Women on the Road: Women in Patriarchal Society in Sense and Sensibility

Abstract

Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility is a drama about women’s love and marriage. She translates women’s fates in her time into her novel. In her novel, women are not socially independent and the problem of sense and sensibility is not rightly handled. Women, especially those young unmarried women, are just traveling on the road with marriage as their destination. Women’s education leads them to develop in sensibility and utilitarianism. Austen firmly believes that women, in order to maintain their selves, must cultivate their sense. To make a perfect marriage, women should consider not only money, but also love. This paper is a brief discussion about Austen’s treatment of women in Sense and Sensibility.