Mr and Mrs Bennet

Through Mr and Mrs Bennet, Austen provides an interesting study into a marriage further on in life. Although the plot centres upon the ‘match-making’ process that comes before marriage of several couples, the mature marriage of the Bennets acts as a backdrop warning of the dangers of making a false match, the consequences of which have affected their children severely. The narrator pulls no punches in explicitly pointing out the dysfunction of the Bennets’ marriage to the reader; “had Elizabeth’s opinion been all drawn from her own family, she could not have formed a very pleasing opinion of conjugal felicity or domestic comfort.” She identifies their match as being made on a false understanding of one another, as Mr Bennet was blinded by Mrs Bennet’s “youth and beauty, and that appearance of good humour which youth and beauty generally give.”