The restricted position of women in the eighteenth and nineteenth century

THE RESTRICTED POSITION OF WOMEN IN THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURY:

Code of behaviour

Husband hunting

The importance of marriage

Fashion

Balls

The meaning of being a man in such a society

In "Pride and Prejudice" we have a summary of the condition of the eighteenth century women: I think it was a very bad situation, because they were considered less important than men. This novel is instructive, because it shows an old culture and it permits us to appreciate women position in our society.

Middle or upper-class women were not expected to work: the ladies spent their time in gossiping, reading poetry, writing letters, singing or playing the piano. These were the most fashionable occupations, and another "hobby" that involved the whole aristocracy were the balls, a great occasion to find a partner.

For having a respectable place in society, a woman had to marry and have her own household to manage: it is sad to say, but for many women a good and "convenient" marriage was the only honourable way of life, as we see in Charlotte's marriage to Mr Collins. In this society, people usually married someone from their own class, and this shows us the rigidity of the social classes: to marry into a different class could create problems, such as those between Mr and Mrs Bennet.

One of the most important themes of the novel is love and marriage: we can see the importance of the choice that people make for partners, especially the difficulties people have to overcome before they marry.

According to the novel there are some necessary qualities for good marriages, like:

Understanding each other's character

Good disposition of the partners

Similarity in tastes

Affection and attraction

Money

In the England of Jane Austen's time the social classes were rigidly defined and divide in five parts. At the top there was the aristocracy, represented for example by lady De Bourgh and Fitzwilliam Darcy: they wanted to maintain their privileges and consider inferior the other people. Then we have the lesser gentry, who tried to compete with the aristocrats; there was also an emerging class of professional people, the farmers (like Mr Martin) and the domestic servants, which are not considered in Austen's novel.

We can notice that Jane Austen doesn't reject the hierarchical standards of social rank of her time and she is an intelligent observer of human society: she doesn't wish to change society and accepts the world of Lords and Ladies, aristocracy and Gentry, clergymen and landowners; she rarely introduces servants or working people; however she doesn't believe that wealthy people is necessarily the most cultured.

The qualities valued by the author are affection, common sense, good taste, culture.

There are some strict moral standards in the novel's society that everyone is expected to respect; for example Lydia has to be married to Wickham because otherwise she would never be accepted again in society. In this case Lady Cath and Collins interpret the moral code in a prudish and vindictive manner, as we can see in the way they condemn Lydia and wish her behaviour to hurt her sister's reputation.