The intertwined subjects of love, courtship and marriage are the impetus of all of Jane Austen’s novels. The couples in the books are making their own love matches; coming together based on attractiveness, compatibility, and intimacy rather than being subjected to the arranged marriages of previous centuries for wealth, status and family advancement.
A woman of the Georgian and Regency period had no other occupation than to find a husband and of course, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."
To this end, couples had to navigate through an established and inflexible etiquette developed over time to protect the woman's character and good name thus ensuring her viability on the marriage market but needless to say made courtship very difficult . To modern readers of the novels, the prohibitions put upon unmarried males and females of private conversation, correspondence, and even touching are seemingly too numerous to overcome in the pursuit of love.
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