In Nina Auerbach's essay she focuses on gender roles during the time Pride and Prejudice is set in and how it was a male-dominated world. This is especially true in the Bennet household, as marrying off seems almost to be the most important issue in the Bennet girls' lives for the duration of their lives. They look forward to and expect a man to choose one of them to marry and prepare for it. All of the Bennet daughters, except maybe Elizabeth, are perfectly fine with staying within the social norms of becoming the wife of a wealthy man and nothing else. Mrs Bennet spends a lot of time and energy making sure Jane spends as much time as possible with Mr Bingley to try and secure their possible future marriage. Women of this time were considered worthy if they married a wealthy man or came from wealth themselves, and even their own wealth inherited also became the wealth of the man they married to. The fathers of these women even gave the men gifts and money to secure their relationship with their daughters.
With today's' culture and society norms of women being much more independent this "marketing" or "selling off" of women seems very strange but back the it was how society functioned so most of the men and women took it as normal and expected.
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