ntion of choosing Elizabeth as his wife is his plan of amends -- of atonement – for inheriting their father’s estate; and he thinks it an excellent one, full of eligibility and suitableness, and excessively generous and disinterested on his own part. So he takes it for granted that Elizabeth will accept his proposal cheerfully and readily. Though Elizabeth rejects him for his incomplete character, it still can tell us the low social-status of the British women at that period of time. The only thing a young lady without property could do is to marrying a man with a good fortune.
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Take the marriage case of Lucas-Collins for another example. Miss Lucas is Elizabeth’s closest friend. She is a sensible, intelligent young woman, knowing it very clearly that “Mr. Collins, to be sure, was neither sensible nor agreeable; his society was irksome, and his attachment to her must be imaginary. But still he would be her husband. Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honorable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want.”(14)
Such humorous and piercing description portrays the mentality of Lucas-like women deeply and also their fate that there is no other way that can improve their own position in finance and society except marrying a husband with a good fortune. Elizabeth goes to Parsonage to visit them by the invitation of Miss Lucas after they getting married, and finds:
“Her home and her housekeeping, her parish and her poultry, and all their dependent concerns, had not yet lost their charms.”(15) “When Mr. Collins could be forgotten, there was really a great air of comfort throughout …”(16)
It is interesting that, in such marriage based on sole and naked money-transaction, the woman without&nb
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