Emma

While marriage has been an instrument of social change throughout the ages, this was especially the case in Austen’s time. Amongst the gentry and the rising middle classes that populate Austen’s novels, a family’s wealth and social standing rose and fell according to the marriages of its children. While men earned a living, either from property, through a profession, or by trade, women had a fortune, or dowry, which was given to their bridegroom on marriage. Established gentry families who have had their properties for generations such as the Woodhouses and the Knightleys generally sought to retain their nobility by marrying families of similar origin, whereas those who made their wealth in trade and thus had lower social standing often sought to rise through marriage. For example, status-seeking Mr. Elton regards Emma’s plans to marry him to Harriet Smith as a debasement that would threaten his precarious hold on wealth and gentility.

Emma begins the novel with the wish to subvert the status quo, both in her notions of her marital prospects and those of others. She resolves to never marry and to refashion the stereotype of the cross old maid into something more genteel and consequential. She observes to Harriet that “it is poverty only which makes celibacy contemptible,” as “a single woman, of good fortune, is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as any body else” (72). Given her wealth, status, and comfort, Emma sees herself as an exception to the patriarchal society’s rule that a woman must marry. While Emma singles herself out until the even more exceptional circumstance of falling in love occurs, she attempts to use the obscurity of Harriet’s birth and the distraction of her beauty to sneak her into a marriage with Mr. Elton. Ironically, Mr. Elton also attempts to use his good looks and gallantry to charm Emma into overlooking the social differences between the two of them.

However, despite Emma’s fanciful strain, her true instinct when it comes to the marriages of people she cares about is to maintain social distinction. As she walks through the grounds of Donwell Abbey, she is satisfied that her sister Isabella “had connected herself unexceptionably,” giving the Woodhouses “neither men, nor names, nor places, that could raise a blush” (308). Although her subconscious desire for Mr. Knightley causes her to reject the suggestion that either Jane or Harriet could be a potential match for him, her conscious mind states that both matches would be socially disastrous for him. She imagines the horrifying scenarios of Miss Bates “haunting the Abbey, and thanking him all day long for his great kindness in marrying Jane”, or Mr. Knightley being mocked by his brother for entering into a marriage with an illegitimate girl like Harriet (191). When Emma realizes that “Mr. Knightley must marry no one but herself”, she simultaneously speaks from a place of love and from a desire to maintain social distinction through a second union between Highbury’s most important families (352).

Although the marriage of the principal characters reinforces the established social order, much of the novel deals with balancing the competing claims of love and social expectation. The novel takes a more realistic than romantic tone, as it shows that marriages where there are inequalities of wealth and status are beset with difficulties. For example, Frank’s mother Miss Churchill, who marries lower status Mr. Weston, “had resolution enough to pursue her own will in spite of her brother, but not enough to refrain from unreasonable regrets at that brother’s unreasonable anger, nor from missing the luxuries of her former home” (10). This love-match’s inauspiciousness is evident from the outset in Mr. Weston’s need to live beyond his means to satisfy Miss Churchill. Moreover, when Miss Churchill dies the care of little Frank is overtaken by his brother-in-law and his wife who “was nobody […] barely the daughter of a gentleman; but ever since her being turned into a Churchill she has out-Churchill’d them all in high and mighty claims” (265).

Thus, Mrs. Churchill’s determination to punish her sister-in-law for her marriage to lower born Mr. Weston, and her anticipated likely rejection of a marriage between Frank and Jane, is bolstered by her intention to over-compensate for her own dubious claims on gentility. Although Frank loves Jane, unlike his mother, Frank is unwilling to risk being cut off from his inheritance and lavish standard of living. His attempt to satisfy both his social advantages and his heart lead him to adopt the underhanded position of a secret engagement until his aunt dies. Secret engagements were frowned upon in polite society, and the toxicity of this one is shown in the deterioration of Jane’s health and her pervasive sense of shame. However, when the marriage between Frank and Jane takes place, Emma regards it as an egalitarian interchange of wealth and virtue, as she claims that “it is fit that the fortune should be on his side, for I think the merit will be all on hers” (362).