How Does Pride and Prejudice Reflect Feminist Themes and Gender Critique?
Author: MARTIN MUNYAO MUINDE
Email: Ephantusmartin@gmail.com
Direct Answer
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen reflects feminist themes through its critical examination of women’s limited economic independence, the institution of marriage as an economic necessity, and the patriarchal structures that constrained women’s choices in Regency-era England. The novel presents a feminist critique by showcasing intelligent, complex female characters who challenge societal expectations, particularly through the protagonist Elizabeth Bennet, who rejects marriage proposals based solely on financial security and insists on marrying for mutual respect and love. Austen subtly critiques the legal and social systems that relegated women to dependence on men through inheritance laws, limited education, and restricted career opportunities, while simultaneously highlighting women’s intellectual capabilities and moral agency. The novel’s feminist perspective emerges through its interrogation of gender roles, its satire of patriarchal attitudes, and its revolutionary portrayal of a woman who claims the right to autonomous choice in determining her future.
Introduction: Understanding Feminist Literary Criticism and Austen’s Context
Feminist literary criticism examines how literature represents, reinforces, or challenges gender inequalities and patriarchal structures. This critical approach analyzes the portrayal of women characters, the representation of gender relations, and the ways literary texts reflect or resist the social, political, and economic marginalization of women (Tyson, 2006). When applied to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, published in 1813, feminist criticism reveals a complex engagement with the gender politics of Regency England. The novel operates within and against the constraints of its historical moment, offering both a realistic portrayal of women’s limited options and a subtle but persistent critique of the systems that produced these limitations. Understanding Pride and Prejudice from a feminist perspective requires recognizing Austen’s dual position as both a product of her patriarchal society and a shrewd observer of its injustices.
The historical context of Pride and Prejudice is essential to a feminist reading of the text. Regency-era England operated under strict patriarchal laws and customs that systematically disadvantaged women. Women could not vote, had limited property rights, and were excluded from higher education and most professions (Perkin, 1993). The practice of primogeniture meant that estates passed to male heirs, leaving daughters dependent on marriage for financial security. Marriage itself was governed by coverture laws, which meant that upon marriage, a woman’s legal identity was subsumed under her husband’s, and she lost control of her property and earnings (Shanley, 1989). These legal and social realities form the backdrop against which Austen crafts her narrative, and they are central to understanding the feminist dimensions of Pride and Prejudice. The novel’s opening line—”It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”—ironically inverts the actual economic reality: it was women without fortunes who were in desperate need of husbands.
Elizabeth Bennet as a Feminist Protagonist
Elizabeth Bennet stands as one of literature’s most compelling feminist heroines, embodying qualities that challenge the conventional expectations of women in her society. Unlike the passive, decorative ideal of femininity prevalent in conduct books of the period, Elizabeth is intelligent, witty, outspoken, and physically active (Kirkham, 1983). She walks three miles through muddy fields to visit her sick sister, arriving with “weary ankles, dirty stockings, and a face glowing with the warmth of exercise,” much to the shock of the status-conscious Bingley sisters (Austen, 1813/2003, p. 36). This scene illustrates Elizabeth’s rejection of restrictive feminine propriety in favor of sisterly loyalty and personal conviction. Her willingness to transgress social codes of feminine behavior marks her as a character who prioritizes authentic relationships and moral principles over social performance.
Elizabeth’s most revolutionary characteristic is her insistence on marrying for love and mutual respect rather than economic expediency. When she rejects Mr. Collins’s proposal despite the financial security he offers, she demonstrates remarkable independence of thought in a society where women had few alternatives to marriage. Her friend Charlotte Lucas, by contrast, accepts Collins’s proposal, explicitly stating, “I am not romantic, you know; I never was. I ask only a comfortable home” (Austen, 1813/2003, p. 125). Charlotte’s pragmatic choice illuminates the economic pressures women faced, but Elizabeth’s refusal to compromise her principles highlights Austen’s feminist vision of women as moral agents capable of making choices based on values rather than necessity (Johnson, 1988). Even more significantly, Elizabeth rejects Mr. Darcy’s first proposal, despite his wealth and status, because he proposes in a manner that insults her family and reveals his prejudice against her social position. This rejection demonstrates that Elizabeth values her dignity and self-respect over financial advantage, a radical position for a woman with no independent income.
