Marriages in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

Bögös, Enikő (2018) Marriages in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. BA/Bsc, Szegedi Tudományegyetem.

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Abstract

In the 18th century marriages were very important in society, but they subordinated and oppressed women. Their financial stability and standard of living was completely dependent on their husband. Most people accepted this, but Jane Austen spoke up against it. In her works, including her most famous book Pride and Prejudice, she criticised the fact that women had no freedom. In this book she depicts four dysfunctional marriages and one happy, ideal marriage to show that the system of marriages was unfair towards women, and interest-based marriages were doomed to fail. The aim of this BA Thesis is to highlight the striking difference between the oppressing marriage system of the 18th century, and Austen’s liberating, realistic views on marriage. Her idea of a proper marriage was more modern, it was part of the reason why people started realising that marriages should be based on love and companionship rather than materialistic needs. In this BA Thesis I have found that in the 18th century people married for wealth and property, rather than for love. Women could not choose who to marry, and they were expected to be married by the age of twenty-six. The strict rules that women were required to follow were communicated to them through conduct literature. These books taught girls how to become proper women. Due to the question of property, cousin marriages were common at the time. With the analysis of Pride and Prejudice I have found that Austen supported lovebased marriages, which were not common. She emphasised that women often got stuck in loveless marriages because they were rushed to get married. She did not accept the teachings of conduct books, instead she encouraged women to take their destiny into their own hands. Her works helped change this restricting system, because she was not afraid to speak up against it.

Institution

Szegedi Tudományegyetem

Faculty

Faculty of Arts

Department

Angol Tanszék

Discipline

Humanities

Institute

Angol-Amerikai Intézet

Specialization

anglisztika

Supervisor(s)

Item Type:	Thesis (BA/Bsc)
Subjects:	06. Humanities
Depositing User:	szerkesztő BTK
Date Deposited:	2019. Apr. 26. 09:45
Last Modified:	2019. Apr. 26. 13:52
URI:	https://diploma.bibl.u-szeged.hu/id/eprint/74504

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