Money and Marriage——The matrimonial value orientation in Pride and Prejudice
...for ordering about. They take family background seriously, which is the most important factor to earn others’ respect, on the basis of fortune and good breeding. At the same time, they will not trace to its sources. In short, there does exist strict hierarchy, which is classified according to the family and tradition from the surface, but the financial income actually. Those who have the highest income will be in the highest social position, owning large residence and parks, having the nicest furniture and the most precious paintings, and the best streams for fishing. The money earned by trading is despised, but it will be soon forgotten after generations. However, to avoid being looked down upon, the generation at present will always employ such kind of clever method: giving up business dealing or profession and going to countryside to settle down then nobody will know their past. From a neighbor of the Bonnets, we can get to know how such social process began “Sir William Lucas had been formerly in trade in Merton, where he had made a tolerable fortune, and risen to the honor of knighthood by an address to the king, during his mayoralty. The distinction had perhaps been felt too strongly. It had given him a disgust to his business, and to his residence in a small market town; and, quitting them both, he had removed with his family to a house about a mile from Merton, denominated from the period Lucas Lodge, where he could think with pleasure of his own importance, and unshackled by business, occupy himself solely in being civil to all the world.” Then what attitude does these rich country squires hold to the low-class people surrounding them? Let’s look at another paragraph of description about Lady Catherine “Elizabeth soon perceived, that though this great lady was not in the commission of the peace for the county, she was a most active magistrate in her own parish, the minutest concerns of which were carried to her by Mr. Collins; and whenever any of the cottagers were disposed to be quarrelsome, discontented, or too poor, she sallied forth into the village to settle their differences, silence their complaints, and scold them into harmony and plenty.” Lady Catherine de Bough is a model of her rank, arrogant and conceited. Her manners to the inferiors are dictatorial and insolent. She has the reputation of being remarkably sensible and clever. But all this, together with her ability of administrating the county, derives from her rank and fortune. That is to say, good fame and exceeding power would certainly come to a person as long as he/she has money and is in high social position. In Pride and Prejudice, we can always see country squires’ leisurely life with calls, walks, picnics, conversations, parties, balls and marriages. But seeing through the surface, there is a world of struggling for existence determined by economic base. The whole book is filled with digit. Mr. Bonnet’s property consists almost entirely in an estate of two thousand pounds a year. Mrs. Bonnet’s father ... leaves her four thousand pounds. Each of their five daughters can get one thousand pounds in the 4 percent after their mother dies. Mr. Bingley inherits property to the amount of nearly an hundred thousands pounds from his father and he has four or five thousand a year. Miss Bingley has a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. Mr. Darcy has ten thousand pounds a year while his sister, Georgiana has a property of thirty thousand pounds. Wickham wants to get ten thousand from Darcy; otherwise he will not marry Lydia even though they are in elopement. Colonel Fitzwilliam, Darcy’s cousin, would like to marry a woman who should have a property of at least fifty thousand pounds, since he has no inheritance as a younger son of an earl. Mr. Collins claims that he must make such an agreement for tithes as may be beneficial to himself and not offensive to his patron. Even the chimneypiece in one of Lady Catherine’s drawing rooms costs eight hundred pounds. Of course, the very one thing that cannot be forgotten to mention is that the estate entail of Mr. Bonnet, which makes Mrs. Bonnet be extreme obsession. And it is the exact thing that decides the fate of their five daughters and then the story of Pride and prejudice occurs. Upon the whole, no marriage that involves no money. Except the detailed digit of money, there is another factor which has a great influence on marriage. That is social position determined by economic condition. In the story, the Bonnets have some low connections. They have one uncle, Mr. Phillips, being an attorney in Merton, and another one, Mr. Gardiner, settling in London in a respectable line of trade. As for this, Miss Bingley always makes fun of the Bonnets, and Mr. Darcy once says frankly “it must very materially lessen their chance of marrying men of any consideration in the world.” To make it clear that money is very important in the marriage convention of such kind of society, Mr. Collins’ words after Elizabeth refusing his proposal can be taken as proof. “… It does not appear to me that my hand is unworthy your acceptance, or that establishment I can offer would be any other than highly desirable. My situation in life, my connections with the family of de Bough, and my relationship to your own, are circumstances highly in my favor; and you should take it into further consideration, that in spite of your manifold attractions, it is by no means certain that another offer to marriage may ever be made you, your portion is unhappily so small, that it will in all likelihood undo the effects of your loveliness and amiable qualifications.” Mr. Collins is not a sensible man, and the deficiency of Nature has been but little assisted by education or society. The subjection in which his father brought him up has given him originally great humility of manner; but it is a great deal counteracted by the self-conceit of a weak head, living in retirement, and the consequent feelings of early and unexpected prosperity. The respect which he feels for Lady Catherine’s high rank, and his veneration for her as his patroness, mingling with a very good opinion of himself, of