S. P. Dutta M.A.

(English), ACIB (London)

The theme of money and marriage in Pride and Prejudice

Love and marriage are the chief themes in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. This is nothing
novel as the themes had been a matter of concern to many playwrights and novelists ever before.
Of them, Shakespeare is there, handling the theme of love and marriage in their multifarious
dimensions. What is important is that Jane Austen, unlike Shakespeare, handles themes as ground
reality, in the context of social environs in the late 18 th century. Shakespeare also does not evade
the question of money in a marriage, and the best example id The Merchant of Venice which is
markedly different from The Midsummer Night’s Dream. The criticism that Austen moves
within a two-inch box of ivory is invalid as the box may be two-inch in size, but it is not made of
ivory. Austen’s world is the world she lived in and knew, and she made no attempt to flint her
imagination beyond the boundary line. The middle class society in its necessary intercourse with
the aristocracy and the tension that necessarily springs out in a classified society constitute the
workshop of Austen. Naturally, the themes of love and marriage as handled by her have their own
sociological, psychological and artistic implications. Hence, marriage which is a social institution
is not handled by Austen as the ultimate result of love however it generates. Matrimony in Pride
and Prejudice always involves the role of money.

Austen’s main subject in PP is courtship and marriage, and not love leading to marriage. The
motive force is the sternly real and universally acknowledged fact that the mother, and the father,
of three marriageable daughters, must be in search for young men of good fortune for their
daughters. In the novel, there are seven marriages ( Mr.& Mrs Bennet; Bingley & Jane;
Elizabeth & Darcy; Charlotte &Collins; Lydia & Wickham; the Lucases; the Gardiners ), five of
them very important,(and the marriages) as they provide perspectives to judge what are the
requirements of a good marriage. It is obvious that in Jane Austen’s view a marriage based on
pure economic considerations is a bad marriage. Charlotte Lucas, in her bid to find security,
binds herself with Collins who is not an ‘eligible’ bachelor. The background was the inequitable
law of succession that gave no girls the right of inheritance. Again, in a comparatively feudal
world, with little growth of capitalism, employment opportunities for womenfolk from decent
families were nil. Collins’ eligibility consists in his being under the patronage of Lady Catherine
in Hunsford, where he has a very good house and sufficient income. He intends to marry into the
Bennet family in order to inherit some fortune, and so he shifts his attention from Elizabeth to
Jane very quickly. Charlotte accepts Collins as she is a woman of small fortune, and seeks a
preservative from want. Moreover, she marries Collins despite his stupidity because she does not
wish to die an old maid. The second marriage, exemplified in the marriage between Lydia and
Wickham, being based on physical charms is also an example of an unhappy marriage. This kind
of marriage, where infatuation plays a greater role than love, is bound to be burdened with strain,
and this is evident in the kind of life that Lydia leads in London where Wickham merrily and
irresponsibly prances about caring little for the family. They both are dependent on Elizabeth
for financial support. A marriage without financial soundness backing it is an aerial castle that
takes little time to wither. Mae West reminds us of this peril when he says that ‘love conquers all
things – except poverty and toothache’. Physical attraction that formed the foundation of the
marriage between Lydia and Wickham and that was so strong, is seen to disappear before long.
They remind us of Pope’s words : “ They dream in courtship but in wedlock awake.” The
marriage between Mr. And Mrs. Bennet is far from being ideal. It is almost parallel to or acts
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as the model of the relationship between Lydia and Wickham. Both the partners in the marriage
are silly and superficial, and their relationship is based on forbearance rather than love. Mr
Bennet’s financial strength is the buttress of the relationship. Mr. Bennet is a subject of
inexplicable indifference to the cause of the girls and is a foil to his wife, who while being silly
and shallow, is desperate and overenthusiastic about finding husbands for their daughters. He is a
specimen of Helen Rowland (1875-1950) who in A Guide to Men said : “ A husband is what is
left of a lover, after the nerve has been extracted.” Little wonder that Wickham is Mr. Bennet’s
‘favourite son-in-law’.

