Pride and Prejudice

Mr Bennet of the Longbourn estate has five daughters, but his property is entailed, meaning that none of the girls can inherit it. Since his wife had no fortune, it is imperative that one of the girls marries well in order to support the others on his death. However, Jane Austen's opening line, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” is a sentence filled with irony and playfulness. The novel revolves around the necessity of marrying for love, not simply for monetary reasons, despite the social pressures to make a good match.