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摘 要

简奥斯汀是英国著名的女作家。生于一个牧师家庭，她接受了良好严格的教育。在她短暂的一生中，她创作了六部小说和三部未完成的小说。《傲慢与偏见》是她作品中最成功，最受读者喜爱的一部作品。

《傲慢与偏见》这部作品的背景发生于摄政时期的英国。18世纪末至19世纪初的英国中处于资本主义工业革命时代，人们的思想观念随着时代的变革也产生了巨大的变化。资产阶级如雨后春笋般迅速出现并扩大，金钱在社会价值中占据主导地位。这种金钱至上的思想蔓延至18世纪的乡村，人们格外看重婚姻中的财产和社会地位。对于当时的女性来说，婚姻是获得社会地位和物质保障的唯一选择。

《傲慢与偏见》是一部关于恋爱和婚姻的代表作。故事讲述了贝内特太太为五个待字闺中的女儿寻找金龟婿的故事，作者以细腻的笔触描写了18世纪英国乡村自然风景和闲适生活，以诙谐幽默的语调把平淡无奇的日常琐事表现的妙趣横生，通过深入的剖析，小说中五种爱情故事和爱情观清晰地展现在读者面前：不和谐的贝内特夫妇；现实的夏洛特夫妇；冲动盲目的丽迪亚夫妇；合适般配的简夫妇；美好幸福的伊丽莎白夫妇。在这部作品中，简奥斯汀也表现了她对婚姻的看法：为了财产、金钱和地位而结婚是错误的；而结婚不考虑上述因素也是愚蠢的，只有建立在爱情基础上的婚姻才是幸福的。

本文旨在通过分析人物性格，研究比较五种婚姻观，探究影响婚姻观的重要因素以及现实意义。

关键词：《傲慢与偏见》 婚姻观 金钱 现实意义

Introduction

1.1 General introduction of Jane Austen and her works

Jane Austen, born in the village of Steventon in Hampshire in 1775 and died of Addison’s disease in 1817, was one of the distinguished women writers in England. Came from a traditional clergy family, she did not receive a systematic education. She learned mostly by herself. Her father also gave her great encouragement on reading so that she had chances to read a large scale of books, which broaden her horizon and cultivated her acute observation. When she was eleven years old, she started writing and tried to keep a secret for a long time.

Jane Austen was a fruitful writer. Unfortunately, she passed away when she was 42 years old. In her short lifetime she created six complete novels, which were all well-known in the whole world. These books are Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield (1814), Emma (1815), Northanger Abbey (1818), and Persuasion (1818). As one of the admirer of Jane Austen’s art, Sir Walter Scott adore her talent for portraying ordinary life in wonderful way. With perfect modesty she called her work “small square two inches of ivory”. She always wrote about what she knew and understood. Her work limited to depict the life of the gentry, landlords and clergy at the end of the 18^th and early in the 19^th.

Jane Austen did not marry throughout her life, but her works focused on all kinds love and marital life of women of the middle class in England. All Among her works, Pride and Prejudice has consistently considered as the most successful and impressive masterpiece.

As the most outstanding work toward love and marriage, Pride and Prejudice portrays life in the genteel rural society of the early 19th and tells the story about the five Bennet sisters and their search for suitable husband. Five types of marriage are involved in the story: disharmonious Mr. and Mrs. Bennet; realistic Charlotte and Collins; sex-oriented Lydia and Wickham; felicitous Jane and Bingley; ideal Elizabeth and Darcy. From the story, Jane Austen expressed her personal view on marriage: it is unwise to marry without money, but it is wrong to marry only for money; the marriage based on love is happy and ideal.

1.2 Social background of Pride and Prejudice

The story of Pride and Prejudice took place in the time of Regency in Britain. At that time, Britain was at the period of transition from earlier stage of Capitalist Industrialization. Material production form and lifestyle had took place a great change, as well as structure of English society was modified, which brought about a great revolution in ideology, especially on attitudes to money and marriage. As the development of Capitalism and the expansion of the rank of the rich, money took priority to the social value, and distinction between social strata became smaller. In the 18th England countryside, an important concern of conventional marriage is property, which is closely related to the social conditions.

Women in the time Jane Austen had lived had a lower status. It was the time dominated by men. Women were regarded as mere appendix to the men. They were treated unequally. On the one hand, they were required to be modest and reserved, as well as good manners; on the other hand, they had no right to choose husband and only be chosen. Women had to rely on men for a living. Before marriage, they lived on their fathers and brothers. After marriage, they had to depend on their husband. For this reason, finding a rich husband seemed the only way to change their life and get social status and economic security. Sometimes, the whole family of the bride might become better and richer by it. Jane Austen was lived in such a period. She was affected by traditional society value, confining the importance of money. However, she opposed the society’s popular idea on marriage that is a way of changing women fate. She pursued an equal relationship with men and marriage with love and mutual respect and understanding.

