Poverty and Marriageability: Parallels in Two Jane Austen Texts Rose Eileen Granbacka College

Jane Austen’s novels perform multiple functions individually as moral tales. However, they also occasionally work together to explore propriety in early nineteenth century England. Proper behavior for women often centered on their interactions with men. A woman’s reputation was the backbone for her marriageability, and because marriage was the only method of success for women, it was also their bread and butter. Socio-economic status was a major component to a woman’s ability to find a good husband as well. In Jane Austen’s novels, she explores the relationship between social rank and decorum, coming to a moral or didactic conclusion in the form of marriage. The novels are often viewed individually in this respect. However, the novels Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion work together to create a more expansive, almost sociological view of women in British culture in the late 1790s to the early nineteenth century. The most outstanding figures of these novels which function on this level are the two eldest Dashwood sisters and the two eldest Elliot sisters. The driving force behind how the sisters navigate their hopes for marriage is not just financial and social, but a moral device in which the two novels work side by side to...