This novel finds its cast at a painful crossroads. As formerly stationed clergymen, the family have a strange problem facing them. They cannot let on how poor they are, nor can they ask for assistance, because there are difficulties facing them as they adjust to their church, and it would be uncouth to tell the church to give them more money. They struggle silently and the marriage is strained under the weight of this confusing situation. It is certainly not the life they expected for doing the right thing.
It is that thematic idea that the Daughters' story revolves around. The two girls are basically foils. They are similar enough in age and interests that they have always been close friends and close siblings in their very large family. Their religious beliefs make their home very full of children, so full that the novelist does not even stop to count them all. In that plurality of children, two girls stand out as eligible players in a drama that spells out the theme of the novel.
The family is constantly doing what seems virtuous, but the vicar's wife is constantly pestering her husband to do what it expedient, not what is seemly. The disagreement highlights two different kinds of morality. Mary follows the father's duty-oriented, honor-based morality, doing what she perceives to be best for her family. Louisa sees that play out for her elder sibling and decides to swear against it. As siblings so often do, Louisa picks the alternative route in life, falling in love for her own emotional happiness. Together, they demonstrate paradoxical types of morality.
