NB: This contains spoilers.
"Jane Austen's masterpiece is a perfectly pitched satire on the war between the sexes and the mores of the day. But it confirms, rather than transforms, a woman's lot. She knew that her own existence - as spinster aunt whose genius received only a modicum of public recognition just before her premature death - would have young women recoiling in horror. No matter how spirited and clever her heroine, an independent life was impossible for a woman of slender means. Had Elizabeth Bennett [sic] spurned Mr. Darcy and opted for a life of the mind, she would have been forced to live off her family and been branded a loser. Austen had to bow to the convention of her day - but we needn't. The fact that we still cling to fairy tales in which 'he' saves me betrays a defeatism that now has no excuse. This is the logic that argues that a woman must be wrinkle-free and bouncy-breasted - lest she lose HIM. It is the logic that defends taking on a husband's name as part of wedding your entire life to his, as one name-changer told the Daily Mail this week."
This is a quote from Christina Odone of The Observer about a majority of women in a British Radio Four poll selecting Pride and Prejudice as the book that changed their life. Many other 'feminists' agreed with her, shocked by the fact that most women still love this famous novel even today when the ideal woman is independent, has a career, and wants a man but doesn't need him! How old-fashioned, they are screaming, that these women even admit to reading Pride and Prejudice, let alone want to be like Elizabeth Bennet!
Ms Odone, however, quite obviously has not read the novel properly, if indeed she has read it at all. Elizabeth is a very fiery, independent heroine, much more independent than many of those in today's novels. It is true that an independent life was difficult for a woman of slender means, although perhaps not impossible. In spite of this, however, Elizabeth's determination to only marry for love - only 'the very deepest love' - is one of the major themes of the novel. Disillusioned by their parent's unhappy marriage, she and Jane agree that love is the only reason to marry.
Perhaps Ms Odone has confused Elizabeth with Charlotte, who at 27 seizes the opportunity to marry the idiotic Mr. Collins to Elizabeth's great disapproval. Ms Odone overlooks the fact that Elizabeth refuses Mr. Collins, owner of the entail of the house, in spite of great pressure from her mother and from Mr. Collins himself. If she really wanted to be 'saved' like Charlotte, she would certainly accept his proposal regardless of her dislike. Marriage to Mr. Collins would make her comfortable and regain the family's inheritance.
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