Pride and Prejudice Family Quotes

The business of her life was to get her daughters married - Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice

The business of her life was to get her daughters married.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 1. Here Mrs. Bennet’s life is metaphorically compared to a business, one with a single purpose – to marry off each of her five daughters to wealthy husbands in order that they achieve financial stability. That is her single goal and primary occupation in life. To Mrs. Bennet marriage for a woman is less about following one’s heart and more about economic stability. Austen is satirizing this view of marriage through the character of Mrs. Bennet and her obsession with finding beaux for her daughters.
You will have a charming mother-in-law - Pride and Prejudice

You will have a charming mother-in-law, and of course she will always be at Pemberley with you.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 6. Jealous because Mr. Darcy has expressed admiration for Elizabeth Bennet’s "fine eyes," Caroline Bingley tries to come up with something insulting to say about Elizabeth and her family. She sarcastically suggests that Darcy can look forward to sharing lots of time at his grand Pemberley estate with his new mother-in-law – the tiresome and foolish Mrs. Bennet. Family is an important theme in the novel, and while Elizabeth is a lively and intelligent woman, not all members of her family are as attractive as her.

Jane was therefore obliged to go on horseback, and her mother attended her to the door with many cheerful prognostics of a bad day. Her hopes were answered; Jane had not been gone long before it rained hard. Her sisters were uneasy for her, but her mother was delighted. The rain continued the whole evening without intermission; Jane certainly could not come back.
"This was a lucky idea of mine, indeed!" said Mrs. Bennet more than once, as if the credit of making it rain were all her own.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 7. Mrs. Bennet is obsessed with marrying off her daughters and has little regard for their happiness or welfare. Here she schemes for Jane to travel by horseback rather than carriage to Charles Bingley’s Netherfield home, so that she will have to stay overnight. Mrs. Bennet knows that rain is expected, and when Jane is caught our in it she falls quite ill. Parents are meant to look out for the welfare of their children, but Mrs. Bennet’s harmful parenting leaves a lot to be desired.

Oh! I am not at all afraid of her dying. People do not die of little trifling colds. She will be taken good care of. As long as she stays there, it is all very well. I would go and see her if I could have the carriage.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 7. The incorrigible Mrs. Bennet is dismissive of Jane falling ill after being out in the rain when Mrs. Bennet obliged her to travel on horseback to Netherfield. She is more concerned with Jane getting closes to Mr. Bingley than she is with her daughter’s health. Mrs. Bennet wouldn’t win parent of the year award.

In his library he had always been always sure of leisure and tranquillity; and though prepared…to meet with folly and conceit in every other room in the house, he was used to be free of them there.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 15. Mr. Bennet sees his library not so much as a place of learning but as his escape room. He goes there to find solace in his loveless marriage. But in this instance it’s to get away from the annoying Mr. Collins, who is talking to him non-stop about his house and garden in Hunsford. In hiding himself behind his library books, Mr. Collins neglects his family and his parenting responsibilities towards his daughters.

It has often led him to be liberal and generous, to give his money freely, to display hospitality, to assist his tenants, and relieve the poor. Family pride, and filial pride – for he is very proud of what his father was – have done this. Not to appear to disgrace his family, to degenerate from the popular qualities, or lose the influence of the Pemberley House, is a powerful motive. He has also brotherly pride, which, with some brotherly affection, makes him a very kind and careful guardian of his sister, and you will hear him generally cried up as the most attentive and best of brothers.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 16. George Wickham does have some good things to say to Elizabeth about Mr. Darcy, particularly regarding his family pride. He is proud of his father, kind and caring to his sister Georgiana and would not do anything to disgrace his family or injure the reputation of Pemberley House. What a shame that Wickham doesn’t have similar good qualities.

