Portrayal of Man and Woman in 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 neighborhood, 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, the protagonist in the novel, rejects Charlotte’s views on marriage and love. She rejects Mr. Collins’ proposal of marriage even though he is a man of means. For his part Mr. Collins cannot fathom the rejection and believes Elizabeth is only playing hard to get. Through this Austin is demonstrating Elizabeth’s independence and showing that she has a free will. Mr. Collins reaction shows this is not the typical female behavior he expects.

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. It is significant to note that Elizabeth was attracted to George Wickham. Wickham, like Charlotte, viewed marriage as a method of improving one’s lot in life. His eventual marriage to Lydia, Elizabeth’s sister, is only consummated by a guarantee of an allowance. Austen is showing that men and women are more alike than one might surmise.

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.

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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. Charlotte’s is a cynical view of marriage and implies that it is acceptable, in fact expected for a woman to be materialistic, backstabbing and conniving in order to achieve their ends. Fittingly, Charlotte marries Mr. Collins for his money.

The reader cannot blame Charlotte for her attitude. Life was hard back then. Life is hard now. And, there is factual truth in her statement, “I am convinced that my chance of happiness with him is as fair as most people can boast on entering the marriage state,” – it’s been proven that the number one cause of divorce is money, so presuming it was the same back then, as long as Mr. Collins provides for her, she’ll be pleased. To put a finer point on her situation, one can argue that Charlotte won’t be happy per se; she’ll be content.

Our heroine, however, gets to have her cake and eat it too. Elizabeth winds up with Mr. Darcy who is both wealthy and the man she ends up falling in love with. This is a woman’s narrative about weddings after all, and Austen elected to reward her readers with some Shakespearean symmetry: a lot of marriages, people are generally happy or content at the end of the book.

To make sense of how this unlikely couple ended up together, Austen includes a conversation between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth, where Elizabeth says, “You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking and looking, and thinking for your approbation alone. I roused, and interested you, because I was so unlike them.” Yes, this is true. Mr. Darcy’s fell in love with Elizabeth because she had a palpable otherness, an otherness that was rooted in defiance to conventional norms and a relatively fixed social order. Pride and Prejudice shows the reader that although a man has money and may be in search of a wife, it’s often the woman that gets what she wants.

Vivian Jones notes that Pride and Prejudice offers a great deal of good sense for the naturally drawn characters and that Elizabeth Bennet is a heroine whose independence of character is kept within the proper line of decorum. The expression of feminist values was not as overt two hundred years ago as it is today. Nevertheless, this does not diminish the importance of the sentiments. Michael Stasio and Kathryn Duncan have observed that a paradigm shift regarding marriage and gender occurred during the eighteenth century. The subordination of women began to diminish and new ideologies of gender and marriage began to surface. “Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in the most canonical of domestic novels, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.”

This novel revolves around a number of marriages and courtships. In each case the participants are identified by social status. At the time this novel was written social status was determined by a number of factors including family background, reputation, and wealth. Marriage was a method of raising ones social status.

Eighteenth-century England is a man’s world. Men have choice and freedom and depend on nobody but themselves. However, Elizabeth does what she thinks is best for her and does not accept the social norms and expectations imposed upon her. Her rejection of Darcy’s proposal of marriage, based on her initial impression of him further demonstrates her independent nature and break from the stereotypical expectations of the day. This independence, which Darcy finds attractive, is an expression of Austen’s feminist beliefs.

Work Cited

1. Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. New York: Penguin, 2003.