Pride and Prejudice

I recently just started reading "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen. There are a lot of social and complex issues I have noticed even at the very beginning of this book. One main one is the idea that women are nothing if they don't get married. I find this a very unjust issue that doesn't seem fair at all. In the book Mrs. Bennet is running around trying to find her daughters men to marry, it's all she really seems to care about. I know that in that time period women were considered just people of the house and all they did was look pretty and cook and clean, but why should it be that way? I mean in my mind I feel like that's really unfair. Maybe I'm wrong though because it didn't actually seem that wrong to these women. I don't see any of the daughters really doing anything about the fact that their mother is setting them up with men, they actually seem to enjoy it, maybe that's because that's all they have to live for or else they're considered trash and looked down upon. In that time period I guess it didn't seem bad I mean I'm sure that we are doing things in our society right now that's considered normal that one day people will look back on and think oh my gosh wow they did that?

I think that when you grow up in a society and things are they way they are you just sort of go along with it. I feel like that's what's happening here on top of the fact that they would be looked down upon if they didn't marry. When something is so set in stone for you at such a young age and you are made to believe that that's all you have to live for, then you go along with it because you think that's what's right. I think that that's what's happening to these girls. They are being treated like dirt but they don't even know it. I'm wondering if anyone of these daughters is going to think twice about the whole thing. I would hate to be forced to marry someone especially if I barely knew them and I was so young, or would I just think that's the way life was?

I can already sort of tell one of the daughters Elizabeth is a little suspicious about the whole marriage thing but she doesn't really say anything, maybe it's because I'm really not that far into the book but I also think it's because she's scared. I mean I would be terrified to actually speak my mind about the whole issue. You would not only be really looked down upon because you didn't want to marry but you would also be looked down upon by your family, especially your mother who is probably the most involved in finding you a husband. It's crazy cause women in that time probably wouldn't think to speak up but I hope Elizabeth does because it's important that women have a voice in life and in picking a husband.

I'm curious to find out what happens next. I think that one of these daughters will say what they actually think. Isn't marriage supposed to be about love, not so you will be accepted in society? I guess times really do change. I wonder if Elizabeth will start to change society in this book.