Marriage as Economic Institution: A Feminist Critique
Austen’s treatment of marriage in Pride and Prejudice offers a sustained feminist critique of how economic dependency shapes women’s lives and choices. The novel presents marriage not as a romantic ideal but as an economic institution that women must navigate with limited power. Mrs. Bennet’s obsessive focus on marrying off her daughters, while often played for comic effect, reflects the genuine desperation of women facing potential poverty (Newton, 1981). With five daughters and an entailed estate that will pass to Mr. Collins upon Mr. Bennet’s death, the Bennet women face the prospect of homelessness and destitution if they fail to marry. This situation was not unusual; many genteel women faced economic precarity due to inheritance laws that favored male heirs. Austen’s feminist perspective emerges in her refusal to condemn Mrs. Bennet entirely; instead, the novel invites readers to recognize the systemic injustice that produces her anxiety.
The various marriages depicted in Pride and Prejudice function as case studies in how women negotiate the marriage market under patriarchal capitalism. Charlotte Lucas’s marriage to Mr. Collins represents the purely economic transaction, undertaken without affection but with clear-eyed understanding of material realities. Lydia’s elopement with Wickham illustrates the sexual double standard and the vulnerability of women’s reputations; while Wickham faces no lasting consequences for his predatory behavior, Lydia’s indiscretion threatens to ruin her sisters’ marriage prospects (Teachman, 1997). The marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet shows the long-term consequences of marrying for superficial attraction without intellectual compatibility. Through these contrasting marriages, Austen demonstrates how the institution of marriage, as structured in her society, often failed to serve women’s interests. The novel’s feminist critique lies not in rejecting marriage entirely but in exposing how economic inequality and legal subordination make marriage a problematic necessity rather than a free choice (Poovey, 1984).
Patriarchal Inheritance Laws and Women’s Economic Vulnerability
The entailment of the Bennet estate serves as a central symbol of patriarchal injustice in Pride and Prejudice. Under the legal practice of entail, property was restricted to male heirs to keep estates intact across generations. This meant that Mr. Bennet’s five daughters could not inherit their family home, which would instead pass to their distant cousin, Mr. Collins (Stone, 1977). The absurdity of this arrangement is highlighted by Mr. Collins’s character; he is pompous, unintelligent, and obsequious, yet he will possess what the Bennet daughters cannot simply by virtue of his gender. Austen’s feminist critique becomes evident in her presentation of this situation. While the novel accepts entailment as a legal reality, it consistently emphasizes the injustice of a system that renders women economically vulnerable regardless of their merit, intelligence, or moral worth.
The entailment also reveals Mr. Bennet’s failure as a patriarch within the patriarchal system. He has not saved money to provide for his daughters after his death, preferring to spend his income rather than economize. Elizabeth reflects on this irresponsibility: “Had her father’s estate been entailed only on himself, and not on a distant relation, it would hardly have been in his power to supply Mrs. Bennet’s claims” (Austen, 1813/2003, p. 308). This passage demonstrates Austen’s sophisticated understanding of women’s economic vulnerability and the ways that patriarchal structures, combined with individual male irresponsibility, compound women’s precarity (Copeland, 1997). The feminist dimension of this critique lies in Austen’s refusal to naturalize these arrangements; instead, she presents them as unjust social constructions that disadvantage women. By making the entailment a source of ongoing anxiety throughout the novel, Austen keeps the reader’s attention focused on the structural inequalities that shape her characters’ lives.
Education and Intellectual Development: Gender Inequalities
Pride and Prejudice exposes the gender inequalities in education that limited women’s intellectual development and professional opportunities. The novel presents accomplished women like Elizabeth who are largely self-educated through reading, as formal education for women was minimal and focused on ornamental accomplishments rather than intellectual rigor. Caroline Bingley’s catalog of what constitutes an “accomplished woman”—”a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages”—represents the superficial education designed to make women attractive in the marriage market rather than to develop their minds (Austen, 1813/2003, p. 39). Darcy adds to this list “the improvement of her mind by extensive reading,” subtly critiquing the prevailing model of female education (Austen, 1813/2003, p. 39). This exchange reveals Austen’s awareness that women’s education served patriarchal purposes, preparing them to be decorative wives rather than independent thinkers.
