Pride and Prejudice 191hand, begins the novel lacking nearly all of these
qualities. His behavior at the ball where Jane and
Bingley become acquainted marks him as haughty
and proud. Once Elizabeth accuses him of failing
to behave in a “gentleman-like manner,” he realizes
how pride has contaminated his disposition, and he
is able to reflect on the ways in which he has failed
to behave as a gentleman should. These reflections
lead to his eventual transformation, and when he
renews his marriage proposal to her in an honest,
unaffected, and gentleman-like manner, his altera-
tion is complete.
George Wickham undergoes no such transfor-
mation. In fact, he seems, at first, to possess every
desirable masculine quality until Darcy reveals his
real, deceitful, character. Wickham’s duplicity fools
everyone initially, but his inability to fulfill his
proper role matches his wife’s deficiencies. Mr.
Collins is as silly as his wife is rational, and his
obsequiousness to all those of higher social stand-
ing than he makes him a toady—hardly masculine.
Finally, Mr. Bennet, for all his wit, makes sport at his
wife’s expense, fails to plan ahead for his family, and
participates in the near-destruction of its reputation
by refusing to discipline his unruly daughters. His
failure to perform these masculine duties exposes
him as incapable of performing his gender role, and
though he is a father with responsibilities, he never
really acts like one.
Laura L. Guggenheim
lOve in Pride and Prejudice
In Pride and Prejudice, whenever a character men-
tions love or marriage, concerns about money and
security can never be far behind. Happiness is often
a mere afterthought. This dynamic is immediately
set up by the first, and most famous, sentence in the
book: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that
a single man in possession of a good fortune, must
be in want of a wife.” Confirmation that an eligible
bachelor with 5,000 pounds a year is moving into
the neighborhood prompts Mrs. Bennet, without
knowledge of this stranger’s disposition or character,
to hope that he will marry one of her five daughters.
Marriage and financial security, not necessarily hap-
piness or love, must be a woman’s main goals when
she has little fortune herself. Happiness and love are
to be desired in marriage, certainly, but they cannot
come before financial independence.
Such a rule is made clear when Elizabeth Ben-
net’s Aunt Gardiner hears of her niece’s growing
attachment to the handsome, but penniless, George
Wickham. She cautions Lizzy, “Do not involve
yourself, or endeavor to involve him in an affec-
tion which the want of fortune would make so very
imprudent.” Mrs. Gardiner knows that Lizzy is too
sensible to pursue the attachment because their
marriage would be catastrophically impoverished.
Likewise, perhaps the most practical character in the
novel, Charlotte Lucas, Lizzy’s friend, understands
the value of a marriage that grants the lady financial
stability, even over personal happiness. She recom-
mends that Jane “secure” Charles Bingley’s affections
by being forward with her own feelings, though
those feelings have not yet fully developed, and
Charlotte takes her own advice when she secures
Mr. Collins’s affections before she can develop
any real feeling for him. “Happiness in marriage,”
she insists, “is entirely a matter of chance.” This is
because one does not marry whom one loves, or for
happiness, but for security, and it is precisely this
kind of marriage that Charlotte obtains when she
consents to marry Lizzy’s vapid but financially inde-
pendent cousin. Once they are married, Lizzy visits
her friend, and though she admits that the match
was a prudent one for Charlotte, she hates to leave
her friend alone again. “Poor Charlotte!” she thinks.
“But she had chosen it with her eyes open.... Her
home and her housekeeping, her parish and her
poultry, and all their dependent concerns, had not
yet lost their charms.” In the end, contentment, not
love, may be all a woman with little fortune can rea-
sonably wish for in marriage.
Even the wealthy cannot escape the fact that
money and status are more intimately connected to
marriage than love. When Fitzwilliam Darcy begins
to fall in love with Elizabeth, very much against
his will, “He really believed, that were it not for the
inferiority of her connections, he should be in some
danger.” Her low family status and lack of fortune
prevent him, at first, from seriously considering her
as a marriage partner. These obstacles, in addition,
threaten the love growing between Jane and Bingley,