2. Literature Review

Pride and Prejudice is a very popular novel written by Jane Austen and it is read widely all over the world. It was written in 1813. That specific history time decided that people at that time took money much more seriously, even on their marriage. From the ancient times to the present, there are many studies about Jane Austen and her major works.

In 1813, Oxford World's Classics for the first time recorded and published the work Pride and Prejudice which aroused great repercussion around the world. Then, in 1826 after the work had been widely read, Sir Walter Scott analyzed Pride and Prejudice from an overall perspective. In his article “The Journal of Sir Walter Scott”, he summarized the features of Jane Austen, and he said that Jane Austen had a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life. The background of Pride and Prejudice was about the descent life and communication in her familiar country. Having a talent for describing trivial things of ordinary people, she was the first to write novels of realism in the 19th century.

Nowadays, people would like to pay more attention to the marriages in Pride and Prejudice. The first Chinese study on the marriage in Pride and Prejudice would be Zhu Aiping (2009), and she expresses her point in her article that the story mainly tells of the love story between a rich, proud young man Darcy and the beautiful and intelligent woman Elizabeth Bennet. Pride and Prejudice is a story about the five Bennet sisters and their search for suitable husband, of which Darcy and Elizabeth struggling for overcoming their pride and prejudice became a happy pair with mutual love and mutual understanding. The scholar also made a further analysis that it is the inevitable result of the marriage, which based on the economic condition and affected by the family status.

The opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice is that “It is truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of wife.” As the scholar Zhu Hong (1985) illustrated, the real “truth universally acknowledged” is that a woman without property must be in want of a husband with a

good fortune. Another scholar Huang Rong (2007) in her paper also pointed out that there are two important words “fortune” and “want”. “Fortune” is the basis of marriage, while “want” provides the marriage chance for those unmarried women. We can read “fortune” everywhere in the novel, and “money” plays an important role in marriage. Because women has no economic ability and status, they usually get married conventionally when they are old enough, no other than they become somebody’s wife, have their own status, and be acknowledged by society only after getting married.

Latter, a scholar called Zhu Lei (2015) from Ankang University raised an article from a totally new perspective on woman’s situation in Jane Austen’s age. Women have no rights to inherit the heritage of their father according to the law, so the economic situation is not stable. If the daughter wanted to get married smoothly, they had to own a great amount of dowry or the penniless daughters have to find a wealthy husband in order to secure her future. For people with property, marriage is an economic transaction that involves the transfer or consolidation of land as well as the development of social networks.

3. Five Patterns of Marriage in Pride and Prejudice

3.1. Disharmonious marriage

Mrs. Bennet is a woman of mean understanding, illiteracy, and uncertain temper. When she is not contented to trifles, she fancies herself nervous. Her biggest interest is to marry off her daughters. While her husband Mr. Bennet, is an old-style gentleman with sarcastic humor, reserve and caprice, who always makes his wife understand his character insufficiently.

The marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet is disharmonious. Their marriage is done mostly for appearance and financial benefit rather than mutual love and understanding. Mr. Bennet chooses a wife merely on the basis of youth and beauty without considering the weakness of her understanding or the illiberality of her mind. Shortly after their marriage, Mr. Bennet puts an end to all affection for his wife. Respects, esteem and confidence have gone forever. He cares nothing about family and children education but devotes himself into country scene and reading books. On the contrary, Mrs. Bennet concerns herself with trivia. They have no common life language and interests. Even so, when their love disappears, Mr.Bennet and Mrs. Bennet have to sustain their marriage for the sake of social responsibility. Getting a divorce at that time was not easy and usually regarded as immoral.

Through their marriage, Austin tries to show two points: one point is that marriage based on appearance affection is unreliable and disharmonious; another is that parents’ imprudent and irresponsible marriage has a great impact on their children’s attitudes to marriage. The elopement of Lydia and Wickham and prejudice between Elizabeth and Darcy are directly related to their family education. Children who live in harmonious family may feel happier and are optimistic to marriage. However, thing is different for children living in a family without love and harmony. They may suffer from character flaw and absence of love.

3.2 Realistic marriage

Charlotte, Elizabeth’s best friend, who is at the age of twenty seven without good looking, is a bright, well-educated and rational lady. She knows clearly what she needs and wants. While Mr. Collins, her husband, is a clergy with a mixture of pride and obsequiousness, self-importance and servility. He does not know what love and marriage at all.

