AnAnalysisofJaneAusten’sViewofMarriage

Abstract：Jane Austen was generally regarded as one of the most famous female writers in the Western literary history. Throughout her lifetime， she wrote only six novels and treated the love and marriage of them as the theme. This thesis tries to analyze her view of marriage from the aspects of the ideal marriage in her eyes and the foundation of the marriage in her times.

Key words：Jane Austen； marriage； economic foundation

中图分类号：H319 文献标识码：A 文章编号：1672-1578（2015）09-0001-01

1 A general introduction of the life of Jane Austen

Jane Austen，one of the greatest realist novelists in English literary history of the 19th century， was born on December 16， 1775， in Hampshire， England. Jane started writing in her early teens， making up her parodies and plays to entertain her family who all supported her writing activities. Being middle-class women， Jane and her sister stayed at home most of their time. Surrounded by her lively and affectionate family and fully indulged in domestic chores and her writing， she lived a life as common as other women of her time. She took all kinds of love and marital life of the women of the middle class in England as subject of her books. However， in reality， she herself didnt marry throughout her life. Jane Austen died in 1817.

2 A general introduction of the writings of Jane Austen

In her lifetime， Jane wrote six complete novels which were all well-known in the whole world. Sense and Sensibility was published in 1811； Pride and Prejudice in 1813； Mansfield Park in 1814； Emma in 1819. Northanger Abbey （written first but not published， although accepted） was bought back by her brother Henry and published together with her last novel， Persuasion， in 1818， after her death. Jane Austen had limited the scope of her novel to “pictures of domestic life in country villages.”[1] In these novels， the life of the gentry， landlords and clergy at the end of the 18th and at the beginning of the 19th centuries was shown in detail.

3 An analysis of Jane Austens view of marriage in her novels

In Jane Austens novels， love and marriage constitute the central thread of the whole story， but theyre not the purely love story. Behind the seemingly romantic love clothing， more serious subjects exist. That is， the ulterior motive of loving and marrying for money and social position.

3.1 The ideal marriage in her eyes

Jane Austen dealt with love and marriage in all her novels. Her masterpiece， Pride and Prejudice（1813）， most typically reflected her views on marriage. Four types of marriage were narrated： ideal marriage between Elizabeth and Darcy on the basis of love and economic foundations； appropriate marriage between Jane and Bingley on the basis of love and beauty and money； dull marriage between Charlotte and Collins for the pursuit of reliable basement and undesirable marriage between Lydia and Wickham purely for passion and sexuality. Its obvious that the author preferred the ideal marriage of Elizabeth and Darcy and disagreed with the latter two types. It could be inferred that its wrong to marry for money but marrying without money is also foolish. The most desirable marriage is founded on both sincere love and stable economic base.

3.2 The foundation of the marriage in her times

The most outstanding characteristic of Jane Austens view on marriage is that she stressed the restriction of economic conditions on womens love and marriage. It also exemplified her realism tendency. At the very beginning of the 19th century， women had no rights to inherit the heritage of their fathers according to the law so womens economic states were unstable. If the daughters 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 life.“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.”[2] Jane Austen described these facts in her novels carefully and humorously. The theme of the predominant considerations of money in love and marriage was sometimes openly presented and sometimes indirectly suggested in her novels， and this shows Austens sharp insight into the very essence of the aristocratic and bourgeois English society of her time.

Although Jane Austen used the third person narrator to narrate the whole story， she wrote it from womens perspective and stressed the equality between men and women. Through a series of cosmic plots and humorous dialogues， she refuted the popular view that men were superior to women at her time and exposed the poor social reality that the economic condition of women decided her status and fate.

References：

[1]Le Faye， D. Jane Austens Letters[M]. London： Oxford University Press： 312.

[2]Coontz， S. Marriage， A History[M].New York： Viking Press， 2005： 63.

作者简介：朱蕾（1983年-），女，汉，甘肃兰州人，安康学院助教，硕士研究生，主要研究方向：英美文学。