Gender Lines In The Late 1700s

In the late 1700s, there were defined gender lines and each sex was held to certain standards set by the society. Men were the source of everything for a family ranging from the daily household income to the caring of the estate while women just had to be respectably quiet and take care of their families at home. These social codes were not written but instead were reflected in laws made and shared collectively between males and females alike and established a base idea for the entire society to develop from. Jane Austen writes a novel involving the affairs of the Dashwood family and their journey of self-preservation after the passing of the father of the house. They must now fend for themselves in this patriarchal world and attempt to build
This quote highlights what exactly is needed for men to be well respected in the late 1700s. They need only to carry themselves with an ounce of dignity and to not be excessive in anyway and they are then rewarded with honor and access to success. Elinor understands this and is able to see that even a man of lower quality is able to get ahead while she needs a husband to get any recognition or respect. This realization helps Elinor to make herself more adaptable to the male society she is a part of and changes her overall mindset in the
She changes her mind frequently and can make herself very distraught with all of her romantic troubles whirling around her head. Marianne has a particular view on marriage that is shared by a lot of the women of the time period that stresses the specific age that a woman should get married. She claims, “A woman of seven-and-twenty, can never hope to feel or inspire affection again; and if her home be uncomfortable, or her fortune small, I can suppose that she might bring herself to submit to the offices of a nurse, for the sake of the provision and security of a wife.” (Austen 21). This thought process is a clear demonstration of the time’s ideas of how women need to marry young or they will become old and not useful to society. The quote also shows Marianne’s immaturity and innocence because of the fact that she would bring up the topic of someone being too old to marry and find someone like a child ignorant of boundaries. Marianne realizes, much like her sister, that she too needs to change herself to fit the society she lives in by becoming more obedient to social laws. She exclaimed, “I have erred against every common-place notion of decorum! Had I talked only of the weather and the roads, and had I spoken only once in ten minutes, this reproach would have been spared." (Austen 49). This is after her encounter with Mr.