This makes it necessary for the Bennet sisters to marry, in order to ensure their financial stability. Marriage promised safety and a future, and also offered the possibility of establishing oneself, and one's sisters, into a greater social circle. .
Mrs Bennet's determination to marry her daughters is a direct result of financial concerns. Fearful that they will be left with no money, she makes marrying them "the business of her life."4 When it is revealed that the wealthy Charles Bingley has begun renting nearby Netherfield estate, Mrs Bennet immediately "sees him as an insurance policy against future privations."5 Once an attraction has formed between Bingley and the eldest Bennet daughter, Jane, Mrs Bennet manipulates the situation and sends Jane to Netherfield on horseback during a storm, hoping she will catch a cold. Her plan having worked, Jane must stay in Bingley's care until recovered. While, as it is implied by the opening quote, marriage was considered a goal, or duty of women, the power of manipulation was a tool which women could use to their advantage. After Elizabeth rejects Mr Collins' proposal, Charlotte Lucas is purposefully "tolerably encouraging" to him so as to secure his proposal (119). Not a romantic, Charlotte recognises the opportunity for "a comfortable home" with Collins and uses her power of manipulation to "show more affection than she feels" (123, 23). .
Despite Charlotte's choice to encourage Collins being a conscious one, it is a choice that she makes only because of the social inequality women faced in this time. As Hazel Jones notes, there were many women who acted similarly, privileging a steady income and home over the possibility of happiness.6 If happiness was found in marriage it was usually just an added bonus; few marriages were actually created in happiness. Bingley and Jane's eventual union is an exception to Charlotte's contention that "happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance," as the couple fell in love before they wedded (24).
