abstract
with the development of the society, women are playing more and more important roles in various aspects of the modern society, and their statuses are also enhanced. however, traditional ideologies are deeply rooted; women are still treated unfairly, and they have to fight against traditional prejudice and self-cultivation to their status’s enhancement.
key words
women’s status; pride and prejudice; feudal ideology；pride and prejudice
 
摘　要
随着社会发展与进步，妇女在现代社会各个领域中起着越来越重要的作用，妇女在很多方面的地位也得到提高。但是，封建观念根深蒂固，妇女仍然受到来自各个领域的不公平待遇，所以妇女要敢于与封建偏见做斗争，要积极通过改变自我来提高自身的地位。
关键词
妇女地位；傲慢与偏见；封建观念；《傲慢与偏见》

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 well-known 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 complex 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 self-awareness, 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 comedy 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 mine-fields of social status, respectability, property, and marriage.
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 bennet and darcy. they gradually dispel their prejudice and constitute a happy marriage. here austen shows the power of love and happiness to overcome 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 bennet 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 bennets, a family of five daughters whose father’s estate is entailed to a distant relative, for upon mr. bennet’s death they will loose home, land, and income, everything else. after knowing elizabeth’s refusal to mr. collins, mrs. bennet 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 high-staked 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 common. women never considered the marriage itself, but to what extent that they would be benefited from a marriage. mrs. bennet, for example never concerns about the moral and teaches her daughters the view of moral. “the business of her life was to get her daughters married” and she thinks that could fetch her daughters wealthy and high status husbands; she has achieved something great in her life and her family will be benefited much. thus, when mr. bingley, a wealthy bachelor with large fortune, four or five thousand a year, becomes their neighborhood, mrs. bennet begins to contemplate his getting married to one of her daughters. and in the later days, she is incapable fatigue and enumerates kinds of advantages that her family will get if jane and mr. bingley get married, such as wealth, status ranking, and could also throw her other daughters in the way to other rich men. all her thoughts for fetching her daughter wealthy and high status husband come just out of the considering of practicality, but not out of her daughters’ feelings. under the monetary view of marriage, mrs. bennet totally treats her daughters’ marriage as product trades and her daughters are the commodities.
 
in pride and prejudice, austen shows that because of women’s low status, they are desirable to change their status. so marriage becomes a straight and quick way to change their situation. though they know that such kind of marriage is equal to a trade and for themselves, they are only products in the marriage market or an attachment to a man or even a marriage’s slave, they do not care much.

c. other aspects connecting with women’s status
the women in austen’s age, lived in a patriarchal society, a world in which women were strictly limited, but men held all the advantages. and under such a society, women forfeited their personal personalities and own integrities. they could not entail their fathers’ estate, which was a quite iniquitous affair to the daughters in the bennets. although they felt angry about it, “i do not think it is the hardest thing in the world that your estate should be entailed away from your own children and i am sure if i had been you, i should have tried long ago to do something or other about it” mrs. bennet cried to her husband. but the fact is that they could do nothing to change unchangeable social rule.
young women of today have a variety of options open to them regarding their future. they can go to college; they can have their careers and become professional women and live on their own; they can earn their status through hard work and their advantages. however, women in the end 18th and early 19th century english society had no these free choices. their formal education and job were limited, and the society could not welcome of a woman entering a profession, and their knowledge seemed no use to the society. if a woman was unmarried, no matter she was mature or not, she was not allowed to live alone and must live with her family, at least live with a suitable chaperone until her marriage or her spinsterhood to death. in austen’s age, women’s actions were strictly limited and they could not enjoy their personal freedom
ⅱ reasons for the women’s low status at that time
a. traditional feudal notions
observing the novel pride and prejudice from another aspect, we know that the theme of the novel does not only deal with love and marriage, but also includes the relationship of women, society, and women’s status. jane austen has shown the social fabric of society during her time and makes a comment on the status of women during that time. in austen’s time, society treated women unfairly and women really enjoyed low status
to know clearly what jane austen writes pride and prejudice for, we should firstly have a clear mind of the social background and know, under the traditional feudal notion how the society treated the women in the 18th and 19th century country society in britain
 in the novel, austen presents the gender injustices in the 19th century english society, and how the important role that money played in determining a woman’s daily life, marriage and destiny. economically dependent, women were robbed of property and inheritance rights and possessed no independent source of income. the entailment of the longbourn estate is an extreme hardship on the bennet family, and is quite obviously unjust. no right to entail their father’s estate leaves the bennet daughters in a poor financial situation which both requires them to be married and makes it more difficult to marry well. having no social status, and in order to improve their social status, women have to give up their personal dignity and ego at the expense of their love and marriage, and they are willing to get married just for financial security and enhancement of social status. under these values of money and social status, women they can’t enjoy a happy marriage and their freedom. and they are deprived of the right to receive education and take part in social activities. because there are no needs for higher education for them, and even if there is necessity to receive a higher education, it is just for self-enhancement or for pleasing 

