Brief Introduction to the Story

Pride and Prejudice is Jane Austen’s great masterpiece, a sharp and witty comedy of manners played out in early 19th century English society. , a world in which men held virtually all the power and women were required to negotiate mine-fields of social status, respectability, property, and marriage.

Marriage is one of the themes in the novel. Austen concentrates on women’s fate most. Through her characters’ process of courtship and marriage, Austen shows social backgrounds behind their marriage and what low status women have suffered. In Pride and Prejudice, for a woman, generally the only way to her is to get married besides being spinsterhood or governess. To marry a rich and high status man, is a path for the young women to gaining financial security and social status. The novel portrays life in the middle class rural society of the day, and tells the initial misunderstanding and later mutual enlightenment between Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy. They gradually dispel their prejudice and constitute a happy marriage. Here Austen shows the power of love and happiness to overcome class boundaries and prejudice, thereby implying that women should strive for their own love and happiness, but not to according the social will.

However, behind the happy marriage of Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy, Austen mainly wants to show that property, social status still play the most important roles in a marriage, from which women suffered a lot. No right of inheritance, such is particularly the case of the Bennets, a family of five daughters whose father’s estate is entailed to a distant relative, for upon Mr. Bennet’s death they will loose home, land, and income, everything else. After knowing Elizabeth’s refusal to Mr. Collins, Mrs. Bennet threats her daughter that “if you go on refusing every marriage, you will never get a husband, and I am sure I do not know who is to maintain you when your father died.” So it is illustrated that property and social status are more important than marriage.

Thus, under the effect of the unreasonable social value, doesn’t Charlotte Lucas, who is up to playing in a high-staked matrimonial game forfeit her own personal integrity?

Women’s Status Shown in the Novel and Real Society

Either in the past or today, society puts a significant value on marriage. In modern society, marriage means the birth of a new family, which is filled with love, understanding, happiness and harmonious atmosphere. Moreover, marriage is not a trade and the two persons in a marriage should not get married for the personal benefit or just for convenience. But in which, marriage is an odd phenomenon and it is just an approach, which people could reach their aims and provides them convenience. Austen describes Charlotte’s marriage as a symbol, through which Austen shows the readers what low status women hold.

In the novel, marriage is an everlasting and hot topic for all the people, especially for women and their families. Although marriage is an odd phenomenon in the end 18th and early 19th century middle class’s country life in Britain, it is very common. Women never considered the marriage itself, but to what extent that they would be benefited from a marriage. Mrs. Bennet, for example never concerns about the moral and teaches her daughters the view of moral. “The business of her life was to get her daughters married” and she thinks that could fetch her daughters wealthy and high status husbands; she has achieved something great in her life and her family will be benefited much. Thus, when Mr. Bingley, a wealthy bachelor with large fortune, four or five thousand a year, becomes their neighborhood, Mrs. Bennet begins to contemplate his getting married to one of her daughters. And in the later days, she is incapable fatigue and enumerates kinds of advantages that her family will get if Jane and Mr. Bingley get married, such as wealth, status ranking, and could also throw her other daughters in the way to other rich men. All her thoughts for fetching her daughter wealthy and high status husband come just out of the considering of practicality, but not out of her daughters’ feelings. Under the monetary view of marriage, Mrs. Bennet totally treats her daughters’ marriage as product trades and her daughters are the commodities.

In Pride and Prejudice, Austen shows that because of women’s low status, they are desirable to change their status. So marriage becomes a straight and quick way to change their situation. Though they know that such kind of marriage is equal to a trade and for themselves, they are only products in the marriage market or an attachment to a man or even a marriage’s slave, they do not care much.

In the novel, Austen criticizes the unreasonable social structure, also the innocence of women. In terms of marriage, they thought they had no high social status and had no large property, so they thought that marriage was an acceptable path to his high status or their economic safety according to the view of the society. They never thought that they could earn their life and their marriage, which belonged to themselves but not to the social value. They just considered if they could completely integrate into the society and accepted the twisted monetary view and marriage view, and played the roles that the society needed, they could gain their happiness and easy life. Thus, they dressed themselves and were willing to transform themselves into commodities, appearing in kinds of balls, in order to attract men.

