It is a given that as time changes, the views and ideas people have had before shift to fit the mold of how society is. Today, marriage is seen as a joining together of two people in love who want to spend the rest of their lives together. During the time of Jane Austen, marriage was seen as a picture-perfect life, where two people are joined together, have children, and let their inheritance and reputation be known to the world. Because the main factor in marriage was money and social status, there was a huge rush for men and women to become married, leaving love, romance, and passion to be unknown or forgotten in a relationship. This rush is described in the first sentence in the novel, Pride and Prejudice, where Austen states, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife” (Austen 5). The fact that there “must” be a “want” to get married after a man had established a good fortune, reiterates that the big picture of a marriage is only money, an idea that people today may find ridiculous. Although this was a truth “universally acknowledged,” there were people such as Elizabeth Bennet who knew that marriage was not the key to happiness, but one’s intellectual intelligence and passion for something. It is people like Elizabeth that change the perceptions of traditional ideas for the better. Conformity is a major concept in this novel, Mr. Collins being a pure example of conformity as its finest. As a cousin to the Bennet family, and being the heir to the inheritance of Mr. Bennet, his reason to visit to the Bennet house is inevitable: marriage. With the hopes of marrying Jane Bennet and suddenly hearing that she “was likely to be very soon engaged” from Mrs. Bennett, Collins shifts from wanting to marry Jane to Elizabeth in a heartbeat (Austen 62). This act is correlated with the first sentence of the novel due to the fact that Collins is at the time of his life where he is in a good standing financially, and is single. He feels the need to get married because that is what other men like him have done in the past for a nice life and high social standing. What he does not know about the woman he is going to propose to is that her position of marriage is the total opposite of everyone else’s, and his reputation may be tattered from then on. When Mr. Collins actually gets to the point of proposing to Elizabeth, keep in mind it has been almost a week since they have formally met, his reasons for proposing are “‘to set the example of matrimony in his parish,’” because “‘[he is] convinces that it will add very greatly to [his] happiness’” and lastly because ‘“it is the particular advice and recommendation of the very noble lady whom [he has] the honor of calling patroness’” (Austen 89). Today, proposals are usually consisted of a person asking for their hand because of the love and affection they have for their partner and nothing else. In Mr. Collins 's case, his proposal does
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In fact, it has come to the point where people do not need a marriage to define a couple’s commitment of love and affection for one another. Jane Austen depicted marriage as important only because of its economic benefits and social standing, but as time has changed these traditions have vanished to where society does not care about that anymore. The reader can see how the perception of marriage has slowly started to evolve in the last chapter of Pride and Prejudice when Elizabeth’s sister, “Kitty, to her very material advantage, spent the chief of her time with her two elder sisters,” and “she was not of so ungovernable a temper as Lydia and, removed from the influence of Lydia’s examples, she became, by proper attention and management, less irritable, less ignorant, and less insipid” (Austen 372). Before, Kitty’s role model was her younger sister Lydia who, as we can see, went down the wrong path. Now, Kitty is learning that marriage is not even that big of a deal, but affection for another person is what
In fact, it has come to the point where people do not need a marriage to define a couple’s commitment of love and affection for one another. Jane Austen depicted marriage as important only because of its economic benefits and social standing, but as time has changed these traditions have vanished to where society does not care about that anymore. The reader can see how the perception of marriage has slowly started to evolve in the last chapter of Pride and Prejudice when Elizabeth’s sister, “Kitty, to her very material advantage, spent the chief of her time with her two elder sisters,” and “she was not of so ungovernable a temper as Lydia and, removed from the influence of Lydia’s examples, she became, by proper attention and management, less irritable, less ignorant, and less insipid” (Austen 372). Before, Kitty’s role model was her younger sister Lydia who, as we can see, went down the wrong path. Now, Kitty is learning that marriage is not even that big of a deal, but affection for another person is what