their husbands.
    at that time, society offered few opportunities to women to choose for their lives and to decide the destiny. just as the opening sentence of the novel says “it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” which tells the reader that men were always in the dominant
status in a marriage and the heritance of property. thus men enjoy the right to choose their wives according to their will.
through pride and prejudice, austen portrays the commonly held views on the characters’ marriage. society, at that time, put a significant value on property and social status, and women in such a society, with their privileges tightly limited, had no chance to develop their personalities and their characters were fettered by the society. there were no centrally organized systems of state—supported schools, and some local grammar schools did exist but did not admit girls. so women’s education became impossible, and they didn’t have careers, but society required little for their use of knowledge and gave little chance for them to use knowledge. they were denied the possibility of improving their status or gaining their financial security through hard work or personal achievements. they were mostly estimated by others through their property and social status.
therefore, in pride and prejudice, marriage is one of the most ideal ways, in which women could gain reputation, wealth and raise their social status. just as the character charlotte lucas in the novel, without thinking highly either of men or matrimony, her life goal is marriage. when proposing and being rejected by elizabeth, mr. collins quickly transfers his attention towards charlotte lucas, and he could not possibly be in love with charlotte, for only three days before he had proposed elizabeth. yet charlotte knows the fact that the man she will marry has no attachment to her, just for the will of marrying, but she pays no attention to it. she marries mr. collins for the purpose other than love, so she doesn’t care about whether there is love in their marriage. just as charlotte says to her fiend “i am not romantic, you know. i never was. i ask only a comfortable home; and considering mr. collins’s character, connections, and situations in life…” she accepts mr. collins’s proposal. austen
portrays that charlotte’s marriage to collins is a monetary trade. charlotte marries collins primarily because he will be able to provide her enough livelihoods and will be able to make her life quite easy by considering estate. so she thinks that the tolerable collins’s proposing to her is an extremely good fortune for her since he earns his money through inheritance and is in the command of the wealthy lady catherine. in other words, charlotte marries collins not because of love but because of her desire for financial security and raising her social status. facing the practicality, she would have sacrificed every better feeling to worldly advantages. after their marriage, charlotte has to endure her intolerable husband.
 