Although women were forced under the social prejudice, they tried no struggle. They were willing to believe that marriage was a form of trade and in the marriage market they could be given happiness. Facing social prejudice, they also had the consciousness of being humble, thinking that the male was the superiority, and women had to surrender to the society, was seemed to more easily to them. In the novel, Austen demonstrates that women should strive for their own life and marriage, without considering the influence of the wrapping view of society, be self—confident and get rid of the illiberal mind, not ruin any chance to realize the value, dignity, personality of theirs. Elizabeth is the best example, although she sometimes shows her pride, she is an admirable, wit, brilliant, and self—confident woman, who conquers many difficulties and at last she gains the true love with Darcy. As for Charlotte, she also could have tried to find somebody she really loves and gets married, like her friend Elizabeth, but she makes no attempt to find a husband whom she really loves and esteems, only giving in to the necessity of acquiring financial security and status ranking through marriage.

They had no personal dignity or independent status, and were deprived of the right to receive an education and take part in social activities. They enjoyed no freedom in marriage but had to obey the dictates of their parents and heed the words of matchmakers, and were not allowed to remarry if their spouses died. They were subject to physical and mental torture, being harassed by systems of polygamy and prostitution, and the overwhelming majority of them were forced to bind their feet from childhood. For centuries, "women with bound feet" was a synonym for the female gender in China. But things were different to men. Men in old China held virtually all the powers, social status, respectability, wealth, and the privilege to choose their wives and a man could marry more than one woman who didn’t have the well-matched background as he. Also, the most important thing was that the wife who was married must be a virgin. Men could treat women as their private property or attachment, even slave, depending on their wills.

In China, the feudal society lasted several millennia and in the subsequent century of semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, Chinese women experienced a bitter history of prolonged oppression, degradation and abasement. From the first half of this century, masses of women plunged into an undaunted and heroic struggle lasting several decades
They struggled for the protection of their own rights and the enhancement of their status. This was a quest for their emancipation. Social reform is thought as the precondition of women’s emancipation.  It was not until the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 that brought a historic change for Chinese women. And a new era in the emancipation of Chinese women was ushered in. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, there was a surge of mass movements throughout the country to quickly change the backward economic and cultural outlook left over by old China and eradicate the antiquated system and outmoded customs that fettered, discriminated against and humiliated women. This effected an earth-shaking historic change in the social status and condition of women.
Then again, after experienced series government reforms, such as, campaigns for gradually wiping out illiteracy in 1952, 1956, and in 1958; publicity and implementation of the Marriage Law, reforms on women’s political and working life, and so on. Women’s status was enhanced, to a large extent.

By means of these large-scale mass movements, New China took only a few years to clean up the filth and mire left over from a feudal society that had lasted for thousands of years. It effected fundamental emancipation for women in all aspects of political, economic, cultural, social and family life. This represented a significant transformation in the history of contemporary social development that China can be proud of. It was also an important contribution made by the Chinese revolution to the worldwide movement for women's liberation.

Conclusion

Women’s status has been being a hot topic, and people are more and more care about it. Although with the development of the society and economy, women’s status has been enhanced, women still suffer unfair treatment from the society and individuals. They enjoy less opportunities and privilege than men. Through the discussing the reasons of women’s low status and the comparison of the women’s status in the novel Pride and Prejudice with in old China, this paper shows that old China was a traditional feudal country, in which the feudal ideology had deeply rooted and limited women’s development. So modern women want to enhance their status, first they must have self-awareness, and let them more self-reliance especially in the aspect of economy. Also self-confidence is an important precondition for women’s enhancement of status. Additionally, the government should take actions to help women enhance their status and should set up a central mechanism to examine implementation of government policies, expenditure proposals and legislation to ensure equality for both sexes.