social class.
The novel is thus a look beyond the highly stratified society segregated by class in 18th century England, it is shown that class snobbery is an illusion and no real barrier to marriage because Elizabeth, while socially inferior to Darcy, is no way intellectually inferior to him. Darcy thus finds that his class snobbery is misplaced towards Elizabeth Bennett, as she also discovers that her prejudice towards his superior and snobbish manner is misplaced when Darcy rescues the Bennett family from disgrace and scandal.
The novel thus can be read as a critique of 18th century England in which women were to marry for survival and there was a high level of social pretension and class snobbery. Austen can be read as being feminist and Marxist before her time because she sees beyond class distinctions and gender discrimination because Elizabeth Bennett proves herself to be Darcy’s intellectual equal and not inferior to him on any account because of her class or gender though Mr Darcy had initially experienced disdain for her on these accounts. It is then shown that while gender and class barriers had initially placed Darcy in a place of privilege and scorn towards Elizabeth, he finds himself falling for her because of her candour, honesty and intellect. Austen then can be read as a feminist ahead of her times as she does not view women as intellectually or morally subordinate to men though this is indeed the circumstance women find themselves in during 18th century England. Austen is then a bold precursor of what was eventually to become the feminist movement, which did not view females as sex objects solely for the purposes of marriage or morally and intellectually inferior to males though law and religion as well as society had inscribed them as such.
The novel, while described as charming and light thus conceals a dark critique of 18th century England as a repressive society which is deeply segregated by class and social pretension. The situation is indeed grave for women who are reduced to commodities for marriage and sexual objects at the mercy of male desire and who find themselves heavily indebted and subordinated by men as marriage is the only means by which they can escape poverty and low status in society. Rousseau has written that women exist only to please men, to serve them and humour them, to bring up children for them, their entire existence was to revolve around the men they served and they were only to be considered as ornaments to men whom they had to serve and surrender to in order to get by in society. Thus it is highly ironic that Elizabeth, who is anything but an ornament, succumbs to marriage to Darcy in the end.
Elizabeth is not the stereotype of the typical 18th century woman, in that she possesses a keen intellect and an independent mind. At every turn, she defies and challenges Darcy because of his initial slighting of her and will not surrender like other females to him and fawn upon him just because he is rich and handsome. Indeed this is probably what draws Darcy to her because he is intellectually stimulated by her lively mind and is probably tired of the empty and mindless aristocrats who throw themselves at him. In daring to depict Elizabeth in such a light, Austen was defying social stereotypes of what a woman should be — servile, dependent, subservient, fundamentally a doormat for men to tread on and dispose at their pleasure.
Austen is also deeply satirical of the institution of marriage as a source of entrapment for females though she ironically ends the novel with happy marriages. Beneath the veneer of charm and brightness is a deep resentment of the dependency that women had on marriage to escape lives of poverty and no name. While Pride and Prejudice is a comedy of manners it is also a satire of the society in which marriage was the only means to social mobility for women in which to escape lives of drudgery and ignomity as governesses’ women had to fortune hunt for rich husbands in order to support themselves. Patriarchy governs society through and through, and in the law of entailment it is seen that fortune is only to be transferred and distributed amongst males while females, were to be married off or live lives of poverty and dependency on male members of the family to support them.
Indeed not all the nuptials in Pride and Prejudice are blissful. Mr Bennett married Mrs Bennett for her looks in his youth, only to regret marrying someone so mindless, crude and embarrassing later in his life. Charlotte Lucas marries Mr Collins but the marriage like the Bennett marriage turns out to be a loveless marriage. So indeed these are marriages made with the same social climbing and fortune hunting ambitions as those of the Bennett sisters but both turn out loveless and unfulfilling. Marriage was then a source of entrapment, one had to marry to rise in society, only to find that one is enslaved to someone one loathes for the rest of their life.
Mr Darcy himself is a fine example of male privilege. Indeed he is rich, handsome, famous and possesses all the traits who would make him an ideal lover, which is why countless women throw themselves at him, but he is also haughty, class conscious, condescending, and it takes Elizabeth who is forthright and will bear no condescension to point out his faults and correct his opinions of the middle and lower classes. Mr Darcy discovers that character is not a function of class, belonging to an upper class family does not necessarily make one stronger in character or more moral, as he discovers from the vapid Miss Bingleys who keep throwing themselves at him.
Mr Darcy thinks himself above society because he is old money — his fortune is the by-product of several generations of inheritance, unlike Mr Bingley or Mr Collins, and so one would highly question the apparent victory Elizabeth derives at the end by marrying into his family — a family so laden with class snobbery and pretension. Indeed Elizabeth finds herself defending the marriage before Darcy’s aunt who thinks Elizabeth’s family is not in the least worthy of Darcy’s family whom she is marrying into.
Hence Elizabeth certainly suffers from pride and prejudice, but this is no less an ailment of Darcy as well. Darcy has to overcome his preconceived ideas about Elizabeth’s inferior looks and class in order to concede she is handsome, eloquent, and very witty and intelligent — his equal in intelligence, if not in possessions. Class distinctions are then exposed to be illusions and minor barriers to true love because it is she who captivates him with her wit, honesty and intelligence rather than all the simpering fawners who throw themselves at him and defer to him simply by virtue of his looks and fortune. Pride and Prejudice is thus a novel about the overcoming of these vices of pride and prejudice in the protagonists Elizabeth and Darcy in order to encounter true love.
Works Cited
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Norton, New York, 1966.