another obvious aspect, examining from pride and prejudice is the prejudice on the right of women’s inheritance. society doesn’t admit that women can entail from their fathers. although the bennet family has no son, none of the five bennet daughters are allowed to entail their father’s estate, after their father’s death. and all his estate will have to be turned over to one of their male relatives mr. collins, and after the death of mr.  bennet, the five bennet daughters would lose all that they have been owned. just as mr. bennet says to her wife and his daughter “about a month ago i received this letter …it is from my cousin, mr. collins, who, when i am dead, may turn you all out of this house as soon as he pleases.”. certainly, the mention of the inheritance offered women in the situation of plight.
b. women’s surrender to social prejudice
in the novel, austen criticizes the unreasonable social structure, also the innocence of women. in terms of marriage, they thought they had no high social status and had no large property, so they thought that marriage was an acceptable path to his high status or their economic safety according to the view of the society. they never thought that they could earn their life and their marriage, which belonged to themselves but not to the social value. they just considered if they could completely integrate into the society and accepted the twisted monetary view and marriage view, and played the roles that the society needed, they could gain their happiness and easy life. thus, they dressed themselves and were willing to transform themselves into commodities, appearing in kinds of balls, in order to attract men. 
although women were forced under the social prejudice, they tried no struggle. they were willing to believe that marriage was a form of trade and in the marriage market they could be given happiness. facing social prejudice, they also had the consciousness of being humble, thinking that the male was the superiority, and women had to surrender to the society, was seemed to more easily to them. in the novel, austen demonstrates that women should strive for their own life and marriage, without considering the influence of the wrapping view of society, be self—confident and get rid of the illiberal mind, not ruin any chance to realize the value, dignity, personality of theirs. elizabeth is the best example, although she sometimes shows her pride, she is an admirable, wit, brilliant, and self—confident woman, who conquers many difficulties and at last she gains the true love with darcy. as for charlotte, she also could have tried to find somebody she really loves and gets married, like her friend elizabeth, but she makes no attempt to find a husband whom she really loves and esteems, only giving in to the necessity of acquiring financial security and status ranking through marriage.
ⅲ enlightenment from women’s status in pride and prejudice
pride and prejudice portrays life of the middle class in rural society in the end of 18th century and early 19th century britain. and the novel strongly reflects the point that the property plays an important role in determining what a woman’s destiny will be. in the novel, jane austen shows that women in that society really enjoyed a low status and merely they had no way to decide their destinies, if they were poor or had little money. in austen’s times, the whole society’s vale was property or money, women who have very little money, only enjoyed low status and can not choose their marriages according to their will. in contract, things were usually different to men. darcy and bingley are rich men and they have large property, therefore, they have the privilege to choose their wives according to their will. however, for charlotte, she is not good-looking 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 experienced a bitter history. for example, confucian philosophy preached the male superiority conception and women were to obey—first, their fathers; after marriage, their husbands; during widowhood, their sons. they were completely excluded from social and political life. economically dependent, women were robbed of property and inheritance rights and possessed no independent source of income. having no social status, women were considered as the private property of men, was to please their husbands and to bear 
their children. they had no personal dignity or independent status, and were deprived of the right to receive an education and take part in social activities. they enjoyed no freedom in marriage but had to obey the dictates of their parents and heed the words of matchmakers, and were not allowed to remarry if their spouses died. they were subject to physical and mental torture, being harassed by systems of polygamy and prostitution, and the overwhelming majority of them were forced to bind their feet from childhood. for centuries, "women with bound feet" was a synonym for the female gender in china. but things were different to men. men in old china held virtually all the powers, social status, respectability, wealth, and the privilege to choose their wives and a man could marry more than one woman who didn’t have the well-matched background as he. also, the most important thing was that the wife who was married must be a virgin. men could treat women as their private property or attachment, even slave, depending on their wills.
a. social reform as the precondition of women’s emancipation
in china, the feudal society lasted several millennia and in the subsequent century of semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, chinese women experienced a bitter history of prolonged oppression, degradation and abasement. from the first half of this century, masses of women plunged into an undaunted and heroic struggle lasting several decades
they struggled for the protection of their own rights and the enhancement of their status. this was a quest for their emancipation.
    social reform is thought as the precondition of women’s emancipation.  it was not until the founding of the people's republic of china in 1949 that brought a historic change for chinese women. and a new era in the emancipation of chinese women was ushered in. after the founding of the people's republic of china, there was a surge of mass movements throughout the country to quickly change the backward economic and cultural outlook left over by old china and eradicate the antiquated system and outmoded customs that fettered, discriminated against and humiliated women. this effected an earth-shaking historic change in the social status and condition of women.
then again, after experienced series government reforms, such as, campaigns for gradually wiping out illiteracy in 1952, 1956, and in 1958; publicity and implementation of the marriage law, reforms on women’s political and working life, and so on. women’s status was enhanced, to a large extent.
by means of these large-scale mass movements, new china took only a few years to clean up the filth and mire left over from a feudal society that had lasted for thousands of years. it effected fundamental emancipation for women in all aspects of political, economic, cultural, social and family life. this represented a significant transformation in the history of contemporary social development that china can be proud of. it was also an important contribution made by the chinese revolution to the worldwide movement for women's liberation.