Elizabeth Bennet’s character demonstrates the consequences of this educational inequality while simultaneously resisting its limitations. She is clearly intelligent and well-read, yet her education has been haphazard, dependent on her father’s library and her own initiative. The novel suggests that Elizabeth’s intelligence would have flourished further with access to the systematic education available to men. Her verbal sparring with Darcy showcases her intellectual capabilities, yet she lacks the classical education and professional training that would have been available to her brothers had she had any (Sulloway, 1980). Austen’s feminist critique emerges in her demonstration that women’s intellectual inferiority was not natural but socially constructed through unequal access to education. By creating in Elizabeth a heroine whose intelligence is evident despite her limited formal education, Austen challenges the patriarchal assumption that women were intellectually inferior to men. The novel suggests that if women had access to the same educational opportunities as men, they would demonstrate equal intellectual capacity.
The Critique of Patriarchal Authority and Male Privilege
Austen’s feminist perspective is evident in her satirical treatment of patriarchal authority throughout Pride and Prejudice. The novel presents numerous male characters whose authority is unearned, highlighting the absurdity of male privilege. Mr. Collins, who will inherit the Bennet estate solely because of his gender, is pompous and ridiculous, his letters and speeches serving as comic interludes. Yet despite his obvious intellectual and moral deficiencies, he possesses legal and economic power over women. Sir William Lucas is amiable but vacuous, while Mr. Hurst does nothing but eat, drink, and sleep. Even Mr. Bennet, one of the novel’s more sympathetic male characters, is ultimately shown to be irresponsible, having failed to save for his daughters’ futures or to control Lydia’s wildness (Gilbert & Gubar, 1979).
Lady Catherine de Bourgh, despite being female, embodies patriarchal values and exercises tyrannical authority. Her attempt to prevent Elizabeth’s marriage to Darcy reveals her investment in class hierarchy and her assumption that she can dictate others’ choices. Lady Catherine’s character demonstrates Austen’s understanding that patriarchy is a system of values and power relations, not simply a matter of male versus female. Women can uphold and enforce patriarchal structures, often to their own detriment and that of other women (Ferguson, 1991). Elizabeth’s refusal to be intimidated by Lady Catherine—”I am not to be intimidated into anything so wholly unreasonable”—represents a rejection of both class privilege and patriarchal authority (Austen, 1813/2003, p. 356). This scene crystallizes the novel’s feminist message: women have the right to make their own choices and should resist attempts by others, male or female, to control their destinies.
Women’s Solidarity and Female Relationships
A significant feminist element in Pride and Prejudice is Austen’s portrayal of women’s relationships with one another. The relationship between Elizabeth and Jane demonstrates a model of sisterly love and support that contrasts with the competitive, antagonistic relationships encouraged by the marriage market. Elizabeth and Jane consistently support and defend each other, with Elizabeth walking three miles to care for her sick sister and Jane defending Elizabeth’s refusal of Mr. Collins. Their relationship illustrates that women’s bonds with one another can be sources of strength and resistance to patriarchal pressure (Todd, 1986). This positive portrayal of female friendship serves as a feminist counterpoint to the novel’s many examples of women competing for men’s attention.
However, Austen does not romanticize female relationships or ignore the ways that patriarchal structures pit women against one another. Caroline Bingley’s antagonism toward Elizabeth stems from romantic rivalry, as both women are potentially interested in Darcy. The competitive dynamics between women in the marriage market reflect the scarcity of “good” marriages and the economic desperation that drives women to view other women as obstacles rather than allies. Lydia’s reckless behavior threatens her sisters’ marriage prospects, illustrating how one woman’s actions could affect other women in a system that judged all women by the most restrictive standards of propriety (Armstrong, 1987). Austen’s feminist insight lies in her recognition that patriarchal systems damage women’s relationships with one another, creating competition and conflict where solidarity might otherwise exist. By showing both the potential for female solidarity and the structural forces that undermine it, Austen provides a nuanced feminist analysis of women’s social positions.
Reputation, Sexuality, and the Sexual Double Standard
Pride and Prejudice offers a feminist critique of the sexual double standard that governed women’s lives in Regency England. Women’s reputations were fragile and could be destroyed by even the appearance of sexual impropriety, while men faced few consequences for sexual misconduct. This double standard is central to the Lydia-Wickham plotline. When Lydia elopes with Wickham, unmarried and unchaperoned, her action threatens not only her own reputation but also those of her sisters. As Darcy explains, “The death of your daughter would have been a blessing in comparison to this” (Austen, 1813/2003, p. 297). This shocking statement reveals the severity of the consequences women faced for sexual transgression in a society that valued female chastity above life itself.
