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Societal norms for such women required their central focus to be marriage, so women with higher aspirations were required to camouflage their intellectual activities. In Pride and Prejudice largely through the role of the strong-willed, and independent spirit of Elizabeth Bennet, Jane Austen somewhat autobiographically shows the reader the severe restrictions on the female members of her social class at the time. Elizabeth Bennet’s personality traits although somewhat detrimental to her at the start of the 19th Century, would serve her well in contemporary times. During the Regency Period, however, access to capital, discriminatory laws and a code of societal norms all conspired to keep women subservient to, and dependent upon men. While many women in England currently are able to seek higher education, pursue self-sufficiency through a career, and escape from the societal norms making them subservient to, and dependent upon men, money remains now, as then, an impediment for