expresses her opinion on all this clearly enough by the fact that only her silliest characters have such sentiments(while Mr. Bennet says "He is rich, to be sure, and you may have more fine clothes and fine carriages than Jane. But will theymake you happy?"). However, Jane Austen does not intend to simply condemn Charlotte Lucas (who finds consolation in "herhome and her housekeeping, her parish and her poultry, and all their dependent concerns") for marrying Mr. Collins --Charlotte's dilemma is a real one. Go to Classifications of the marriages in Jane Austen's writings Go to The wedding ceremony ("Form of Solemnization of Matrimony") from the Church of England Book of CommonPrayerFeminism in Jane Austen "I often wonder how you can find time for what you do, in addition to the care of the house; and how good Mrs. West could have written such books and collected so many hard works, with all her family cares, is still more a matter of astonishment! Composition seems to me impossible with a head full of joints of mutton and doses of rhubarb." -- Jane Austen, letter of September 8 1816 to Cassandra "I will only add in justice to men, that though to the larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable and too well informed themselves to desire any thing more in woman than ignorance." -- Northanger Abbey "...when a young lady professes to be of a different opinion from her friends, it is only a prelude to something worse. -- She begins by saying that she is determined to think for herself, and she is determined to act for herself -- and then it is all over with her" -- the character Mrs. Stanhope in chapter 6 of Maria Edgeworth's Belinda [Here basically "friends"="family"]Jane Austen a feminist? That has not been the traditional view (in 1870, Anthony Trollope declared that "Throu...
