Injustice

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        A major theme presented in Pride and Prejudice is the necessity of females who are not wealthy to obtain a husband with enough money to support them, sometimes regardless of personal feelings. In particular, the injustice of the concept of entailment is voiced through Jane Austen's amusing portrayal of Mrs. Bennett's dismay  at the thought of Mr. Collins receiving the estate of Longbourne after Mr. Bennett's death. While one laughs at the dramatic actions of Mrs. Bennett, one also sobers at the realization of the injustice of estates being only inherited by males, completely leaving females out of any benefits and income they might have received. In an age where middle-class women's only places were in the home and monetary employment was unthinkable, a woman's only option was to marry or "stay at home as a burden [to her] parents" as Charlotte Lucas despairingly relates. Gary Kelly of the University of Alberta writes that "entailment was the kind of injustice against women that Wollstonecraft and other Revolutionary feminists had criticized sharply, for it forced women to make their fortune the only way open to them--by speculating on the marriage market (Kelly 3-35).