Kärlekens funktion i giftermålsbeslut : Materialistisk feminism i Jane Austens Emma, Stolthet och Fördom och Northanger Abbey.

In Jane Austen’s Emma, Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey there is a central theme of finding a marriage partner from economic, social and love perspectives. The focus of this essay is to look from a materialist feminist perspective at how these factors influence the characters’ marital matches. I have also looked at how love as a sought after ideal in marriage conceals the social and economic factors’ influence. The novels all discuss how women’s marginalized economic position forces them to marry. Social factors such as women’s need to find a husband and their expected domestic role have also had an influence. Love works in the novels to support the oppression of women by justifying marriage and concealing women’s unequal role in society.