china attaches great importance to providing legal protection for females. in 1992, the law of the people's republic of china on the protection of the rights and interests of women promulgated, which provided an effective legal weapon for further enhancing the social status of women and guaranteeing their basic rights and interests. under chinese law, women can enjoy the legitimate rights:
 firstly, women enjoy equal political rights with men. women have the right, through various channels and in various ways, to administer state and social affairs, and enjoy equal rights to vote and stand for election;
 secondly, women enjoy equal rights with men with respect to culture and education. these cover school admittance, advancement to higher levels of schooling, job assignment after graduation, conferment of academic degrees and being dispatched for study abroad, plus women's rights to engage in scientific and technological research and literary and artistic creation. the government, society, school and family have the responsibility to ensure that the right of female children and adolescents to receive compulsory education is observed.
thirdly, women enjoy equal working rights with men. these mainly include: the right to work and be employed, equal pay for equal work, time-off, on-the-job safety and medical care as well as special labor protection, and social insurance. the law stipulates that any unit, while recruiting employees, is not allowed to refuse to employ women or raise the recruitment standards for women under any pretext. it cannot fire women or unilaterally annul their labor contracts on the pretext of marriage, pregnancy, maternity leave or baby nursing. it is not allowed to discriminate against women in terms of promotion, award of academic and technical titles, allotment of housing and enjoyment of welfare benefits, or to assign women to tasks that are not suitable for them. women enjoy special protection during menstruation, pregnancy, child birth and baby nursing period.
fourthly, women enjoy equal property rights with men. the law stipulates that rural women enjoy the same rights as rural men in the allotment of "responsibility farmland" and "grain-ration farmland" and in the approval of housing sites. with regard to marriage and family property, women enjoy equal ownership and inheritance rights with men. widows have the right to dispose of property they inherit,
without interference from anyone.
fifthly, women enjoy equal rights with men relating to their persons. women enjoy the right to life and health, freedom of the person, the right of portrait, reputation and other rights relating to the person; and they enjoy the right of kinship, guardianship, fame and status as a producer. the law prohibits abandonment and drowning of female babies and other forms of infanticide and bans discrimination against and maltreatment of women who give birth to female babies and women who are sterile. it forbids tormenting women with superstitious and violent means and bans maltreatment or abandonment of aged women. it forbids the abduction and kidnapping of women as well as the sale and purchase of such women. it bans actions to organize, force, seduce, shelter or introduce women to engage in prostitution.
lastly, women enjoy equal rights with men in marriage and the family. the law states that women enjoy equal freedom in marriage and divorce, and the relations between husband and wife are equal. women can use their own surnames and given names and participate in production and social activities. women are subject to special protection with regard to divorce. while clearly delineating the various concrete rights and interests of women, china's legislation amplifies the responsibilities of state organs in protecting women and clarifies the special status and role of the women's federations and other women's organizations in lawsuits, thus establishing a comprehensive legal mechanism for protecting women. among the 54 articles of the law on the protection of the rights and interests of women, 75 percent list in detail the consequences and legal responsibilities for infringements, thus providing an operational legal basis for enforcement of the law.
in sum, it is true that in china much has been done to emancipate women in the past half century, however, china is a developing country. owing to the constraints of social development and the influence of old concepts, the condition of chinese women is still not wholly satisfactory. there exist various difficulties and resistance 
which have prevented the full realization of equal rights to women with respect to their participation in political and government affairs, employment, access to education, as well as marriage and family. instances of looking down upon and discrimination against women and even infringement of their rights still occur from time to time. therefore, certain provisions on the legal rights of women and guarantee mechanisms need to be further improved. at the same time, the government should set up a central mechanism to examine implementation of government policies, expenditure proposals and legislation to ensure equality for both sexes. many things remain to be done.