The marriage between Collins and Charlotte is quite realistic one. Their marriage is based on economic security. In other word, their marriage is just a deal in the marriage market. There is no love in it at all. Charlotte’s love expectation is not kept so high. Charlotte chooses Collins as her husband so that she gets what she wants--a marriage which brings her honorable provision and a rich life. Marriage has always been her object for the sake of security and status without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony. For Mr. Collins, the reason for marrying is to please a noble lady for her recommendation that a clergy should find a wife, and to set the good example of matrimony in his parish. When Elizabeth gives a refusal to his marriage proposal, Collins immediately makes an offer of marriage to another woman without thinking.

The main purpose of Charlotte and Collins’ marriage is to keep their social status and economic security. In Austin’s time, it was widely accepted and openly acknowledged that marriage was regarded as a business transaction, which was beneficial to each of them, especially for women of the gentry and aristocracy. Such marriage based on money but love is too practical, and it is doomed to have no happiness at all.

Jane Austin does not intend to blame Charlotte for her realistic and materialistic choice so that she does not make Elizabeth to “break with her friend on account of her marriage”. But her understanding does not mean that Austin herself was willing to sacrifice real respect and affection in marriage to accept safety on such terms. The description of Charlotte’s marriage indicates Austin great sympathy to low status and the tragic fate of women like Charlotte who have to marry merely because of economic restraints. In a marriage, Austin is fully aware of the importance of money and social status, and also conscious of the importance of emotional feelings. The attitude towards Charlotte’s marriage shows that Austen prefers true love rather than material satisfaction in a marriage.

3.3 Sex-oriented marriage

Lydia, as Mr. Bennet youngest daughter, is a stout, well-grown girl with shallow and ignorant mind. Fifteen years old as she is, her mother begins to bring her into public, which makes her behavior frivolous. The man who lures Lydia away from family and elopes with him is Wickham. He is a wicked and deceitful young officer with an attractive appearance. He is crazy more about money than anything.

The marriage between Lydia and Wickham is sex-oriented. Their marriage is based on feverish and impulsive lust rather than serious love. Love to them is nothing but recreation. Lydia loved Wickham because of his superficial appearance. Lydia did not know what love was but wanted encouragement to attach her to any body. Her affection had been continually fluctuating, but never without an object. Her husband, Wickham, was faithless and unreliable. He transferred his love from poor Elizabeth to rich Miss King, and last eloped with Lydia for her beauty and innocent mind. They just want to satisfy their desires and aspirations. Shortly after marrying, their passion faded away, “his affection for her soon sunk into indifference; hers lasted a little longer; …”. They have to face the miserable and realistic life. The young couple tried to avoid meeting each other: Lydia often visited her sisters and Wickham regularly went to London and Bath, alone.

Besides lust, money plays an overwhelmingly important role in their marriage. For thirty thousand pounds, he can elope with Lydia. It is an “astonishment that Wickham should marry a girl, whom it was impossible he could marry for money; …”. Even after elopement, He is still unwilling to marry Lydia for her poor economic condition. Without Darcy generous help, they are not likely to get married. Even after marriage, their financial situation is very unstable and precarious. They are

“always moving from place to place in quest of a cheap situation, and always spending more than they ought”, and Lydia frequently asks for Jane and Elizabeth’s assistance towards discharging her bills. The marriage of Lydia and Wickham is undesirable one. Through their marriage, Austin illustrates to us that both true love and brilliant money are the two significant elements in a happy marriage.

3.4 Felicitous marriage

Jane, Mr.Bennet eldest daughter, is a girl with many good qualities: mild, steady, rectitude and delicacy. The man she loves most is Mr.Binley, who is a warmhearted and amiable gentleman with a great fortune.

The marriage of Jane and Bingley is a felicitous one. Their marriage is based on mutual love and understanding. They fall in love at first sight, even though they have a wide gap in fortune and social status. They share common virtues and always think best of others. However, just like a saying goes, “Every bean has its black”, Jane and Bingley also have weakness. The weakness in their personalities impedes their love and makes some misunderstanding. Concealing her love to Bingley indicates that Jane lacks strength and self-confidence, which always makes her believe that Binley does not love her any more. Influenced easily by others, Binley is lack of strength and independence, which almost result in his giving up to his love. Fortunately, they can meet again with Elizabeth and Darcy’s considerate advice and help. It seems that their marriage only involves pure love but property, but in fact, money is still an essential element in it. Bingley is a rich young man with four or five thousand pounds income each year. When she meets Bingley, she is attracted not only by his appearance but also by his wealth. The arrival of him is “so well fix in the minds of the surrounding families that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters”. The surrounding families see marriage as the natural consequence of having a “good fortune”.

