"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." - Jane Austen.
This opening line of Pride and Prejudice could well describe the whole point of her book. With this single short statement, Jane Austen declares a couple of things essential to her novel. She declares one of her major themes: Money and Marriage. She establishes the fact that everyone is in the search for someone to marry; someone that reaches his or her standards economically and socially. It is the pursuit of a perfect husband or wife.
The central theme of Pride and Prejudice is based on the concerns of people in early nineteenth-century country society. One of these concerns is money. Austen could observe the money problems of a middle-class family right in her own home. Her father was an educated man and a gentleman, but his income didn't provide enough for his family. His daughters would not be able to survive if they remained unmarried. The same exact situation that the Bennet's encounter in the novel. The situation of young women in these times was a critical one. In our time, women have many other choices in addition to marriage. Marriage is not looked upon so much as a financial security but more as a love interest. Women today can work in almost any job and gain enough money to support their own family and being seen as acceptable. In Jane Austen's time it wasn't so. A young woman of her class depended for her happiness, her health, in fact the whole shape of her life, on her making a good marriage. !.
If her husband was poor or a gambler, she and her children could suffer true hardships. A girl with no fortune of her own often could not attract a husband. Then she might have to become a governess, living in other people's houses, looking after their children. Like Mr. Hurst said to Darcy in chapter 8: "I have an excessive regard for Jane Bennet, she is really a very sweet girl, and I wish with all my heart she were well settled.