Love and Marriage in Pride and Prejudice

Q. Discuss Jane Austen’s presentation of love and marriage in Pride and Prejudice.



Jane Austen’s nineteenth century novel, “Pride and Prejudice” focuses primarily on the theme of love and marriage in an English society. Austen lived in a time when a woman’s reputation and future, both socially and economically was fully dependant upon finding a husband. In “Pride and Prejudice,” Austen presents three contrasting instances of love and marriage situations, either challenging or endorsing each through her construction of the characters and the outcome of their actions. Through doing so she holds a mirror to nineteenth century British society, revealing the values they held in regard to the pertinent issue of matrimony.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” This is the opening sentence of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” and it introduces the main theme of love and marriag...