Chapter Social Hierarchies of Sense and Sensibility - Study Guide by Jane Austen

The pattern of dependence in Sense and Sensibility is enlarged by Austen's concern with financial dependence. Both Willoughby and Edward Ferrars are dependent for their fortunes on older female relations, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Ferrars. Both women use their influence to interfere in the two men's choice of wives. Mrs. Smith disinherits Willoughby because she has found out about his seduction of Eliza Williams, which forces him to reject Marianne and marry the wealthy Miss Grey. Ironically, she eventually relents; had Willoughby remained loyal to Marianne he would have ended up with money and the woman he loved rather than making an unhappy marriage just for the sake of being rich. Mrs. Ferrars is determined that Edward will marry well and choose a wife whose fortune matches her own. When she discovers that Edward is engaged to Lucy Steele, she disowns him. Elinor, after she and Edward have become engaged, advises him to humble himself to his mother, as a result of which Edward ends up getting exactly what Willoughby was denied: the money and the right wife. There is a neat parallel in their fates: Edward could have married Lucy, but actually marries Elinor as a reward for his virtue while Willoughby could have married Marianne but actually marries Miss Grey as a punishment for his greed.

Elinor and Marianne have inherited a small amount of money and no land from their father; the novel opens with a sharp drop in their fortunes from the eminence of Norland to the lowliness of Barton. They are considerably the poorer for the descent and are dependent on their stepbrother for the extra income to which their father felt they were entitled. John Dashwood, however, is persuaded by his wife not to give them any money. The John Dashwoods have used their position of power to disadvantage others, just as Sir John Middleton, in a much more well-meaning way, has used his to compromise Elinor and Marianne socially. The social code of manners and consideration has been over-ridden by insensitivity and greed. In a battle of manners and wealth, wealth has won. Austen suggests, however, that it is a hollow victory. For manners to triumph in the same battle, as it does in the case of Edward and his mother, is a far worthier victory.

The route offered to the heroines out of social and financial unease and dependency is marriage. This, however, could be seen as a new form of dependency. The examples of the unmarried Miss Bates (Emma) or the widowed Mrs. Smith (Persuasion) are enough to make clear the financial disadvantages of being without male support. The only exception is Emma Woodhouse, who does not have to marry to be materially comfortable. Her own family is sufficiently wealthy to give her a truly free choice over whether she marries or not. Elinor and Marianne receive financial stability from their husbands (though, in the case of Elinor, only with the help of Mrs. Ferrars); equally importantly, they are also assured of good company for the rest of their lives. By choosing well, Austen's heroines can take their place at the top of the hierarchy of manners with other happy couples such as Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner (Pride and Prejudice) and Admiral and Mrs. Croft (Persuasion), and avoid the fate of the novels' much more numerous ill-matched couples. In Sense and Sensibility, Elinor and Marianne and their husbands promise to form the core of good Devon society in their community at Delaford. We are presented with a similar community in Derbyshire at the end of Pride and Prejudice. The Delaford community, however, is completely detached from its opponents in London, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Ferrars and Mr. and Mrs. John Dashwood. The characters who are superior in manners and consideration simply remove themselves from inferior society and cease to live in a diverse community. Potentially harmful people, such as Willoughby, Lucy Steele and the John Dashwoods, are no longer a threat to Elinor and Marianne, who have steered a course through all the obstacles between them and the safe harbour of a happy marriage. By the point that this harbour has been reached, all potential for drama in the narratives has been expended and the novels have no choice but to end.

Austen's novels touch on the possibility of disappointment or disaster for the heroines, and in Sense and Sensibility, this possibility is more real than it is elsewhere, but they always end with social and financial rewards equivalent to the positions of the heroines in the hierarchy of manners. This, Austen is clear, is the hierarchy that really matters. Nonetheless, she would not dream of depriving her heroines of the financial stability which, as Elinor observes, is crucial to happiness (p. 117). Austen shares both Elinor's high ideals and her pragmatism. I shall explore the relationship between these two sides of her character and its contribution to the contrast between her and Marianne in the next section.