Pride and Prejudice Marriage Quotes

Hope was over, entirely over; and when Jane could attend to the rest of the letter, she found little, except the professed affection of the writer, that could give her any comfort. Miss Darcy’s praise occupied the chief of it. Her many attractions were again dwelt on, and Caroline boasted joyfully of their increasing intimacy, and ventured to predict the accomplishment of the wishes which had been unfolded in her former letter.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 24. Jane receives a letter from Caroline Bingley to say that her brother Charles and the family have settled in London. Caroline, who pretends to be Jane’s friend, is trying to break up the relationship between Jane and Charles. To Jane’s dismay, Caroline writes of the growing intimacy between Charles Bingley and Georgiana Darcy and predicts their marriage to each other.

My dear Lizzy, do not give way to such feelings as these. They will ruin your happiness. You do not make allowance enough for difference of situation and temper. Consider Mr. Collins’s respectability, and Charlotte’s steady, prudent character. Remember that she is one of a large family; that as to fortune, it is a most eligible match; and be ready to believe, for everybody’s sake, that she may feel something like regard and esteem for our cousin.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 24. Jane says to Elizabeth, when her sister expresses disbelief at her friend Charlotte entering a loveless marriage with Mr. Collins. Jane, who likes to see the good in everyone and everything, says that Mr. Collins is respectable and Charlotte sensible. From the point of view of Charlotte’s financial security it is a good match, she says.

They may wish many things besides his happiness; they may wish his increase of wealth and consequence; they may wish him to marry a girl who has all the importance of money, great connections, and pride.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 24. Elizabeth bluntly tells Jane that she believes the Bingley sisters played a role in manipulating their brother Charles to apparently abandon Jane. And their motivation, she suggests, was that they may wish him to marry someone with money and better social position.

Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then. It is something to think of, and gives her a sort of distinction among her companions.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 24. While Mrs. Bennet is anxious and worried, Mr. Bennet finds it a source of amusement that Jane’s hopes of getting married anytime soon diminish as Charles Bingley appears to abandon her and move from the area. The humorous and more relaxed Mr. Bennet is the perfect foil to the emotional Mrs. Bennet. But what Mr. Bennet says here to Elizabeth is ironic, as no girl likes being disappointed in love and it’s not a laughing matter for his eldest daughters.

Seriously, I would have you be on your guard. Do not involve yourself, or endeavour to involve him in an affection which the want of fortune would make so very imprudent. I have nothing to say against him; he is a most interesting young man; and if he had the fortune he ought to have, I should think you could not do better. But as it is, you must not let your fancy run away with you. You have sense, and we all expect you to use it.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 26. Mrs. Gardiner speaks to Elizabeth over her attraction to George Wickham and warns her against marrying him. She points out that his lack of money makes him an unsuitable match. The Bennets’ economic situation – Longbourn is entailed to male heirs and will pass out of family hands on the death of Mr. Bennet – puts pressure on them to marry someone who is wealthy.

What is the difference in matrimonial affairs, between the mercenary and the prudent move? What does discretion end, and avarice begin?

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 27. Elizabeth says this to Mrs. Gardiner, when she labels George Wickham mercenary because he dropped Elizabeth for Miss King who has inherited ten thousand pounds. How does one tell the difference between the mercenary and the prudent and the discreet and the avaricious when it comes to marital affairs, she asks? Elizabeth is calling out the hypocrisy of her aunt warning her the previous Christmas against marrying Wickham because of "want of fortune."

When Mr. Collins said anything of which his wife might reasonably be ashamed, which certainly was not unseldom, she involuntarily turned her eye on Charlotte. Once or twice she could discern a faint blush; but in general Charlotte wisely did not hear.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 28. When Elizabeth visits the parsonage home of the Collinses, she observes that Charlotte doesn’t even listen to Mr. Collins, but ignores him and carries on contentedly with her life. Charlotte’s solution to a husband who constantly says ridiculous things – she doesn’t hear them! Much is made of Charlotte’s sacrifice in marrying for practicality rather than romance. But Mr. Collins is also humiliated and degraded, with his wife having no genuine respect or affection for him.

