What issues concerning marriage does Jane Austen raise in her novel Pride and Prejudice
... This first sentence sets the scene for the novel. The entire novel is about marriage and proving the first sentence to be untrue. In Georgian times, a good marriage was everything in society, a marriage into a wealthy family was the only way a girl could avoid being an encumbrance on her family and forced to be a governess. ... A marriage in an upper class family was much more of a business proposition than an act of love. ... In ‘Pride and Prejudice’, only two out of the six couples actually climb in status, but still the idea holds. In ‘Pride and Prejudice’, several couples marry for passion. This was unusual in Austen’s time because normally these marriages did not stand the test of time. ... There is no room for love in their marriage, they married purely for the passion that resided with them at that time in their youth. ... It is very unlucky; but as I have actually paid the visit, we can not escape the acquaintance now’ The other example of a marriage for passion is Lydia and Wickham. Lydia does not stop to think what affect her actions will have upon her family and as Austen says, Lydia and Wickham were married ‘because their passions were stronger than their virtues’. ... Lydia felt she was superior to Jane as she was to be married, so the effects of social status appeared to work in the house as well as in society. ... I believe that when Wickham showed her attention she thought she had fallen in love and henceforth came their marriage. ... Austen tells us that Lydia is going to come to no good in her first description of her, ‘Lydia was a stout, well grown girl of fifteen, with a fine complexion and good humoured countenance; a favourite with her mother… She had high animal spirits…’. So Lydia rushed into the marriage without thinking. ... Austen plainly states that Charlotte accepted his proposal for the pure and disinterested desire of an establishment. ... Charlotte wanted nothing more out of marriage than financial stability and that is what she got. ... I think their marriage was an illustration of why you should not marry just for financial reasons. ... Not being as attractive as Elizabeth and Jane, she was getting past her prime and she knew that soon she would be unmarriageable because of her age and status.