b. women’s fighting against feudal ideology and self-cultivation
although in the latest several decades, chinese women have made a great historic leap in the enhancement of women’s status. and we can say that women’s situation in present day is totally different from that of old china. however, chinese women today still face discrimination; they are usually treated unfairly in many aspects, and are denied their privilege, certain individuals.
because some immutable and strongly feudal beliefs still remain today, especially in some countryside districts. for example the male still enjoy the dominating status, and men virtually authorize and control women, embodying in social institutions of power, for instance, in the family, law, and government, and their legitimating ideologies. in the country, society is patriarchal. and under patriarchy, maleness is viewed as the norm and is the prevailing perspective, but female is considered to be outside the main stream of the life and society.
traditional feudal ideologies, such as, “husband sings and wife accompanies”, “the male is superior to the female”, “virtuous wife”, “three obedience conception: women obey-first, their fathers; after marriage, their husbands; during widowhood, their sons”, and so on, which are still prevailing in modern chinese society. take “husband sings and wife accompanies” as an example, the expression means that a wife’s obedience to her husband is generally considered as an important requisite for a harmonious and happy family, under such an idea, a wife is not supposed to have her own independent will and opinions, but should unconditionally obey her husband.
as a chinese woman, no matter she is a daughter, a wife, or a mother; she has to carry more unequal responsibility under the traditional gender norm. they have no choice but do all the caring work, such as bearing children, doing housework, which were thought to be women’s obligation. although chinese also women are an important part of the labor force, yet, they always have been cheap labor because of their low education, few choices of jobs, and their heavy load of housework. also, they are under they pressure of traditional idea that “men are mainly responsible in external affairs and women are mainly responsible for internal affairs”. this is a popular traditional idea remaining in modern society, which means that men have the privilege to work outside the home, and men are thought to work outside the home and women should just stay at home. so many men view women working outside the home as against natural law and therefore women should return to their family to attend to household affairs and raise their children. in some poor districts, even if they work, their pay is low and working conditions are poor, and their income is lower than they should obtain.
although the feudal conceptions of china have changed much, the life experiences of chinese women keep influenced by their traditional ethnic or gender norm. therefore, women’s emancipation emphasizes on women’s self-awakeness and their participation in enhancing movement for the women’s status. first, women should know clearly that the ideology “man is noble and woman is humble” is deeply rooted in women’s economic dependence. thus, the enhancement of women’s own economic situation will certainly lead to the improvement of women’s status. second, on today’s it society, the level of education and knowledge play the most important role, and if women want to gain equal opportunities and fair chance with men in society, they must receive a higher education and enlarge their knowledge scope, enrich their economic, political and worldwide affair views.
in sum, to enhance women’s status, chinese women have plunged into an undaunted and historic struggle. the key to their emancipation is to change their values, and not to surrender to traditional feudal ideology, and to eradicate all backward ideas of discriminating against and looking down on women. at the same time, women must set up the idea of self-cultivation, including self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-reliance. all in all, women need to earn their own dignity, respect their own person-hood, and oppose actions that demean themselves. women should believe in their own power, establish a firm faith and reject underestimation of their abilities; they must pursue their cultivation of an independent attitude, fulfill their own potential through social practice, and give up the ideology of dependence 
and weakness
.
 
conclusion
women’s status has been being a hot topic, and people are more and more care about it. although with the development of the society and economy, women’s status has been enhanced, women still suffer unfair treatment from the society and individuals. they enjoy less opportunities and privilege than men. through the discussing the reasons of women’s low status and the comparison of the women’s status in the novel pride and prejudice with in old china, this paper shows that old china was a traditional feudal country, in which the feudal ideology had deeply rooted and limited women’s development. so modern women want to enhance their status, first they must have self-awareness, and let them more self-reliance especially in the aspect of economy. also self-confidence is an important precondition for women’s enhancement of status. additionally, the government should take actions to help women enhance their status and should set up a central mechanism to examine implementation of government policies, expenditure proposals and legislation to ensure equality for both sexes.
 

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