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‘If I can but see one of my daughters happily settled at Netherfield," said Mrs. Bennet to her husband, "and all the others equally well married, I shall have nothing to wish for.’
In Chapter 3, Mrs. Bennet speaks aloud her wish not merely for Mr. Bingley to marry one of her daughters, but for each of them to achieve equally advantageous marriages. Jane Austen pokes fun at Mrs. Bennet’s single-minded determination, but her hopes and anxieties underscore a harsh truth: after Mr. Bennet passes, the house will belong to Mr. Collins, and the Bennet girls will be on their own. Marriage, then, represents a source of financial stability.
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 matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want.
In Chapter 22, Charlotte Lucas takes a pragmatic, no-nonsense approach to marriage that juxtaposes Elizabeth’s more romantic views. For Charlotte, marriage is a means to a financially secure end. She’s willing to marry a man she doesn’t particularly care for so that she may live comfortably.
'Dearest Lizzy, I hardly know what I would write, but I have bad news for you, and it cannot be delayed. Imprudent as a marriage between Mr. Wickham and our poor Lydia would be, we are now anxious to be assured it has taken place, for there is but too much reason to fear they are not gone to Scotland.'
In Chapter 46, Jane writes a second letter to Elizabeth, the first informing her that Lydia has run away to Scotland to marry Wickham, the second (excerpted above) explaining that the family now has doubts as to whether Lydia and Wickham intend to marry at all. The prospect of Lydia marrying Wickham may have been an unwelcome one, but the idea she might not marry him is an unmitigated disaster. In Regency England, living with a man out of wedlock would ruin a woman’s reputation, and that of her family, forever.