When Mr. Collins could be forgotten, there was really an air of great comfort throughout, and by Charlotte’s evident enjoyment of it, Elizabeth supposed he must be often forgotten.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 28. Charlotte and Mr. Collins’s marriage is not a love match but very much one of convenience. Here Elizabeth is commenting on their relationship. Charlotte is content with the comfortable life she has made for herself in the parsonage – as long as she can forget all about Mr. Collins. And judging by Charlotte’s evident enjoyment, Elizabeth says that Mr. Collins must be forgotten about often.

"Mr. Collins appears to be very fortunate in his choice of a wife."
"Yes, indeed, his friends may well rejoice in his having met with one of the very few sensible women who would have accepted him, or have made him happy if they had. My friend has an excellent understanding – though I am not certain that I consider her marrying Mr. Collins as the wisest thing she ever did. She seems perfectly happy, however, and in a prudential light it is certainly a very good match for her."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 31. Mr. Darcy believes that Mr. Collins is very lucky in his choice of a wife in Charlotte. However, Elizabeth is not so sure that her friend got the better end of the bargain. Charlotte is one of the few sensible women that would have married Mr. Collins, Elizabeth says. But she concedes that Charlotte appears happy and from the practical point of view it is a good match for her. Elizabeth is also being contradictory, describing Charlotte as sensible, but saying that her choosing Mr. Collins is not the wisest thing she ever did.

What he told me was merely this: that he congratulated himself on having lately saved a friend from the inconveniences of a most imprudent marriage, but without mentioning names or any other particulars, and I only suspected it from believing him the kind of young man to get into a scape of that sort and from knowing them to have been together the whole of last summer.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 33. Colonel Fitzwilliam reveals to Elizabeth that it was Mr. Darcy who broke up the courtship of Jane by Charles Bingley because he felt it wasn’t a wise match. There were strong objections to the lady, the colonel said. This is an example of dramatic irony, as the colonel doesn’t realize that he is talking to Jane’s sister.

"In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." Elizabeth’s astonishment was beyond expression. She stared, coloured, doubted, and was silent. This he considered sufficient encouragement, and the avowal of all that he felt and had long felt for her, immediately followed. He spoke well, but there were feelings besides those of the heart to be detailed, and he was not more eloquent on the subject of tenderness than of pride. His sense of her inferiority – of its being a degradation – of the family obstacles which judgment had always opposed to inclination, were dwelt on with a warmth which seemed due to the consequence he was wounding, but was very unlikely to recommend his suit.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 34. Mr. Darcy arrives at the Hunsford parsonage to make his first proposal of marriage to Elizabeth. While he is frank and honest and open, he goes about it in a clumsy and unromantic way. He speaks of how he has struggled to repress his feelings for Elizabeth, her inferior social rank and the family obstacles to such a union. But despite Elizabeth’s inferiority, he manages to declare his strong admiration and love for her. Elizabeth is absolutely shocked by the proposal, especially as she finds Darcy less "eloquent on the subject of tenderness than of pride." Darcy’s proposal seems to be more about himself than about the woman he says he loves and admires. One might say that his presentation leaves a lot to be desired. This is an example of situational irony, because Darcy proposes at the precise moment when Elizabeth hates him the most.

He concluded with representing to her the strength of that attachment which, in spite of all his endeavours, he had found impossible to conquer; and with expressing his hope that it would now be rewarded by her acceptance of his hand. As he said this, she could easily see that he had no doubt of a favourable answer. He spoke of apprehension and anxiety, but his countenance expressed real security.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 34. Well educated in other ways he may be, but poor Mr. Darcy never went to marriage proposal school. In his awkward proposal to Elizabeth, he manages to make himself sound like a trapped animal. Clumsy, arrogantly confident in assuming Elizabeth’s acceptance, he never asks or talks about her feelings.