By the side these three imperfect marriages, we have two marriages that may called ideal in the
context of the circumstances. These are the marriages between Bingley and Jane, and Darcy and
Elizabeth. The Jane-Bingley relationship is ‘rationally founded’ and has ‘for basis the excellent
understanding and super-excellent disposition of Jane, and a general similarity of feeling and taste
between her and himself (Bingley).’ This union draws Elizabeth’s admiration and receives her
appreciation as it is rationally founded on mutual understanding and feeling. Here both the brain
and the heart work. This is a question of time and cannot be earned in haste. Even Shakespeare’s
Rosalind, while being over head and ears in love with Orlando, does not rush to a hasty marriage
and employs all her skill to test the solidity of Orlando’s love. Orlando’s financial condition, she
knew, would change today or tomorrow, and the marriage takes place only after restitution of
Orlando’s lost rights. It would be good to remember Thomas Hardy who speaks of such
admirable relationship in Far from the Madding Crowd : “This good fellowship – camaraderie
– usually occurring through similarity of pursuits, is seldom superadded to love between the
sexes, because men and women associate, not in their labours, but in their pleasures only. Where,
however, happy circumstance permits its (camaraderie’s) development, the compounded feeling
proves itself to be the only love which is as strong as death – that love which many waters cannot
quench nor the floods drown, beside which the passion usually called by the name is evanescent
as steam.” The Jane-Bingley episode is solidly based on strong economic foundation, for Bingley
is an eligible bachelor, a single man with a large fortune. Elizabeth would not have approved of
their marriage, had there been any possibility of her sister falling in economic hardship.

The best relationship is that between Darcy and Elizabeth, which is the main theme of the
novel. This relationship sprouts in negative circumstances, through mutual dislike. Darcy, a very
self-conscious man, declines to dance with Elizabeth on the ground of her lower social status.
This attitude of Darcy reflected in his words that Elizabeth overhears hurts Elizabeth’s natural
feminine vanity and makes her prejudiced against Darcy. (Thus while Darcy is prejudiced against
Elizabeth on account her inferior social position, Elizabeth becomes prejudiced against Darcy on
account of his pride.) The course of events leads to self-discovery on the part of both, and the re-
discovery of the opposite character. Darcy comes to understand the worth of Elizabeth and
Elizabeth comes to know Darcy as a basically generous man who, though for his own sake, saves
the Bennet family from a disastrous social scandal. The marriage between the two partners will be
based on times-tested love and is, therefore, likely to be stable. The relationship is focussed by
Austen as the ideal relationship, confirming what Sheridan says in The Rivals : “’Tis safest
matrimony to begin with a little aversion.” It is no gainsaying that Darcy is a man of large
fortune, with an annual income of ten thousand pounds a year, and Elizabeth has no iota of doubt
in her mind that her future marital life would not suffer owing to hardship even if Darcy’s income
was not boosted by inheritance from the Bennets.

Love in Austen’s novels is not handled as the intercourse between two persons of the opposite
sex, but in the context of the society. Love, at first sight or second sight, is supposed to lead to
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marriage, and a marriage is a social institution with important social implications. Even it is not
an affair restricted to the two immediate families but to more distant relations as well. So rushing
headlong into a relationship that would jeopardize social fabric and consequently personal lives is
not approved of by Austen. That is why she does not endorse the elopement of Lydia and
Wickham, that, owing to ignoring the need of money in a marriage, suffers terribly. The wedlock,
in the words of A P Herbert (1890-1971), becomes a ‘deadlock’.

Curiously, while Austen gives weight to the social importance of the personal relationship, she
does not seem to advocate that society should be deciding force in love and marriage, not that
only money, as Mrs Bennet believes, should be the prime consideration for a good marriage.
After all, it is heart that matters, and after the hearts are mutually responsive, the social factor is
taken into consideration. Darcy and Elizabeth mate up in spite of Darcy’s family obligations
which Lady Catherine always presses upon him. And Austen tactfully keeps Darcy safe from
unfaithfulness. And Bingley and Jane also settle their affair first between themselves before
bending themselves to accommodate the interests of the families. Thus almost in the spirit of
Twelfth Night and As You Like It, Pride and Prejudice achieves the concord in a complex
pattern that began in an atmosphere of discord and divergence. Austen is not a romantic novelist
who ignores the stomach while feeding heart; she is a sober authoress writing about personal
relationships in a society whose principal aim is to see people living happily. And the source of
happiness is primarily money, not withstanding the importance of a good marriage that would
produce ideal citizens.
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