Women between the past and the present

Meet Mark from Bridget Jones´s Diary by Helen Fielding and Meeting Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen are two texts which contain refer precisely to the fact of love. These two novels represented the approval of the society to seek of wealth and well-being more than love. In the first hand, women did not have any options and they did not have the ability to choose at the time, the main goal or dream that women expected for their lives was to get married to a rich man in order to have a comfortable life. Marriage was based principally on economic arrangements, where, unfortunately, a woman did not have a chance to decide for herself. The authors offer for their readers a close overview at women’s status in the late 18th and the early 19th century, in particular, the role of marriage in shaping a woman's identity. The topic of marriage was in focus in the novels. 

In addition, both male and female characters display serious interests in the subject. Nowadays are very different from the Jane Austen and Helen Fielding days as they described them, between 18^th- and 19^th centuries women's education was limited. However, they have not a variety of options open to them regarding their futures as women have now, that is what made the role of women very weak in society. The prime function of women at that period was to get married, have children and maintain a household for their husbands. That was clear in the text called Meeting Mr. Darcy when Elisabeth´s mother said to her husband “and all the others equally well married, I shall have nothing to wish”. If women couldn't be married, they would remain dependent upon their relatives, living by receiving a small income from their fathers or brothers. As Elizabeth´s case, she is living with her family, she is dependent upon her father while he is living, but because of the entail and the fact that she has no brothers, her situation could become quite desperate when he dies. She and her mother and sisters would be forced to rely upon their other relatives. With other words, women at that time couldn’t be independent, they were always controlled by their male relatives.

 As a woman living in the period between the 18^th- 19^th centuries, marriage was a chance, to have a better life since a woman for itself could not own anything. Love was not important as long as living a good life with the acceptance of society. That is why Mrs. Bennet wanted her daughters to get married as soon as possible. As time has changed a lot of things has changed too since Jane Austen wrote her novel, somehow the story of the novel still being present in many societies until now which is quite unsettling. For example, some women are forced to get married because of strengthen economically interests or relationship between two rich families. Thus, this type marriage is based on interests but not on emotional social relationships. The story called Meeting Mr. Darcy begins with an introduction to the uncomfortable social relationships that encourage or pressure women into marriage, but not any men. Women are seemingly controlled by men with the fortune. 

Nowadays, women are more independent and have many other goals in their lives than marriage. It’s quite important to get married and build a family but women have many other things that they want to do beside getting married. The main goal of a woman is no longer to marry a rich man in order to live a good life. But she has open options such as education and afterward job. In addition, women have got many rights that they were not previously owned, for example, the right to express the opinion and election, employment and choose the person who they want to be with and many others. By means of those open options women could regulate their own life without being dependent on anyone else.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_and_Prejudice   2018-06-04

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Study book: Blueprint-B 2.0 English 6 by Christer Lundfall. 2018-06-4