Editing Pride and Prejudice (section)

===Wealth===
Money plays a fundamental role in the marriage market, for the young ladies seeking a well-off husband and for men who wish to marry a woman of means. George Wickham tries to elope with Georgiana Darcy, and Colonel Fitzwilliam states that he will marry someone with wealth.

Marrying a woman of a rich family also ensured a linkage to a higher-class family, as is visible in the desires of Bingley's sisters to have their brother married to Georgiana Darcy. Mrs. Bennet is frequently seen encouraging her daughters to marry a wealthy man of high social class. In chapter 1, when Mr. Bingley arrives, she declares "I am thinking of his marrying one of them".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Austen |first1=Jane |title=Pride and Prejudice |date=1813 |page=3}}</ref>

Inheritance was by descent but could be further restricted by [[Fee tail|entailment]], which in the case of the Longbourn estate restricted inheritance to male heirs only. In the case of the Bennet family, Mr. Collins was to inherit the family estate upon Mr. Bennet's death in the absence of any closer male heirs, and his proposal to Elizabeth would have ensured her security; but she refuses his offer.

Inheritance laws benefited males because married women did not have independent legal rights until the second half of the 19th century. For the upper-middle and aristocratic classes, marriage to a man with a reliable income was almost the only route to security for the woman and the children she was to have.<ref name="Chung">{{cite journal|last=Chung|first=Ching-Yi|title=Gender and class oppression in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice|journal=IRWLE|date=July 2013|volume=9|issue=2|url=https://www.academia.edu/2612757}}</ref> The irony of the opening line is that generally within this society it would be a woman who would be looking for a wealthy husband to have a prosperous life.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bhattacharyya |first1=Jibesh |title=Jane Austen's Pride and prejudice |date=2005 |publisher=Atlantic Publishers & Distributors |location=New Delhi |isbn=9788126905492 |page=19 |chapter=A critical analysis of the novel|quote=The irony of the opening sentence is revealed when we find Mrs. Bennet needs a single man with a good fortune....for...any one of her five single daughters}}</ref>