pride and prejudice

Marriage in Pride and Prejudice It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. This first sentence of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice could not have better prepared the reader for the rest of the novel. The thread that sews together the lives of all the characters in this classic is the establishment of marriage. Austen uses the Bennet family of Longbourn to illustrate the good and bad reasons behind marriage. Mrs. Bennet is an irritating woman whose main goal in life is to get her five daughters married. It might be correct in assuming that she felt social and financial pressure to do so. Her husband's estate was entailed to his nephew, Mr. Collins, upon Mr. Bennet's death. Therefore, Mrs. Bennet wanted her daughters to have financial stability elsewhere in case of their father's death. In the time period of this story there was very little social acceptance of women who were single their whole lives. For the mos...