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What is the difference between the role of women in 19th-century society and in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen?

Really, there is not much difference at all between the role of upper-class women in the early nineteenth century and the way Austen writes them.  Austen has represented upper-class women as essentially having to make the choice between marrying whichever man happens to propose to them, no matter how stupid or inappropriate a match he might be, and running the risk that no one will ever ask her again and that she could end up...

Really, there is not much difference at all between the role of upper-class women in the early nineteenth century and the way Austen writes them.  Austen has represented upper-class women as essentially having to make the choice between marrying whichever man happens to propose to them, no matter how stupid or inappropriate a match he might be, and running the risk that no one will ever ask her again and that she could end up alone, a burden on her family. 


Charlotte Lucas, for example, feels that she has few options, and she is anxious -- at twenty-seven years old -- to secure "an establishment" for herself.  She doesn't want to be a burden on her family, and she's rapidly approaching old-maid status.  Therefore, when she gets a proposal from Elizabeth's cousin, the ridiculous Mr. Collins, who literally proposed to Elizabeth fewer than forty eight hours before, she accepts.  She figures she has as much a chance of being happy with him as she does if she remains unmarried, and at least she won't be an embarrassment to her brothers.  Likewise, many real-life women found themselves in a similar predicament.  Austen uses Pride and Prejudice to satirize, in part, the terrible choice that society forces on upper-class women of little fortune: marry whoever they can or risk social humiliation as an old maid.  This struggle was real.

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