Theme of Love and Marriage in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

1.   Theme of Love and Marriage in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Pride and Prejudice is one of the most popular novels of Jane Austen due to its multi-dimensional versatility of themes. Andrew H. Wright remarks: “ She (Jane Austen) develops themes of the broadest significance, the novels go beyond social record, beneath the didactic, to moral concern, perplexity and commitment”

One of the most important themes of Pride and Prejudice,  love and marriage, is also the central theme of the novel. The oft-quoted opening sentence of the novel demonstrates this basic theme: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife”

It is true that the chief preoccupation of Jane Austen’s heroines is getting married and life is a matrimonial ceremony for them. Pride and Prejudice dramatizes the economic inequality of women, showing how women had to marry undesirable mates in order to gain some financial security. Marriage was a significant social concern in Jane Austen’s time and she was fully conscious of the disadvantages of being single as she wrote to her niece Fanny Knight, “Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor….which is one very strong argument in favour of matrimony”.

Through five marriages, Jane Austen defines good and bad reasons for marriage. Charlotte – Collins, Lydia – Wickham, Jane – Bingley and Elizabeth – Darcy are the four newly-weds. The old marriage is that of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet.

The marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet is the worst example of its kind in the novel. They are pole apart in their thoughts and temperaments. Their marriage is shown to be a disaster, with the wife playing the part of a fool and the husband retreating to live an uninvolved life.  Jane Austin says about this marriage:
" Her (Elizabeth’s) father captivated by youth and beauty … had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her “. Their marriage lacks "emotional compatibility and intellectual understanding". The Bennet’s marriage ends in mutual forbearance.

Charlotte and Collins are the first newly-weds. Charlotte agrees to marry Collins solely for her financial security. It is relatively her advancing age that hastens her engagement. Charlotte tries to justify her position by giving argumentative reasons to Elizabeth: “I am not romantic you know, I never was, I ask only a comfortable home”. Thus, to Charlotte, marriage is an economic transaction undertaken in self-interest.

The runaway marriage of Lydia-Wickham is based on mere superficial qualities as sex, appearance, good looks and youthful flirtation. The passion between the unprincipled rake, Wickham and the flighty Lydia is bound to cool, and in their unhappy conjugal life, mutual toleration is the nearest approach that can be expected.

The marriage between Jane and Bingley is a successful marriage of its kind. Jane Austen expresses her opinion about this marriage through the words of Elizabeth:
"All his (Bingley) expectations of felicity, to be rationally founded, because they had for basis the excellent understanding, and super excellent disposition of Jane, and a general similarity of feeling and taste between them."
However, unlike Darcy and Elizabeth, there is no planning in their relationships. Both the characters are too gullible and too good-hearted to ever act strongly against external forces that may attempt to separate them. So, their marriage is in between success and failure.

The fifth and final example of marriage is that of Elizabeth and Darcy. It is a kind of an ideal marriage based on the true understanding and cross examinations. According to Jane Austen , the courtship of Darcy and Elizabeth is a perfect union which sums up the purpose of her novel. Although it begins with the pride and prejudice; it passes through many stages as "it converts from full hatred to complete admiration and satisfaction" . For Darcy, Elizabeth is no longer the woman who is "not handsome enough to tempt (him)", as he admits that “… it is many months since I have considered [Elizabeth] as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance.”. Also for Elizabeth , he is no longer "the last man in the world whom (she) could ever be prevailed on to marry" but he becomes the "man who in disposition and talents , would most suit her" .

Thus the theme of love and marriage is very aptly exemplified in Pride and Prejudice. Beginning with the arrival of Bingley and Darcy, both single men “in possession of a good fortune”, the novel traces the courtship of Jane-Bingley and Elizabeth-Darcy through various misunderstandings and hindrances, before they are happily married to each other. We can sum up above discussion in the words of Elizabeth:

 “There can be no doubt that it is settled between us already that we are to be the happiest couple in the world.”