It is obvious that Jane and Bingley’s marriage is based on a favorite mutual good appearance and true love. Mrs. Bennet is pleased with their marriage because her son-in-law realizes her expectation of a marriage which can bring wealth and good connections for them. Their happiness owes a great deal to Bingley’s large fortune except their common virtues. As a beautiful young woman with little dowry, Jane is fortunate to meet wealthy Bingley and to marry him. In addition, solid foundation of financial security is the basis of their happy marriage.

3.5 Ideal marriage

Elizabeth, main character in this novel, is wise, intelligent and self- dignified. She is brave and discreet to pursue her love. Darcy, the man she sets her heart to, is an honest and fair-minded gentleman with attractive appearance and large fortune. But his first impression to others is bad because of his pride and disagreeable.

The marriage between Elizabeth and Darcy is an ideal one. It is based on love, esteem, sense and mutual understanding. At the very beginning, Elizabeth has no good impression to Darcy for his pride. When Darcy proposes her for the first time, she gives a refusal without hesitation. It is love to Elizabeth that makes Darcy to reflect and change himself from pride to modesty and politeness. His utmost desires to rescue Lydia and Wickham from trouble makes Elizabeth realize her feeling to Darcy regardless of Lady Catherine’s opposition. Love changes them, but to their marriage, economic conditions and status still play a significant role. Darcy’s house Pemberly is the sign of income or money. When Elizabeth sees Pemberly, she feels regretful for her refusal of Darcy’s proposal. After Jane knows Elizabeth’s affection to Darcy, she asks her how long she has loved Darcy, and Elizabeth answers: “I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberly”. Although it is not a serious reply, it obviously shows that Elizabeth’s feelings are also affected by money and property. Beside a wide gap of economic condition, another impediment in their marriage is class difference. Elizabeth comes from a middle class family, while Darcy from the upper class. Although he loves Elizabeth, he also feels contradicted for “his sense of her inferiority—of its being degradation—of the family obstacles”. However, Darcy’s recognition of Elizabeth as equal as himself in the moral terms plays an important part in their marriage.

Through their marriage, Austin shows that the power of love can overcome social status and prejudices. That is, love and mutual understanding are the basis of their marriage, and in addition, solid economic foundation is also an indispensable element in a happy marriage. Austin thinks that women are not inferior to men. They should be treated equally with men both in the society and in the family life. Austin creates the image of Elizabeth to be against the feudal hierarchy and the inequality between the two sexes.

4. Factors that influence views of marriage in Pride and Prejudice

4.1 Mutual love and understanding

Love and understanding, essential factors in marriage, are the basis of the happy marriage. From the five pairs, the answer is easily to be found. Mr. Bennet is attracted by Mrs. Bennet’s beautiful appearance and temporary affection but mutual love and understanding, so their marriage is not harmonious. Lydia and Wickham’s marriage is impulsive and careless. They get married only for lust rather than love. When the sexual attraction fades away, her marriage will exist in name only. For Charlotte, marriage is only a long-term meal ticket for herself. She has no any emotional basis with Collins. The marriages of Jane and Binley’s, Elizabeth and Darcy are much happier, because both of pairs share their love and understanding to each other. Even though they receive various obstacles, love makes them overcome barrier finally.

4.2 Diverse personalities

Personality is also a key factor which affects one’s marriage. Different Personalities determine different attitudes towards marriage.

The marriage of Charlotte and Collins is more realistic, which is determined by Charlotte and Collins’ character. Charlotte is a rational lady. She has an unromantic, realistic and rational view on her marriage, while his husband is proud and obsequious. They do not match in personalities, but to marriage they are realistic and get what they want from it. Though Jane and Bingley share good virtues and qualities, they still have character weakness in their marriage. Jane is lack of self-confidence and Binley is lack of independence. Without friends’ help, they may not marry. Lydia and Wickham’s marriage is doomed to be unhappy for Lydia’s shallow and vain, and Wickham’s deceitful and wicked.

Elizabeth and Darcy’s marriage is a successful one, which mix several factors.

One of the important factors is their personalities. Elizabeth is a wise, intelligent and sensible girl. She has her own insight into everything. She refuses her cousins’ proposal of marriage and even refuses Darcy’s first affection. But Darcy’s change from pride to politeness makes Elizabeth change her feelings.

4.3 Money and social status

The opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice is that“It is truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of wife”, which means that a woman without property must be in want of a husband with a good fortune. This sentence indicates two factors to influence marriage-- importance of money and woman status.

