Sense and Settling (original) (raw)

2017

Abstract

Though companionate marriage was becoming more prevalent in the long eighteenth century, marriages for economic convenience or gain were still common and are reflected by Austen’s minor women who settle. In Pride and Prejudice Charlotte Lucas needs a husband, and she sees marriage as a pragmatic transaction. The intrinsic value of the Darcy marriage is privileged over the expressed value of the Collins marriage. This representation is complicated with the wealthy Maria Bertram in Mansfield Park who marries a buffoon merely to increase her already high expressed value and then takes ownership over her own body, transgressing both the moral code and the rules of that market. Maria’s dilemma emphasizes a woman’s lack of control over her place on the marriage market while revealing the importance of preserving personal credit (intrinsic value) in order to retain financial credit and thus her expressed value. The issue is further complicated in Emma with Jane Fairfax’s story, which refle...

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