The Dehumanization of Females

Are gender roles another way of dehumanizing females? Does this decrease sympathy for women in the eighteenth century?

"When she was discontented she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news." (Austen 45)

Pride and Prejudice was always one of my favorite books throughout high school and I never really thought to criticize anything about it. It is interesting that Volume 1 of it was placed during the Dehumanization and Sympathy week. As I was reading, I was thinking of these two things in mind and could not get over the fact that the first part of Volume 1 is so completely enthralled with the fact that the daughters HAVE to get married. It is a constant line repeated throughout the first twenty pages of the novel. The girls are looked at as prizes for the men to win in order to get the prettiest, smartest or most polite girl in the room.

Along with that, having her daughters married to handsome and ravishing men seems to be a point of pride for Mrs. Bennett. She is thoroughly concerned with this. The line above seems to paint her as a shallow being who only cares about social stature and gossip at that. Although the girls might want to be married and whisked away within some mystical fantasy, the reader doesn't really gain a clear idea of what their feelings are in the beginning due to the fact that their thoughts aren't really revealed. Therefore, the reader cannot sympathize with the girls because there is no defense for them to reflect upon within the beginning. Once the novel continues on, we are able to learn a little bit about the girls and the dehumanization declines. 

"Oh! You are a great deal too apt you know, to like people in general. You never see a fault in any body. All the world are good and agreeable in your eyes. I never heard you speak ill of a human being in my life." (Austen 53) 

This line is revealed a little bit later within the first volume. We finally are given a chance to witness a conversation between Elizabeth and Jane. This line is spoken by Elizabeth about Jane. It seems that although we get to learn about some of the girls, they are very mild mannered and polite and therefore do not put up a fight. Although we will learn more about the girls at a later time in the novel, it does seem that at the beginning, they are painted as pawns within the game of the eighteenth century. This is a reflection of how females were viewed during the eighteenth century. There wasn't really sympathy for women during this time. They were seen as housewives and just women to marry. It all seems like it was a game and proves that dehumanization takes away from any sympathy that was ever possible.