To Elizabeth it appeared, that had her family made an agreement to expose themselves as much as they could during the evening, it would have been impossible for them to play their parts with more spirit, or finer success; and happy did she think it for Bingley and her sister that some of the exhibition had escaped his notice, and that his feelings were not of a sort to be much distressed by the folly which he must have witnessed.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 18. Elizabeth is mortified by her family’s behavior at the Netherfield ball. Some of the Bennet women are lacking in the social graces and they embarrass Elizabeth when mingling with high class people like the Bingleys and Mr. Darcy.

That his two sisters and Mr. Darcy, however, should have such an opportunity of ridiculing her relations, was bad enough, and she could not determine whether the silent contempt of the gentleman, or the insolent smiles of the ladies, were more intolerable.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 18. Elizabeth is embarrassed by the behavior of her family at the Netherfield ball. She is even more mortified that it has given Mr. Darcy and the Bingley sisters Caroline and Louisa so much ammunition to ridicule her family.

No governess! How was that possible? Five daughters brought up at home without a governess! I have never heard of such a thing. Your mother must have been quite a slave to your education.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 29. The haughty Lady Catherine de Bourgh reacts with shock, on being told by Elizabeth that her family never employed a governess to educate her and her sisters. Every family with young girls needs a governess, she rudely suggests. She uses a metaphor to compare Mrs. Bennet to a slave because she herself had to take charge of her daughters’ education. Elizabeth is attending dinner at Rosings Park, Lady Catherine’s residence, with Charlotte and Mr. Collins.

Do you think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man who has been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister?

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 34. The fallout from Darcy’s marriage proposal goes from bad to worse. Elizabeth accuses him of insulting her and ruining the happiness of her sister Jane. An angry Elizabeth confronts him about his interference in her sister’s relationship with Mr. Bingley. This appears to be her main reason for refusing his proposal, she could not imagine marrying the man who caused her sister’s unhappiness. Elizabeth is close to Jane whom she thinks is a beacon of goodness and she believes Darcy stood between her sister and her happiness with Bingley. Elizabeth is a woman of integrity whose loyalty to family trumps any proposal of marriage, even from a man as wealth as Darcy.

The situation of your mother’s family, though objectionable, was nothing in comparison of that total want of propriety so frequently, so almost uniformly, betrayed by herself, by your three younger sisters, and occasionally even by your father.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 35. Mr. Darcy, in a letter to Elizabeth, criticizes the behavior of the Bennet family at the Netherfield ball. It is not the position of the family that bothers him, he makes clear, but he is shocked by their bad manners. He accuses Elizabeth’s mother and her three younger sisters of a “total want of propriety.” In mentioning Mr. Bennet as one of the lesser offenders, Darcy is obviously blaming him for not keeping his daughters and their silliness in check on the night.

They were hopeless of remedy. Her father, contented with laughing at them, would never exert himself to restrain the wild giddiness of his youngest daughters; and her mother, with manners so far from right herself, was entirely insensible of the evil. Elizabeth had frequently united with Jane in an endeavour to check the imprudence of Catherine and Lydia; but while they were supported by their mother’s indulgence, what chance could there be of improvement? Catherine, weak-spirited, irritable, and completely under Lydia’s guidance, had been always affronted by their advice; and Lydia, self-willed and careless, would scarcely give them a hearing. They were ignorant, idle, and vain. While there was an officer in Meryton, they would flirt with him; and while Meryton was within a walk of Longbourn, they would be going there forever.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 37. Elizabeth reflects on the flaws of her family after reading Darcy’s letter. From her father’s judgmental sarcasm, to the flirtations of her wild youngest sisters Kitty and Lydia, to the unwillingness of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet to control their behavior – the family is beyond remedy, Elizabeth says.

Your profusion makes me saving; and if you lament over him much longer, my heart will be as light as a feather.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 40. When Jane joins Elizabeth in lamenting over how badly Darcy was treated, Elizabeth feels a sense of relief as her sister helps share her distress. Burdened by guilt over her misjudgment of Darcy, Elizabeth uses a simile to compare her heart to a feather. Jane and Elizabeth are two of the closest Bennet sisters and are very supportive of each other.

