Woman's Reputation

This theme of Reputation is constant thought the Pride and Prejudice. The novel depicts a society in which a woman's reputation is of the utmost importance. A woman is expected to behave in certain ways. Stepping outside the social norms makes her vulnerable to exclusion.

This theme first appears in the first chapter. Mrs. Bennet is frantic about marring off her daughters. She surrounds herself in topics of gossip and sees only to marry off her daughters to men of wealth, paying no head to matters of the heart. It appears again when Elizabeth arrives in Netherfield with muddy skirts, to the shock of the reputation-conscious Miss Bingley and her friends. To these snobby conscious women, a lady should never look less then her best when arriving anywhere.

Austen pokes gentle fun at the snobs in these examples, but later in the novel, when Lydia and Wickham live with eachother out of wedlock, the author treats reputation as a very serious matter. By becoming Wickham’s lover without benefit of marriage, Lydia clearly places herself outside the social pale, and her disgrace threatens the entire Bennet family.