Wickham, by contrast, faces no comparable social consequences for his behavior. He has previously attempted to elope with Georgiana Darcy for her fortune, and he initially has no intention of marrying Lydia despite ruining her reputation. Yet he is accepted back into society once the marriage is arranged and continues his military career. The novel’s feminist critique lies in its exposure of this asymmetry: women bore all the social consequences of sexual behavior, while men remained relatively unscathed (Jones, 1987). Austen does not explicitly condemn the double standard, as overt feminist polemic would have made her novel unpublishable, but she makes the injustice visible through her plot. The fact that Darcy must bribe Wickham to marry Lydia reveals that marriage does not necessarily reform male predators; it merely makes their behavior socially acceptable. Through this plotline, Austen demonstrates how patriarchal sexual codes left women vulnerable to male exploitation while offering them little legal or social protection.
Elizabeth’s Wit and Verbal Power as Feminist Resistance
Elizabeth Bennet’s wit and verbal dexterity function as forms of feminist resistance within a society that sought to silence and subordinate women. In a world where women had little economic or political power, language becomes a site of resistance and agency. Elizabeth’s clever repartee with Darcy demonstrates her intellectual equality, and her refusal to be deferential to her social superiors challenges class and gender hierarchies simultaneously. When Lady Catherine attempts to intimidate her, Elizabeth responds with cool politeness that refuses to acknowledge the older woman’s assumed authority (Litvak, 1992). This verbal assertiveness was itself a transgressive act in a society that expected women, particularly young unmarried women, to be modest, quiet, and deferential.
The novel consistently validates Elizabeth’s use of wit and irony as legitimate forms of female expression. Unlike Lydia, whose verbal assertiveness takes the form of thoughtless chatter, or Mrs. Bennet, whose speech is marked by vulgarity and nervous agitation, Elizabeth’s language is intelligent, pointed, and purposeful. Her wit serves multiple functions: it entertains, it critiques, it establishes intellectual parity with men, and it maintains her dignity in situations where she lacks social or economic power (Brownstein, 1997). When Darcy first proposes, Elizabeth’s verbal response is devastating: “You could not have made me the offer of your hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it” (Austen, 1813/2003, p. 193). This scene showcases Elizabeth’s command of language as a form of power that allows her to reject a wealthy man’s proposal without being reduced to tears or incoherence. Austen’s feminist achievement lies in creating a heroine whose primary weapon is her intelligence, expressed through language, demonstrating that women’s minds are sources of power even in patriarchal societies that seek to deny them other forms of agency.
Economic Realities and Women’s Work
While Pride and Prejudice focuses on the gentry class, where women did not engage in paid labor, the novel nevertheless engages with questions of women’s work and economic contribution. The invisible labor that women performed—household management, needlework, childcare, and social networking—was essential to maintaining class status, yet it was unpaid and undervalued. Mrs. Bennet, despite being depicted as foolish, works constantly to secure her daughters’ futures through the only means available to her: facilitating social connections and promoting marriages. Her labor, though mocked, is economically rational given her family’s circumstances (Kirkham, 1983). Austen’s feminist perspective emerges in her subtle validation of women’s strategic work within constrained circumstances, even as she critiques the system that makes such work necessary.
The novel also acknowledges the limited employment options available to educated but poor women. When Elizabeth discusses the possibility of becoming a governess, it is presented as an undesirable but realistic option for genteel women without fortunes. Governesses occupied an ambiguous class position—too educated to be servants, too poor to be ladies—and faced lives of dependency and isolation (Poovey, 1988). Jane Fairfax in Austen’s Emma famously compares the governess trade to the slave trade, highlighting the exploitative nature of one of the few respectable employment options for women. In Pride and Prejudice, the specter of employment haunts the Bennet daughters, particularly after Mr. Bennet’s death, and this economic vulnerability drives much of the plot. Austen’s feminist critique lies in her recognition that women’s exclusion from most forms of paid work, combined with their inability to inherit property, created a situation of enforced dependency that rendered them vulnerable to poverty and exploitation.
