Pride and Prejudice Closed Reading 2

True love. Was it possible during Elizabeth's time that a woman could find true love? The beginning of chapter 6 Elizabeth and Charlotte speak about love. From Elizabeth's perspective it is obvious that her sister Jane is infatuated with Mr. Bingley, but for Charlotte she believes that Jane must try harder to secure Mr. Bingley despite the fact they have met nearly every day. Charlotte begins to explain that it is never the woman who falls in love first, "In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels" (20). This quote shows that because the society encouraged that women find husbands, it did not matter if the woman loved the man or not, because she needed to be married, and love would have to wait. Elizabeth insists that Jane should find out more about the man before she goes into such rash things as marrying him, but Charlotte disagrees saying, "When she is secure of him, there will be leisure for falling in love as much as she chooses" (20). This again shows that the societies priority is to get married then you can fall in love if "she chooses" meaning that there are some women who marry men who in the end they never fall in love with.
Elizabeth is still concerned though, as she worries that Jane does not know enough about this man, "I do not imagine that much has been unfolded" (21). From this quote it can be inferred that Elizabeth is worried that once her sister is married to Mr. Bingley she will find something that she doesn't like and won't be happy with her marriage. To this Charlotte responds, "Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance" (21). This yet again shows that during the time women married whoever seemed fit or rich and would find out things later about their husbands, and they would either fall in love or have an unhappy marriage that was left totally up to chance. I believe that from what Elizabeth has described of her sister, that Jane has indeed fallen in love with Mr. Bingley, and I believe he reciprocates the feeling. So maybe true love during this time period was very unlikely, but Jane and Mr. Bingley seemed to have found it.