Beginning of Essay
Beneath the surface of the romantic comedy , Jane Austen presents an underlying theme of the economic situation faced by women in the early nineteenth century. The best representations of this in the story is how two of the women in the novel approach marriage, ....

Middle of Essay
.... for well-educated young women of small fortune." It became a source of financial security that in many cases went no further. Elizabeth is the first woman in the story to be proposed to, and she did a very peculiar thing. She is proposed to by Mr. Collins, the very man who is going to inherit her father's estate. She refuses his offer even though his "situation in life...[his] connections....and [his] relationship to [Elizabeth], are circumstances highly in [his] favor." Elizabeth simply says that "[he] could never make [her]happy...and [she] is the last woman in the world that could make [him] so." What makes her decision so peculia ....