The Evolution of Darcy: Challenging Masculine Pride and Prejudice
An often-overlooked feminist element of Pride and Prejudice is the novel’s insistence that men, particularly the male protagonist, must change their attitudes toward women and class. Darcy’s initial proposal is offensive precisely because it is based on patriarchal and class prejudices. He expects Elizabeth to be grateful for his attention despite his acknowledged disdain for her family and social position. His opening words—”In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed”—focus entirely on his own internal struggle rather than on Elizabeth’s feelings or worth (Austen, 1813/2003, p. 189). This proposal reveals Darcy’s assumption that his wealth and status entitle him to Elizabeth regardless of his behavior toward her or her family.
The novel’s feminist perspective is evident in its refusal to reward Darcy’s initial attitude. Elizabeth’s rejection and her devastating critique of his behavior force Darcy to recognize his prejudices and reform his character. His letter to Elizabeth begins this process, and his subsequent actions—paying Wickham to marry Lydia without seeking public credit, treating Elizabeth’s aunt and uncle Gardiner with respect despite their trade connections—demonstrate genuine change. Austen’s feminist achievement lies in creating a romance plot where the man must earn the woman’s love by reforming his patriarchal attitudes and recognizing her equal worth (Johnson, 1988). Darcy’s growth involves learning to respect Elizabeth’s judgment, value her opinions, and acknowledge that his social superiority does not equate to moral or intellectual superiority. The novel suggests that successful heterosexual relationships require men to abandon patriarchal assumptions of entitlement and superiority, a progressive feminist message for 1813 or any era.
Austen’s Narrative Voice and Ironic Commentary
Jane Austen’s narrative voice itself functions as a feminist instrument throughout Pride and Prejudice. The narrator’s ironic commentary consistently undermines patriarchal values and exposes the absurdities of the social system. The famous opening line—”It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”—immediately establishes an ironic tone that calls attention to the economic basis of marriage and the desperation of families with unmarried daughters (Austen, 1813/2003, p. 5). The irony lies in the gap between the statement and the reality: it is not wealthy men who need wives, but poor women who need wealthy husbands (Tanner, 1986).
Throughout the novel, the narrator’s voice maintains this ironic distance, allowing Austen to critique her society while seeming to merely describe it. When Mr. Collins proposes to Elizabeth, the narrator notes that “he was not more eloquent on the subject of tenderness than of pride” and that his “feelings were not much beyond those of other men” (Austen, 1813/2003, p. 108). This dry commentary highlights Collins’s lack of genuine affection while exposing the generally mercenary nature of marriage proposals. Austen’s ironic narrative voice allows her to make feminist critiques that would have been unacceptable if stated directly, demonstrating the strategic creativity required of women writers working within patriarchal constraints (Gilbert & Gubar, 1979). The narrator’s intelligence and wit mirror Elizabeth’s, suggesting that female intelligence and perception—whether in characters or authors—can operate critically within and against patriarchal structures.
Class Intersectionality: How Social Class Compounds Gender Inequality
A sophisticated feminist reading of Pride and Prejudice must account for how social class intersects with gender to produce different experiences of patriarchal oppression. Elizabeth’s position as a gentleman’s daughter provides her with education, leisure, and respectability that working-class women lacked, yet she still faces significant gender-based constraints. The novel presents a hierarchy of women’s positions based on the intersection of gender and class: Lady Catherine de Bourgh has more power than Elizabeth despite being female, while poor women like the servants who appear briefly in the novel have even less agency than Elizabeth (Armstrong, 1987). This intersectional awareness demonstrates that gender oppression operates differently depending on one’s class position.
Charlotte Lucas’s situation illuminates how class and gender intersect to constrain women’s choices. As the daughter of a recently knighted tradesman, Charlotte’s social position is precarious, and at twenty-seven, she is approaching the age where she will be considered unmarriageable. These factors make her acceptance of Mr. Collins’s proposal more understandable, though no less tragic from a feminist perspective (Johnson, 1988). Elizabeth’s ability to reject Collins’s proposal is partly a function of her youth and her position as a gentleman’s daughter, advantages that Charlotte lacks. Austen’s feminist insight lies in her recognition that women’s choices are shaped by multiple, intersecting factors including gender, class, age, and economic security. By presenting Charlotte’s choice sympathetically while also valorizing Elizabeth’s different choice, Austen acknowledges the complex reality of women’s lives under patriarchy without reducing all women to a single experience or suggesting a single feminist response to oppression.
