Bennet talks about how Wickham is his favorite son-in-law, which shows a parallel relationship between them. Lydia married Mr. Wickham for completely superficial reasons. Both Lydia and Mrs. Bennet are women who are not very intelligent and got their husbands by being beautiful. Lydia and Mr. Wickham's marriage goes downhill just like Mr. and Mrs. Bennet's because there was no depth there. They are ultimately not very happy in their marriages because they were married for the wrong reasons. .
Another type of marriage that existed at the time was a marriage because of economic security and social status. This would be the marriage between Charlotte Lucas and Mr. Collins. Charlotte was not in love with Mr. Collins, and she was not sexually attracted to him either. Mr. Collins is a rather egotistical and snobby man with not much reason to be so. Charlotte does not seem to be too concerned with finding love and appears to be more interested in making sure she will be able to live a comfortable lifestyle. She wants to make sure she will not become an old maid. Jane Austen's disapproval of this marriage is quite evident by the way she portrays Charlotte Lucas throughout the novel, and she looks down on Charlotte's character for basically selling herself. At that time however, it was not uncommon for someone to marry someone for economic security. It is unfortunate because although women seemed to want equality, it was actions like these that made women seem inferior. It made the struggle for women that much harder, because by marrying someone solely for economic reasons made it seem as though she's just money hungry and looking for an easy way out, not trying to truly live her life to the fullest.
Although there were many terrible marriages, there were some marriages that exemplified an ideal marriage. The marriage between Jane Bennet and Mr. Bingley is one instance of a good marriage.