Jane Austen's one of the greatest classics "Pride and Prejudice" portrayed women's life back then which was imperfect in every angle given the constant demand of the society to be what the societal people expect them to be.
Surprisingly, after 200 years of its publication, the scenario stands the same. However, we are experiencing a new set of societal rules and seeing a major difference from then- but considering the core state of the women and people's attitude towards social status, success, and happy life stands unchanged.
For example, as we can see in the plot, women's social status used to largely depend on who they are married with— and not being able to marry financially superior men was considered bad luck or more precisely, socially inferior.
What do we see now in our society? Do we notice any major differences?
Not so prominent even if we may detect some. It's the same old feeling of being socially detached and underprivileged if the women in this "modern" and "civilised" society choose to marry a financially unimportant person. Probably, it's the attitude of society that has to be changed first before we even talk about the "normality" of such practice.
Forget about society, even a fellow woman mocks at other woman's "failure" of gaining financial independence through the man she has tied the knot with. They are the first ones to point out how "unlucky" she is for not having a husband so "well off" that surpasses even the greediest person's expectation.
I guess it was never the society that shaped the shared attitude towards women back then and even now but, us. We are the reason behind such an interpretation of success and happiness. In fact, society itself has no existence if we, human, doesn't exist. I believe it's us who determines the definition of "society" & "social behaviour." But for a greater interest, that satisfies our sick intention, we prefer pointing fingers at it and strategically evade the grudge of others.
Compared to Jane Austen's time and societal structure, we have a different setting now. Even though the core issues haven't changed, we can notice a drastic change in the surface level.
Today, women are not confined to their homes and many are financially independent. Now they don't have to wait in their rooms for their male partner to come and accompany them to an event or somewhere else. They are free to move wherever they wish. But back in that time, women had to wait until someone come to their “rescue.”
Again, women, these days don’t have moved from the idea of being married to being socially recognised. Moreover, what we see— the “modern” and “self-sufficient” women are barely in the mood to sign up for married life and have children. Even though it’s not too common in every society, still, the change is noticeable. I am not saying these are positive changes, but, it doesn’t require you to be engaged with someone to enjoy autonomy and financial emancipation. Beauty still is a dominating factor, but the idea had changed— now we do not rely on their attractiveness but their personality, capability, and potential also count to be certified a woman worth appreciation and social recognition.
What we couldn’t change over time is, and the probability is it won’t change ever— our fascination towards wealth— if you have it, you are successful; this way or another. And wealth attracts both men and women— the same idea that was dominant in Jane Austen’s time is still dominating the world and probably will do so in future. Class consciousness— this plague will never leave us, the human “Civilisation.”