"Lydia will never be easy until she has exposed herself in some public place or other, and we can never expect her to do it with so little expense or inconvenience to her family as under the present circumstances."
"If you were aware," said Elizabeth, "of the very great disadvantage to us all which must arise from the public notice of Lydia’s unguarded and imprudent manner – nay, which has already arisen from it, I am sure you would judge differently in the affair."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 41. This is Mr. Bennet’s final word on Lydia’s wish to to go to Brighton, where the militia regiment is relocating. A believer in the passive parenting, Mr. Bennet doesn’t see any problem with Lydia’s trip. He thinks there will be little cost or inconvenience for the family if she goes. This is despite his eldest daughter Elizabeth’s warning that Lydia’s wild behavior will impact the family negatively. But Mr. Bennet turns out to be so wrong, and Elizabeth’s worst fears come to pass. This exchange is foreshadowing of the trouble that Lydia is about to bring down on the Bennets.

Our importance, our respectability in the world must be affected by the wild volatility, the assurance and disdain of all restraint which mark Lydia’s character. Excuse me – for I must speak plainly. If you, my dear father, will not take the trouble of checking her exuberant spirits, and of teaching her that her present pursuits are not to be the business of her life, she will soon be beyond the reach of amendment. Her character will be fixed, and she will, at sixteen, be the most determined flirt that ever made herself and her family ridiculous.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 41. Elizabeth lectures her father over his questionable parenting of his youngest daughter Lydia. Fifteen-year-old Lydia has received an invitation from the wife of Colonel Forster to come with the militia regiment to Brighton. But Elizabeth is opposed to the wild and unrestrained Lydia going, ominously warning that she will become the "most determined flirt" and damage the family’s reputation and standing. Mr. Bennet fails to "check" his daughter’s "exuberant spirits" as demanded by Elizabeth, with very troubling consequences later on, as we discover. This foreshadows the scandal Lydia will soon become embroiled in.

Elizabeth, however, had never been blind to the impropriety of her father’s behaviour as a husband. She had always seen it with pain; but respecting his abilities, and grateful for his affectionate treatment of herself, she endeavoured to forget what she could not overlook, and to banish from her thoughts that continual breach of conjugal obligation and decorum which, in exposing his wife to the contempt of her own children, was so highly reprehensible. But she had never felt so strongly as now the disadvantages which must attend the children of so unsuitable a marriage.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 42. Even Mr. Bennet’s favorite daughter Elizabeth is critical of his behavior as a husband. She reflects on his "reprehensible" treatment of his wife by continually exposing her to the contempt of her own children. Elizabeth feels strongly that her parents are unsuited to one another and this has disadvantaged their children.

On reaching the spacious lobby above they were shown into a very pretty sitting-room, lately fitted up with greater elegance and lightness than the apartments below; and were informed that it was but just done to give pleasure to Miss Darcy, who had taken a liking to the room when last at Pemberley.
"He is certainly a good brother," said Elizabeth, as she walked towards one of the windows.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 43. Family is important to Darcy and he is a good and caring brother, Elizabeth discovers when she is taken into an attractive sitting room. His sister Georgiana took a liking to the room when she last visited Pemberley, so Darcy had it more elegantly fitted out for her pleasure.

The picture-gallery, and two or three of the principal bedrooms, were all that remained to be shown. In the former were many good paintings; but Elizabeth knew nothing of the art; and from such as had been already visible below, she had willingly turned to look at some drawings of Miss Darcy’s, in crayons, whose subjects were usually more interesting, and also more intelligible.
In the gallery there were many family portraits, but they could have little to fix the attention of a stranger. Elizabeth walked in quest of the only face whose features would be known to her. At last it arrested her – and she beheld a striking resemblance to Mr. Darcy, with such a smile over the face as she remembered to have sometimes seen when he looked at her. She stood several minutes before the picture, in earnest contemplation, and returned to it again before they quitted the gallery. Mrs. Reynolds informed them that it had been taken in his father’s lifetime.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 43. There is much homage to family in Darcy’s portrait gallery in Pemberley, Elizabeth discovers when she views it. Many family portraits are on view. Elizabeth is interested in the drawings of Georgiana but is particularly drawn to the portrait of Mr. Darcy himself. She stands for several minutes before Darcy’s likeness in deep contemplation, even returning for a second look after they quit the gallery. Darcy is wearing the same smile that Elizabeth remembers when he sometimes looked at her. Elizabeth learns from the housekeeper that the picture was taken in his father’s lifetime.

