To have an entailment is to limit the inheritance of (property) to a specified succession of heirs, in the case of Pride and Prejudice the purpose is to prevent Women from inheriting property. When a man like Mr. Bennet, who has five daughters, has an entailment it has a great affect on the lives of all his daughters. Marriage no longer becomes finding someone to fall in love with, it but an institution that is necessary to maintain a respectable life. This arrangement has a major effect on all of the women of the Bennet house hold especially those having trouble finding husbands.
For the Bennet sisters Marriage is a necessity that none of them can afford to live without. When I first started reading the novel I wondered why so much emphasis was being put on the subject of marriage. I could not figure out why Jane Austen would write an entire novel on women trying to find husbands. However towards the end I realized that this subject stood for much more than just a man and a woman falling in love. These women needed marriage because of how society had placed them below men and made it very hard to be independent. Today women who choose to live without marriage are not looked down upon. They are able to go out into the world and become respectable, contributing members of society. However back in the days of the Bennet sisters if you were not married you were seen as an unsuitable bride, not someone who had chosen to remain independent without a husband. The restriction of an entailment greatly hinders the lives of women who are burdened by the arrangement. Instead of living life the way that they want to they are forced to live life searching for a husband that will be able to take care of them.
Entailments not only change the women’s lives in the novel but it also has a great affect on the union of marriage. Marriage is supposed to be a man and a woman that love each other and want to be together forever. In this novel it is something...