The Sisterhood in Pride and Prejudice

Abstract

Although Pride and Prejudice is often read as a romance, its representation of sisterhood deserves closer attention. This essay argues that sisterhood operates not as an alternative to but as a support system within the marriage market. Through Elizabeth Bennet’s relationships with Jane Bennet and Charlotte Lucas, Austen shows that genuine sisterhood requires trust and the capacity to tolerate disagreement. Set against Caroline Bingley’s strategic sociability and the Bennet sisters’ kinship without solidarity, these contrasts reveal that the marriage market makes women both allies and rivals, and that sisterhood is simultaneously enabled and constrained by the material pressures of marriage and status in a male-dominated society. Austin’s description thus explains under patriarchy why sisterhood is fragile and how it can be maintained persistently.