Miss Bingley was venting her feelings in criticisms on Elizabeth’s person, behaviour, and dress. But Georgiana would not join her. Her brother’s recommendation was enough to ensure her favour: his judgment could not err, and he had spoken in such terms of Elizabeth as to leave Georgiana without the power of finding her otherwise than lovely and amiable.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 45. After Elizabeth and her aunt leave Pemberley, Caroline just can’t stop herself making spiteful comments about Elizabeth. But Georgiana refuses to join in, she trusts her brother Fitzwilliam Darcy’s good judgement that Elizabeth is nothing other than "lovely and amiable." The close family bond between Georgiana and her brother is evident here. There is much irony in Caroline criticizing Elizabeth’s behavior, since she herself is guilty of behaving badly.

She is very young; she has never been taught to think on serious subjects; and for the last half-year, nay, for a twelvemonth – she has been given up to nothing but amusement and vanity. She has been allowed to dispose of her time in the most idle and frivolous manner, and to adopt any opinions that came in her way. Since the -shire were first quartered in Meryton, nothing but love, flirtation, and officers have been in her head.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 47. Elizabeth is highly critical of Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Bennet and their parenting of Lydia – of lack of it! She blames her teen sister’s lack of moral integrity and fall on them. They have neglected to educate her properly on serious matters. And they allowed her to indulge herself in amusement, vanity and idleless, so that her head is filled with flirtation, love and militia officers.

I feel myself called upon, by our relationship, and my situation in life, to condole with you on the grievous affliction you are now suffering under…No arguments shall be wanting on my part, that can alleviate so severe a misfortune – or that may comfort you, under a circumstance that must be, of all others, most afflicting to a parent’s mind. The death of your daughter would have been a blessing in comparison of this. And it is the more to be lamented, because there is reason to suppose, as my dear Charlotte informs me, that this licentiousness of behaviour in your daughter, has proceeded from a faulty degree of indulgence, though, at the same time, for the consolation of yourself and Mrs. Bennet, I am inclined to think that her own disposition must be naturally bad, or she could not be guilty of such an enormity, at so early an age…Let me advise you then, my dear Sir, to console yourself as much as possible, to throw off your unworthy child from your affection for ever, and leave her to reap the fruits of her own heinous offence.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 48. Clergymen console members of their flock who are in pain or difficulty in different ways. But Mr. Collins’s style is the most unique and strangest of all. On the matter of Lydia’s elopement and promiscuous behavior, he writes to Mr. Bennet to "condole" with him on his "grevious affliction." Then he suggests that the death of his daughter would have been a blessing in comparison with this. He goes on to insult the family, criticizing the parents for their bad parenting by indulging Lydia. Then he advises Mr. Bennet to disown his daughter. Austen is satirizing Collins here and being wickedly ironic. The irony is in the fact that it is supposed to be a consolation letter, but most of it is spent attacking the Bennet family.

