【正文】 therefore, they have the privilege to choose their wives according to their will. However, for Charlotte, she is not goodlooking and hasn’t large property, so she is willing to marry Mr. Collins though he is a stupid man, and obtains a marriage just for convenience and property in the marriage market. Additionally, Austen also presents women’s low status in other aspects, such as, in education, career, politics, economy, social status, culture, inheritance right, and so on. Then, social advancement was crucial to women, who were denied the involvement in politics, the possibility of improving their status through hard work and there was little generally perceived need for them to receive a higher education. In old China, things were similar. Especially, China was a country in which the feudal society lasted for several millennia. The traditional feudal ideologies on women had deeply rooted and women in old China 英語 畢業(yè)論文 viexperienced a bitter history. For example, Confucian philosophy preached the male superiority conception and women were to obey—first, their fathers。 關(guān)鍵詞 ： 婦女地位；傲慢與偏見；封建觀念；《傲慢與偏見》 Introduction Today, people are more and more caring about women’s status. Women are not a separated individual, but deeply tie to the society, and they play very important roles in every aspects of the modern society. So women’s status not only connects to women themselves, but also the society’s development. Therefore, both women and the government should try their efforts to enhance women’s status and advance the equal right of men and women. As everyone knows, Pride and Prejudice， a wellknown novel written by Jane Austen, marriage is central topic of the novel. According to the appearance of the novel, as for Austen’s characters, marriage does not mean the act of ungoverned passion but a plex engagement between the marrying couple and society. In the novel, Austen portrays the women’s low status and the reasons of women’s low status. But women in the novel didn’t try to strive for their right, they thought little of their low status, and had little selfawareness, just negotiated to the society. As for our Chinese women, they have been experiencing over 3000 years’ traditional ideology. And even in the modern society, they also suffer kinds of discriminations from the society and men. They are usually thought of humbler than men, and always be excluded out of the society. Ⅰ .A General Summary of the Women’s Status in Pride and Prejudice A. A Brief Introduction to the Story Pride and Prejudice is Jane Austen’s great masterpiece, a sharp and witty edy of manners played out in early 19th century English society. , a world in which men held virtually all the power and women were required to negotiate minefields of social status, respectability, property, and marriage. 英語 畢業(yè)論文 ii Marriage is one of the themes in the novel. Austen concentrates on women’s fate most. Through her characters’ process of courtship and marriage, Austen shows social backgrounds behind their marriage and what low status women have suffered. In Pride and Prejudice, for a woman, generally the only way to her is to get married besides being spinsterhood or governess. To marry a rich and high status man, is a path for the young women to gaining financial security and social status. The novel portrays life in the middle class rural society of the day, and tells the initial misunderstanding and later mutual enlightenment between Elizabeth Ben and Darcy. They gradually dispel their prejudice and constitute a happy marriage. Here Austen shows the power of love and happiness to overe class boundaries and prejudice, thereby implying that women should strive for their own love and happiness, but not to according the social will. However, behind the happy marriage of Elizabeth Ben and Darcy, Austen mainly wants to show that property, social status still play the most important roles in a marriage, from which women suffered a lot. No right of inheritance, such is particularly the case of the Bens, a family of five daughters whose father’s estate is entailed to a distant relative, for upon Mr. Ben’s death they will loose home, land, and ine, everything else. After knowing Elizabeth’s refusal to Mr. Collins, Mrs. Ben threats her daughter that “if you go on refusing every marriage, you will never get a husband, and I am sure I do not know who is to maintain you when your father died.” So it is illustrated that property and social status are more important than marriage. Thus, under the effect of the unreasonable social value, doesn’t Charlotte Lucas, who is up to playing in a highstaked matrimonial game forfeit her own personal integrity? B. Women’s Status Shown in the Novel Either in the past or today, society puts a significant value on marriage. In modern society, marriage means the birth of a new family, which is filled with love, understanding, happiness and harmonious atmosphere. Moreover, marriage is not a trade and the two persons in a marriage should not get married for the personal benefit or just for convenience. But in which, marriage is an odd phenomenon and it is just an approach, which people could reach their aims and provides them convenience. Austen describes Charlotte’s marriage as a symbol, through which Austen shows the readers what low status women hold. In the novel, marriage is an everlasting and hot topic for all the people, especially for women and their families. Although marriage is an odd phenomenon in the end 18th and early 19th century middle class’s country life in Britain, it is very mon. Women never considered the marriage itself, but to what extent that they would be benefited from a marriage. Mrs. Ben, for example never concerns about the