his authority as a clergyman, and his right as a rector, makes him altogether a mixture of pride and obsequiousness, self-importance and humility. His intention of choosing Elizabeth as his wife is his plan of amends -- of atonement – for inheriting their father’s estate; and he thinks it an excellent one, full of eligibility and suitableness, and excessively generous and disinterested on his own part. So he takes it for granted that Elizabeth will accept his proposal cheerfully and readily. Though Elizabeth rejects him for his incomplete character, it still can tell us the low social-status of the British women at that period of time. The only thing a young lady without property could do is to marrying a man with a good fortune. Take the marriage case of Lucas-Collins for another example. Miss Lucas is Elizabeth’s closest friend. She is a sensible, intelligent young woman, knowing it very clearly that “Mr. Collins, to be sure, was neither sensible nor agreeable; his society was irksome, and his attachment to her must be imaginary. But still he would be her husband. Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honorable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want.” Such humorous and piercing description portrays the mentality of Lucas-like women deeply and also their fate that there is no other way that can improve their own position in finance and society except marrying a husband with a good fortune. Elizabeth goes to Parsonage to visit them by the invitation of Miss Lucas after they getting married, and finds: “Her home and her housekeeping, her parish and her poultry, and all their dependent concerns, had not yet lost their charms.” “When Mr. Collins could be forgotten, there was really a great air of comfort throughout …” It is interesting that, in such marriage based on sole and naked money-transaction, the woman without property does marry a single man with a good fortune, but the husband himself has nothing to do with the enjoyment the marriage bringing to her. Is not it an excellent irony to the proposition at the beginning of the novel the “truth universally acknowledged”? Wickham-Lydia Scandal can be taken as another instance to illustrate that money is of overwhelming importance in marriage. Wickham is very handsome and charming from his appearance, but actually demoralizes. He is extravagant and always greatly in debts of honor. Lydia, far more different from her two elder sisters, is vain, ignorant, idle and absolutely uncontrolled. Moreover, she indulges herself in flirtation with officers. They elope from Brighton without any engagement and are found out in London finally. Though under such circumstances, Wickham has no intention at all to marry Lydia, but for Darcy’s help in secret: “Mr. Darcy asked him why he had not married your sister at once? Though Mr. Bonnet was not imagined to be very rich, he would have been able to do something for him, and his situation must have been benefited by marriage. But he found, in reply to this question, that Wickham still cherish the hope of more effectually making his fortune by marriage in some other county. Under such circumstances, however, he was not likely to be proof against the temptation of immediate relief. They met several times, for there was much to be discussed. Wickham, of course, wanted more than he could get, but at length was reduced to be reasonable.” Wickham’s marrying Lydia finally calms down the dissatisfaction in the society, and for that, Mrs. Bonnet is in great joy. In marriage, money is considered as the factor of extreme importance, not only to daughters, but also to younger sons. Let’s have a close look at the conversation between the respectable Colonel Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth: “… Now, seriously, what have you ever known of self-denial and dependence? When have you been prevented by want of money from going wherever you chose, or procuring anything you had a fancy for?” “These are home questions — and perhaps I can not say that I have experienced many hardships of that nature. But in matters of greater weight, I may suffer from the want of money. Younger sons can not marry where they like.” “Unless where they like women of fortune, which I think they very often do.” “Our habits of expense make us too dependent, and there are not many in my rank of life who can afford to marry without some attention to money.” Now let’s turn to the protagonist of the novel, Elizabeth Bonnets. She is intelligent, vivacious, humorous, perceptive and quick-witted, and she has a strong sense of personality and dignity. She despises her mother’s dreadful mentality and unbearably vulgar and also her younger sisters’ flirtatiousness and dissoluteness, but is never ashamed of her amiable uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner just because of their profession as merchants. She firmly refuses Mr. Collins’ proposal, against her mother’s expectation, because she does not and will never love him, and declines Mr. Darcy resolutely, for his expressing his love to her arrogantly and impertinently. She does not knuckle under the snobbish Miss Bingley, and is neither overbearing nor cringing to Mrs. de Bourgh and her domineeringness. When the latter shows her intention to intervene her freedom of marrying Darcy or not, she takes on diamond-cut-diamond and never compromised. She finally marries Darcy and her marriage is considered as an ideal one, for it consists of money and love. Leaving aside her true love for Darcy, then, what role does money play in her process of chasing after marriage? She once holds good feelings on Wickham, considering him to be the most agreeable man she has ever met. But meanwhile, she thinks it is too imprudent to fall in love with him. She once says to her aunt, Mrs. Gardiner, “I will take care of myself, and of Mr. Wickham too. He shall not be in love with me, if I can prevent it.” So when Wickham gets engaged with Miss King for her ten-thousand-pound property, she does not feel a little bit sad but free. Her two younger sisters, Kitty and Lydia are resentful about him, but she thinks “They are young in the ways of the world, and not yet open to the mortifying conviction that handsome young me...