Social Class In Pride And Prejudice By Jane Austen

Views on social class has seems to be developing and changing as time goes by. Nowadays, less importance and judgment is place on social class compared to a period like the 1800’s, as shown in the novel of manners Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. This novel follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she copes with issues of social class, marriage and manners in a period of aristocracy. The story sets off after two gentlemen move into the neighborhood: the rich and good-mannered Mr. Bingley and his prideful and prestigious friend Mr. Darcy who is richer. Elizabeth, a 20 years old girl, is the second daughter of five girls of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet. Her family is in the middle class but Austen illustrates that being in the middle class in
Jane Austen illustrates that an advantageous marriage was the ideal definition of marriage in the early 1800’s. It was usually based on status and social expectations with love being considered as an important component by a few people.
Marriage’s function in the early 1800’s was mainly to obtain an upper social status in the society. Women in the early 1800’s would usually marry men of an upper social class. Austen begins her novel with the sentence “It’s a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of good fortune, must be in want of a wife” (Austen 5). The opening sentence hides the idea that there must be a girl looking for a husband with good fortune. Mrs. Bennet views Mr. Bingley’s arrival into the neighborhood as an opportunity for her daughters to marry a rich
For a woman to get married in the 1800’s, expectations were placed on her looks; meaning, she had to look clean and well dressed. As Elizabeth arrives at the Bingley 's resident looking very dirty, to visit her invalid sister, Jane, the Bingley 's sisters laughs at her saying “To walk three miles, four miles, or five miles, or whatever it is, above her ankles in dirt, and alone…It seems to shew an abominable sort of conceited independence, a most country town indifference to decorum” (Austen 36). The Bingley sisters are laughing at her because her lack of good looks reduces the possibility of her marrying a rich husband. This is because rich men of the 1800 's would usually get married to women of high class; one who had good manners, one who never walked in dirt and one who certainly never looked like a country town girl. Moreover, the people of 1800’s had strong beliefs on the importance of being a virgin at marriage because it was the norm. Jane sends a letter to Elizabeth saying that “An express [mail] came at twelve last night, just as we were all gone to bed, from Colonel Foster, to inform us that [Lydia] was gone off to Scotland with one of his officers…Wickham” (261) Since Lydia has run away with Wickham to a very far place like Scotland, the guess is that they have already had sexual intercourse, and so Lydia is not a potential wife anymore since she has already lost her virginity. The only