《傲慢与偏见》中三位女性的婚姻观形成原因研究

I. The Introduction of Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice is the most enduringly popular novel written by Jane Austen. Most of her novels deal with the subject of young girls’ courtship and marriage. Pride and Prejudice is a book about this subject. From her experience of love combination with Pride and Prejudice, we can know her matrimonial value. She advocates the marriage for both love and economic consideration with love playing the leading role. Her matrimonial value influences her creation in Pride and Prejudice.

1.1Jane Austen

Jane Austen (1775-1887) was one of the nineteenth century British writers. She was born in a county clergy man’s family. Steventon in Hampshire, England. She never entered a formal school, but she benefited most from her father who had graduated from St, John’s College, and Oxford. He was an accomplished master of art of reading aloud to the family. She learned a lot from her father’s 500 volumes of large library. She extended her reading particularly in literature and history. The relative comfort and harmony with her family provided Austen opportunities to exert her comic frame of mind in life and to develop her comic talent in her writing. From 1811 to 1817, Austen published her six novels: Sense and Sensibility; pride and prejudice; Mansfield Park; Emma; Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. Her novels described a narrow range of society and events; a quiet, prosperous, middle-class circle in principal surroundings. So her subject matter was limited and most of her novels dealt with the subject of young girls’ courtship and marriage. However this became her own special mode of fiction, the domestic comedy of middle-class manners. She transformed the eighteenth-century novel. It was so surprising that she never married all the life, but her novels described the love and marriage. We could find her matrimonial value from her the experience of love and her novels. She experienced sweet and bitter love. When she was 21 years old, she fell in love with an Irish man. However, The Irish man left her to marry a rich woman. She loved another man at age of 26 but this man died suddenly. When she was 27, with same age of charlotte in pride and prejudice, the heir of a wealthy lord showed her proposal but she rejected him. At the age of 33 she almost got married with a clergy man but no result.

 From her experience of love combination with Pride and Prejudice, we can know her matrimonial value. She objects to the marriage only for money and status as well as the marriage without consideration for the same background. Her idea is that we can’t marry for money or regard marriage as a game. She advocates the marriage for both love and economic consideration with love playing the leading role. Meanwhile, she also exposes that the essential of bourgeois marriage is a deal of money and a combination of benefit under the patriarchy to reflect the material nature of marriages in the 19th century.

1.2 Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice focuses on Mrs. Bennet’s obsession with getting her daughters married, three out of five succeeded, the other two also find their proper places. Besides, Charlotte Lucas, Elizabeth’s dear friend, is pragmatic and also six years older than Elizabeth, accepts Mr. Collin’s proposal. Charlotte doesn’t view love as the most vital component of a marriage. She is more interested in having a comfortable home. The main subject in the novel is stated in the first sentence of the novel: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." (Austen, 2003:3) In this statement, she has prepared the reader for a chase in the novel of either a husband in search of a wife, or women in pursuit of a husband. Meanwhile, Austen also expresses that any girl who is born in a poor family would have a strong desire to get married to a rich husband. Pride and Prejudice is a book about this subject. Austen describes different kinds of marriages and people’s different pursuit and attitude to marriages as well. She puts marriage into a variety of social and economic. Austen exposes the essentials of the bourgeois marriage system, that is, marriages are decided by the money and the social status brought by the economic status.

 

II. The Description of Their Marriages

In Pride and Prejudice three women’s marriages are representative in that period, Lydia and Charlotte and Elizabeth. Lydia’s marriage is on the basis of the lust and beauty and money. Charlotte’s marriage bases on the money without love. Elizabeth’s marriage bases on the both love and economic consideration with love playing the leading role. Material aspects influence not only their lives but also marriage.

2.1The Marriage of Lydia

Among all the Bonnets sisters, Lydia is the youngest daughter in the Bennets. She is deeply loved by her mother. She is the first to marry. At first, she elopes with her Mr. Wickham. Actually, Lydia is foolish and frivolous. Although she is fifteen years old, her mind is filled with love. She knows how to get admiration from others. She lacks any sense of virtue, propriety or good-judgment. She is deceived by Wickham’s appearance of goodness and virtue. Wickham is quickly judged to be a perfectly good and amiable man because of his friendliness and the ease of his manners. His true nature begins to show itself through his attachment to Miss King for purely money. Through his elopement with Lydia, deceiving her to believe hat he intends to marry her. He will never marry a woman without some money. He is only willing to have a woman accompanying him for the purpose of sex. Eventually, he marries Lydia just because Darcy pays his debts of honor, purchases his commission, and gives Lydia another thousand pounds. In this marriage, money plays the most important role. Her marriage is on the basis of the lust and beauty and money.

2.2 The Marriage of Charlotte

Charlotte Lucas has been an intellectual lady, but because of “small fortune” and “without having ever been handsome”, she is an old maiden till 27. The reason she marries foolish Collins is to find a life-voyage destination, to find a “preservative”.  She makes no attempt to find a husband whom she loves and esteems, but simply gives in to the necessity of acquiring financial security through marriage. She asks only a comfortable home. Considering Mr. Collin’s character, connections and situation in life, she is convinced that her chance of happiness with him is as fair, as most people can boast on entering the marriage state. In her marriage, as long as she forgets about Mr. Collins, everything will be fine. After having been refused by Elizabeth, Collins quickly marries charlotte. This reflects the miserable fate of women. Her marriage bases on the money but no love.

2.3 The Marriage of Elizabeth

At the ball in Meryton, where Elizabeth and Darcy meet each other, he is rude to quite Miss Elizabeth. Darcy’s insulting marks of “she is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me.” (Austen, 2003:14) Upon further acquaintance, Mr.Darcy is attracted by her dark eyes and the "easy playfulness" of her manners and falls in love with Elizabeth. She has pride in her abilities to perceive the truth of situations and of people's characters. However, her perceptive abilities fail her frequently in spite of her sense and good manners. She is deceived by handsome Mr. Wickham, who is quickly judged to be a perfectly good and amiable man because of his friendliness and the ease of his manners. She inclines to believe his story about Darcy. By the end of the novel she overcomes her prejudice through her dealings with Darcy. Darcy does, however, have a strong sense of honor and virtue. Elizabeth’s refusal after his first proposal to her helps him to recognize his faults of pride and social prejudice. For Elizabeth, when she begins to see that she judges Darcy completely wrongly, and she grows ashamed, concluding that she has been "blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd," (Austen, 2003:280) When she visits Pemberley, she can not help thinking of what it would be like to be the mistress of such a beautiful house. She tells herself that she does not regret her refusal of Darcy's proposal, but the more she sees of the house and the more she learns about his amiable and generous character from his housekeeper, After they overcomes the pride and prejudice, they get married and end up happiest. Her marriage is on the basis of the love and the money. But love plays a leading role in their marriage.