You are grievously to be pitied; in which opinion I am not only joined by Mrs. Collins, but likewise by Lady Catherine and her daughter, to whom I have related the affair. They agree with me in apprehending that this false step in one daughter will be injurious to the fortunes of all the others; for who, as Lady Catherine herself condescendingly says, will connect themselves with such a family? And this consideration leads me moreover to reflect, with augmented satisfaction, on a certain event of last November; for had it been otherwise, I must have been involved in all your sorrow and disgrace.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 48. When Lydia runs off with Wickham, Mr. Collins effectively kicks the Bennet family when they are down. In an extremely rude letter of condolences to Mr. Bennet, he tells him that Lydia’s promiscuous behavior will harm the prospects of the rest of his daughters marrying well. He plays the class card and quotes his patroness Lady Catherine saying that nobody will want to have anything to do with such a family. Recalling Elizabeth’s rejection of his own marriage proposal, Mr. Collins counts his blessings that he didn’t marry into the family, as this would have involved him in their disgrace.

Well! I am so happy! In a short time I shall have a daughter married. Mrs. Wickham! – how well it sounds! And she was only sixteen last June.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 49. After her previous regrets and lamentations about Lydia’s elopement and hurling invectives against the "villainous" Wickham, Mrs. Bennet is now in raptures over her daughter marrying him. Mrs. Bennet flip flops a lot between ecstacy over her schemes to get husbands for her daughters and lamentations about her personal suffering when these don’t work. After receiving her brother Mr. Gardiner’s letter that Lydia is to be wed to Wickham and her reputation saved, Mrs. Bennet suddenly reverses her opinion on the character of the fortune-hunting Wickham. Now he is fit to be her son-in-law. Here again the shallow, foolish, tiresome and vacuous Mrs. Bennet makes us laugh – but at her! The passage is another example of Austen’s fine use of ironic humor. Mr. Gardiner’s letter explains that Wickham will wed Lydia if Mr. Bennet pays Wickham a small sum of money annually to Wickham – the Bennets suspect that Mr. Gardiner has also already paid Wickham a good deal. The fuller quote of Mrs. Bennet’s reaction to this news from her brother: "It is all very right; who should do it but her own uncle? If he had not had a family of his own, I and my children must have had all his money, you know; and it is the first time we have ever had anything from him, except a few presents. Well! I am so happy! In a short time I shall have a daughter married. Mrs. Wickham! How well it sounds!"

The Bennets were speedily pronounced to be the luckiest family in the world, though only a few weeks before, when Lydia had first run way, they had been generally proved to be marked out for misfortune.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 55. After Jane’s engagement to Bingley is announced, the Bennets are seen as the luckiest family in the world. But after the good news, bad news is about to comes knocking at their front door once more – in the shape of Lady Catherine de Bourgh gunning for Elizabeth.

Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 56. Lady Catherine de Bourgh admonishes Elizabeth over the idea of her marrying Mr. Darcy. Displaying her extreme snobbery and vanity, Lady Catherine travels all the way from her estate to the Bennets’ home to ensure that her pure family blood is not "polluted" by what she sees as an unthinkable alliance between her nephew and Bennets with their inferior blood. This is the fuller quote from the desperate lady: "Not so hasty, if you please. I have by no means done. To all the objections I have already urged, I have still another to add. I am no stranger to the particulars of your youngest sister’s infamous elopement. I know it all: that the young man’s marrying her was a patched-up business, at the expence of your father and uncle. And is such a girl to be my nephew’s sister? Is her husband, is the son of his late father’s steward, to be his brother? Heaven and earth – of what are you thinking? Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?"

I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. Unfortunately an only son (for many years an only child), I was spoilt by my parents, who, though good themselves (my father, particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable), allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing; to care for none beyond my own family circle; to think meanly of all the rest of the world; to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I was, from eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 58. Mr. Darcy’s journey to self-discovery has brought him to this important moment of clarity and humility. Darcy has just proposed to Elizabeth and she has accepted. In this speech to Elizabeth he acknowledges his selfishness and pride and vanity all his life, having being spoiled by both parents. His father taught him to be overbearing, to care for none outside his family circle, and also to think meanly of the worth of others compared to his own. He acknowledges the debt that he owes to Elizabeth for changing all that: humbling him and ridding him of his pretensions. His deep love for Elizabeth comes through when he tenderly refers to her as "a woman worthy of being pleased."
    • 1
    • 2
Close