Do you think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man who has been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister?

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 34. The fallout from Darcy’s marriage proposal goes from bad to worse. Elizabeth accuses him of insulting her and ruining the happiness of her sister Jane. An angry Elizabeth confronts him about his interference in her sister’s relationship with Mr. Bingley. This appears to be her main reason for refusing his proposal, she could not imagine marrying the man who caused her sister’s unhappiness. Elizabeth is close to Jane whom she thinks is a beacon of goodness and she believes Darcy stood between her sister and her happiness with Bingley. Elizabeth is a woman of integrity whose loyalty to family trumps any proposal of marriage, even from a man as wealth as Darcy.

From the very beginning, from the first moment, I may almost say, of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 34. Elizabeth tells Mr. Darcy off using sharp words in his famous first proposal scene. She is responding to his claim that she is refusing him out of hurt pride over his honest admission that he struggled against proposing to someone with inferior connections. She uses a metaphor to compare her dislike of him to a building constructed on the foundations of her unfavorable first impressions of him. From the first moment she thought him arrogant, vain and contemptuous of the feelings of others. He is the last man in the world she would wish to marry, she snaps.

Be not alarmed, madam, on receiving this letter, by the apprehension of its containing any repetition of those sentiments or renewal of those offers which were last night so disgusting to you. I write without any intention of paining you, or humbling myself, by dwelling on wishes which, for the happiness of both, cannot be too soon forgotten.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 35. After his failed proposal, Darcy writes to Elizabeth and here she begins to read his letter of explanation which she will preoccupy her for days. The beginning of the letter strikes a note of injured pride on the part of Darcy over her rejection of his marriage offer.

Only let me assure you, my dear Miss Elizabeth, that I can from my heart most cordially wish you equal felicity in marriage. My dear Charlotte and I have but one mind and one way of thinking. There is in everything a most remarkable resemblance of character and ideas between us. We seem to have been designed for each other.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 38. Mr. Collins’s bizarre and blatently untrue statement to Elizabeth when she visits his house is a wonderful example of Austen’s use of irony. After proposing to Elizabeth and being instantly rejected, Mr. Collins proposes to her close friend Charlotte Lucas, who decides to marry him out purely for a stable income and home of her own.

Poor Charlotte! it was melancholy to leave her to such society! But she had chosen it with her eyes open; and though evidently regretting that her visitors were to go, she did not seem to ask for compassion. Her home and her housekeeping, her parish and her poultry, and all their dependent concerns, had not yet lost their charms.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 38. On parting with Charlotte, Elizabeth reflects on her married life with Mr. Collins and living at close quarters to Lady Catherine. She feels sorry for her friend. But Elizabeth forgets that to Charlotte, happiness is – a comfortable home! She has sacrificed love and feelings for a better life through marriage with Mr. Collins.

Her father, captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good humour, which youth and beauty generally give, had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind, had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 42. Mr. Bennet married his wife because of her beautiful appearance. He did not see the extent of her foolishness before he wed her. It is clear that Mr. Bennet no longer has no real love for Mrs. Bennet. Their marriage serves as a health warning to those who rush into marriage for beauty and appearances alone.

Elizabeth, however, had never been blind to the impropriety of her father’s behaviour as a husband. She had always seen it with pain; but respecting his abilities, and grateful for his affectionate treatment of herself, she endeavoured to forget what she could not overlook, and to banish from her thoughts that continual breach of conjugal obligation and decorum which, in exposing his wife to the contempt of her own children, was so highly reprehensible. But she had never felt so strongly as now the disadvantages which must attend the children of so unsuitable a marriage.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 42. Even Mr. Bennet’s favorite daughter Elizabeth is critical of his behavior as a husband. She reflects on his "reprehensible" treatment of his wife by continually exposing her to the contempt of her own children. Elizabeth feels strongly that her parents are unsuited to one another and this has disadvantaged their children.

