Marriage In Pride And Prejudice Essay

Marriage derives from the Latin word “maritare”, its root meaning is “to join together”, and it is a wonderful celebration of love. Some marriages, however, are foolish and haphazard, happening for all the wrong reasons. In Pride and Prejudice, through the experiences of Lydia and Wickham, Charlotte and Collins, and Elizabeth and Darcy, Austen criticizes marriages based on infatuation, convenience and money, and emphasizes that marriages can only be successful is they are founded on mutual love.
Throughout Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen reprimands what she feels are unwise marriages. Specifically through the marriage of Lydia and Wickham, Austen displays that marriage is not meant to be impetuous, born of infatuation and unrestricted passions. Lydia herself is impulsive and unreasonable, and her …show more content…
Clearly Lydia feels no real love for any man, and her ever-changing infatuation means she is likely to act upon her passions rather than her reason. Marriage, however, must be a healthy balance of attraction and logic. Continuing with the idea of strong infatuation, one of the elder Bennet sisters, Elizabeth, thinks about Lydia’s marriage to Wickham. She concludes that no “permanent happiness” could be found in a couple whose marriage was based on “passions …. stronger than their virtue”, and therefore their matrimony is insensible. Once again Austen demonstrates that there is no bliss in a marriage established on blind desire, and failure of the union is imminent. Along with no true satisfaction, Lydia and Wickham also find their lives quite unstable.Towards the end of the story, the reader learns that the couple’s “manner of living” is “unsettled in the extreme” and the two are frequently moving and overspending. This look into Lydia and Wickham’s lives brings the notion that because they have no love, they have no