At the period of transition from earlier stage of Capitalist Industrialization, the development and expansion of the rank of the rich resulted in the priority of money in social values. Parents spare no effort to find a husband with good fortune for their daughters. The five marriages mentioned above are all involved with money, among which the successful marriage such as Elizabeth and Darcy, Jane and Binley’s are partly based on fortune. While Charlotte and Collins’ marriage is mainly affected by money, Lydia and Wickham’ marriage is more terrible without money.

At the very beginning of 19th century, women had no rights to inherit the fortune of their father according to the law, so the economic situations were not stable. If the daughter wanted to get married smoothly, they had to own a great amount of dowry or the penniless daughters had to find a wealthy husband in order to secure her future. For people with property, marriage was an economic transaction that involved the transfer or consolidation of land as well as the development of social networks. The five daughters in Bennet family without heritage rights have to find a husband with great property.

5. Practical Significance to Modern Life

In the modern time, with the great alteration of culture and speedy development of urbanization, modern lifestyle compared with traditional life has take place profound change. Difference of culture ideology arises about different views on marriage. Chinese traditional marriage is the combination of two families, and the idea that couple coming from families of equal status is rooted in people’s mind. Nowadays, marriage for youth is much simpler then before. It has become individual behavior. No matter men and women, they have equal right to pursue their love and marriage, and they pay more attention on their emotional affection. However, the competitive society and great pressure of surviving minimize the time of loving and marrying. Some young people choose the new marriage pattern--flash marriage for the sake of saving the cost of living, for the love and responsibility. While some youth choose this marriage pattern for the economic security and social status, for the reckless impulse without considering each personality and other factors, which often result in the quicker divorce. Pride and Prejudice as a famous love and marriage story never out of date. Some views on marriage even today may offer a beneficial guidance for young people.

Pride and Prejudice explores the moral and social conditions of life in the early nineteenth century in ways that enable the current youth to understand that earlier better and to examine with greater insight our own attitudes and actions within the moral and social conditions of life in our own time, enabling us to determine ways in which our decisions about love, marriage and proper behavior reflect our own opinions about what is ultimately right and wrong.

Jane Austin provides us beneficial guidance for people, especially for young people to select a suitable person to marry. Mutual love and understanding, diverse personalities, economic foundation, educational background and even family background have an important influence on marriage. Before making a decision of marrying, one should take all the factors into consideration carefully, and should place mutual love and understanding into decisive position. After marriage, both wife and

husband should establish equal and respect relationship, which is the basis of harmonious matrimony.

6. Conclusion

Jane Austen was truly one of the greatest literary figures in the English Language. After several centuries, people’s enthusiasm for Jane Austen and her works does not drain out with the passing of time.

In Pride and Prejudice, the five marriage patterns are portrayed. Elizabeth and Darcy’s marriage is obviously an ideal one. Her marriage overcomes economic and status differences and gains not only financial security, but also enjoys respectable and equal relationship with her husband. Jane and Binley’s marriage is also a happy one. Besides solid economic condition, the couple shares many common virtues and qualities. Compared with above-mentioned two marriages, the following three are not very satisfactory. Charlotte and Collins’s marriage is totally a business transaction. Except money, no human emotion exists. Lydia and Wickham’s marriage is the most unpleasant one. It is only based on lust, lacking of love and money. Mrs. Bennet’s marriage is based on superficial attraction and wealth. There is no real happiness in her marriage.

Through five marriages, Austin thoroughly expresses her views on marriage: Marriage can not only depend on property and social status, while without considering these two is not wise, either. Marriage without love is immoral; Marriage without property is unstable. Happy marriage should be based on love and solid financial foundation. Besides love, other factors also determine a happy marriage, such as mutual respect, mutual understanding, common virtues, passion, and reason. Although Austen’s time has gone, her views on marriage have not become obsolete and they bring inspiration to modern people.

Works Cited

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Debra Teachman. Understanding Pride and Prejudice. Beijing: China Renmin UP, 2007.

Gao Huiling.[高慧玲]. 浅析《傲慢与偏见》中简·奥斯丁的婚姻观．北方文学，2012(1)．

Helen Lefory. Jane Austen. 北京：外语教学与研究出版社，2002.

Huang Rong[黄蓉]. Thoughts of Marriage in Pride and Prejudice. Wuhan: Wu Han University of science and technology, 2007.

London, Duranna. Marriage in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Oxford: Pergamon, 2007.

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Macfarlane,A. Marriage and Love in England: Modes of Reproduction. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986.

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