They gradually ascended for half a mile, and then found themselves at the top of a considerable eminence, where the wood ceased, and the eye was instantly caught by Pemberley House, situated on the opposite side of a valley, into which the road with some abruptness wound. It was a large, handsome, stone building, standing well on rising ground, and backed by a ridge of high woody hills; – and in front, a stream of some natural importance was swelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance. Its banks were neither formal, nor falsely adorned. Elizabeth was delighted. She had never seen a place where nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste. They were all of them warm in their admiration; and at that moment she felt that to be mistress of Pemberley might be something!

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 43. Elizabeth gets her first view of the estate that will eventually become her home when she visit Pemberley with Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. She and her aunt and uncle are impressed by the beauty and elegance of Pemberley House and its grounds. For a moment Elizabeth even imagines herself being mistress of Mr. Darcy’s home. Her appreciation of Pemberley during her tour of it – "a large, handsome, stone building" – foreshadows her eventual realization of her love for Darcy and that she will become mistress of Pemberley. It is believed that Jane Austen may have based her idea of Darcy’s fictional country estate of Pemberley on Chatsworth House. Chatsworth is the home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire and can trace its history back to 1549, when the Cavandish family acquired the estate. The beautiful 105-acre Chatsworth gardens are world famous and attract more than one million visitors a year. The stately home features extensively in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice film as Mr. Darcy’s residence.

"And of this place," thought she, "I might have been mistress! With these rooms I might now have been familiarly acquainted! Instead of viewing them as a stranger, I might have rejoiced in them as my own, and welcomed to them as visitors my uncle and aunt. But no," – recollecting herself – "that could never be; my uncle and aunt would have been lost to me; I should not have been allowed to invite them."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 43. As Elizabeth wanders around Pemberley room by room, she is struck by the realization that she could have been mistress of the estate. It is only on seeing Darcy’s country home, that she can imagine herself being Mrs. Darcy. But amid her day-dreaming, the reality hits that if she married Darcy she could not invite Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner over because of Darcy’s class prejudice.

"If your master would marry, you might see more of him."
"Yes, sir; but I do not know when that will be. I do not know who is good enough for him."
Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner smiled. Elizabeth could not help saying, "It is very much to his credit, I am sure, that you should think so."
"I say no more than the truth, and everybody will say that knows him," replied the other. Elizabeth thought this was going pretty far; and she listened with increasing astonishment as the housekeeper added, "I have never known a cross word from him in my life, and I have known him ever since he was four years old."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 43. Elizabeth is taken aback as Mrs. Reynolds has high praise for her master Mr. Darcy in conversation with Mr. Gardiner. She tells him that she doesn’t know when Mr. Darcy might marry as she doesn’t know "who is good enough for him." She also claims to have never heard a cross word from him since he was a young child. Elizabeth is astonished as this has not been her experience with Darcy.

She respected, she esteemed, she was grateful to him, she felt a real interest in his welfare; and she only wanted to know how far she wished that welfare to depend upon herself, and how far it would be for the happiness of both that she should employ the power, which her fancy told her she still possessed, of bringing on the renewal of his addresses.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 44. Elizabeth realizes the power she has over the changed Darcy. She believes that she holds his heart and the happiness of both of them in the palm of her hand, after his tenderness towards her in her stay at Pemberley. This passage suggests that she too loves him and wishes him to propose a second time. This is foreshadowing of Darcy’s second marriage proposal and Elizabeth’s acceptance of it.

Dearest Lizzy, I hardly know what I would write, but I have bad news for you, and it cannot be delayed. Imprudent as a marriage between Mr. Wickham and our poor Lydia would be, we are now anxious to be assured it has taken place, for there is but too much reason to fear they are not gone to Scotland.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 46. Elizabeth receives a horrible letter from Jane to say that Lydia has run away with Wickham from Brighton to get married in Scotland. But a second even more horrible letter from Jane reveals the bad news that Wickham has no plans to marry Lydia and the pair have been traced to London.
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