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Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice discusses the issue of marriage with a far greater depth and diversity of viewpoints than does Kate Chopin’s The Awakening.

In The Awakening, Kate Chopin primarily focuses on Edna Pontellier’s wholesale rejection of the paradigm of marriage and her stepwise abandonment of her husband, children, social contacts, and household obligations. This transformation on Edna’s part ultimately brings about her death by drowning, after she has “liberated” herself from all the forces that had hitherto “restrained” her from swimming out too far. Thus, Chopin, though focusing on and sympathizing with a complete abandonment of marriage, also shows it to result in a highly undesirable end, leaving the reader with no compelling reasons to embrace this, the dominant view of women’s issues in the book.

Jane Austen, on the other hand, offers a far more instructive and relevant text in terms of shaping readers’ views of marriage, as she presents a multiplicity of alternative paradigms on the subject, as well as a compelling case for why one of these, exemplified by the eventual union of Elizabeth and Darcy, is a superior choice to the others. Austen portrays the marriage primarily oriented around domestic security and social reputation in the form of the union of Mr. Collins and Charlotte Lucas, who are both entirely unconcerned about romance and rather focused on presenting a respectable image, especially to social “superiors” like Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

An even more materialistic view of marriage is presented in the form of Lady Catherine’s intentions to have Darcy marry her daughter, for the purpose of unifying their two prosperous estates. Elizabeth, however, upon encountering this view, rejects it as too devoid of considerations of individual happiness.

Austen portrays a dramatically different attitude in the marriage of Lydia and Wickham, who elope out of sheer passion, with Wickham deep in debt and not even contemplating any attempts to improve his material lot in the future. The couple might not even have made provisions for a formal union absent the intervention of Darcy and the Bennet family. Elizabeth finds this paradigm to be humiliating and irresponsible, and thus rejects a purely emotional approach to marriage as well.

In the end, Elizabeth finds a synthesis of material and personal interests in her growing attachment to Mr. Darcy, who is able to offer her his virtues of refinement, benevolence, and intelligence, along with an immensely prosperous estate and high social rank. In contrast to Chopin’s simplistic and ultimately futile altogether rejection of marriage, Austen offers a compelling analysis of all the variations of this institution, and advocates her own view on it as capable of being successful and personally fulfilling by means of the happy ending of the novel. Thus, Pride and Prejudice offers constructive guidance to readers on which approaches to marriage work and which do not, rather than being merely a text that criticizes the institution without offering a positive alternative.