At the age of twenty, she fell in love with an aspiring attorney named Thomas Lefroy. Before Lefroy proposed, his aunt opposed the marriage because she felt it would damage his social rank. She did not want her relative to marry the daughter of a reverend and urged him to end the relationship. Austen’s heart became full of pain when she came to find that her first love had no place in this society so obsessed with class. Six years later, Austen’s life worsened when she is pressured to accept the proposal of the unintelligent, but rich, Harris Bigg-Wither. After his proposal and her agreement to marry him, she realized that it was a mistake. She could never love him and ended the relationship with him. This became the first and last marriage proposal Austen ever received. Although this time was difficult and heart breaking for Austen, it only gave her more motivation to write and express the societal laws that defeated her chance at true love and pressured her to submit to the practicality and dispassion of marrying the rich (“Jane Austen …show more content…
One of her close friends, Madam Lefroy, died on Austen’s birthday, due to a strange accident involving a horse, and a month later, her father died. This became a year full of pain and sorrow. During the eighteenth century, job opportunities were rare for women, making it hard for them to support themselves. When a man was no longer present in a household, women were left to live on their own and survive by themselves. Austen’s brothers tried to help and provide for the girls, but the boys did not have enough money to give, ultimately making it difficult to support their family. In the next few years of Austen’s life, she felt as if she were a burden to her family with no means to change this status. (“Jane Austen