Conclusion: The Enduring Feminist Legacy of Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice remains a foundational text for feminist literary criticism because of its sophisticated analysis of how patriarchal structures shaped women’s lives in Regency England and its creation of a heroine who resists these structures while navigating them. Jane Austen’s feminist vision is evident in her critique of marriage as an economic institution, her exposure of inheritance laws that disadvantaged women, her interrogation of the sexual double standard, and her creation of Elizabeth Bennet, a protagonist who insists on her right to choose her own destiny based on her own values. The novel demonstrates that feminism in literature need not take the form of overt political protest but can operate through irony, wit, and the careful construction of plot and character (Fraiman, 1989).
Austen’s feminism is sometimes questioned because she worked within conventional literary forms, depicting a world of courtship and marriage rather than revolutionary change. However, this critique misunderstands the nature of Austen’s achievement and the historical constraints under which she wrote. As a woman writer in the early nineteenth century, Austen lacked the vote, could not own property in her own name after marriage, and could not attend university or enter the professions. Yet within these constraints, she created literature that persistently questions and subverts patriarchal values (Kaplan, 1992). Her feminism lies not in advocating for revolutionary social change—which would have been impossible in her context—but in making visible the injustices that her society naturalized, in creating complex female characters who exercise moral and intellectual agency, and in insisting that women deserve to be treated as rational beings capable of making their own choices.
The feminist legacy of Pride and Prejudice extends beyond its historical moment to continue resonating with contemporary readers. The novel’s critique of economic inequality, its analysis of how structural forces constrain individual choices, and its insistence on women’s intellectual and moral equality remain relevant to ongoing feminist struggles. Modern adaptations and rewritings of Pride and Prejudice testify to the enduring appeal of Austen’s feminist vision: a vision of women as complex individuals deserving of respect, agency, and the freedom to shape their own destinies (Brownstein, 1997). By creating in Elizabeth Bennet a heroine who is intelligent, witty, principled, and ultimately rewarded for her refusal to compromise her values, Austen provided generations of readers with a model of female strength and resistance to patriarchal authority.
References
Armstrong, N. (1987). Desire and domestic fiction: A political history of the novel. Oxford University Press.
Austen, J. (2003). Pride and prejudice. Penguin Classics. (Original work published 1813)
Brownstein, R. M. (1997). Becoming a heroine: Reading about women in novels. Columbia University Press.
Copeland, E. (1997). Women writing about money: Women’s fiction in England, 1790-1820. Cambridge University Press.
Ferguson, M. (1991). Mansfield Park: Slavery, colonialism, and gender. Oxford Literary Review, 13(1-2), 118-139.
Fraiman, S. (1989). The humiliation of Elizabeth Bennet. Refiguring the Father: New Feminist Readings of Patriarchy, 168-187.
Gilbert, S. M., & Gubar, S. (1979). The madwoman in the attic: The woman writer and the nineteenth-century literary imagination. Yale University Press.
Johnson, C. L. (1988). Jane Austen: Women, politics, and the novel. University of Chicago Press.
Jones, V. (1987). Women writing revolution: Narratives of history and sexuality in Wollstonecraft and Williams. In S. Copley & J. Whale (Eds.), Beyond Romanticism: New approaches to texts and contexts, 1780-1832 (pp. 178-199). Routledge.
Kaplan, D. (1992). Jane Austen among women. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Kirkham, M. (1983). Jane Austen, feminism and fiction. Harvester Press.
Litvak, J. (1992). Caught in the act: Theatricality in the nineteenth-century English novel. University of California Press.
Newton, J. L. (1981). Women, power, and subversion: Social strategies in British fiction, 1778-1860. University of Georgia Press.
Perkin, J. (1993). Women and marriage in nineteenth-century England. Routledge.
Poovey, M. (1984). The proper lady and the woman writer: Ideology as style in the works of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, and Jane Austen. University of Chicago Press.
Poovey, M. (1988). Uneven developments: The ideological work of gender in mid-Victorian England. University of Chicago Press.
Shanley, M. L. (1989). Feminism, marriage, and the law in Victorian England. Princeton University Press.
Stone, L. (1977). The family, sex and marriage in England 1500-1800. Harper & Row.
Sulloway, A. G. (1980). Jane Austen and the province of womanhood. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Tanner, T. (1986). Jane Austen. Harvard University Press.
Teachman, D. (1997). Understanding Pride and Prejudice: A student casebook to issues, sources, and historical documents. Greenwood Press.
Todd, J. (1986). Sensibility: An introduction. Methuen.
Tyson, L. (2006). Critical theory today: A user-friendly guide (2nd ed.). Routledge.