In Pride and Prejudice, each character is trying to protect, or build a good reputation in the town for their family. Most of the Bennets have this in mind, and this is because due to Mr Bennet’s will, his daughters would have to find a husband. If the family did not have a good reputation then it would be very hard for the five girls to find husbands, therefore once their father died they would have to find a place of living elsewhere, and their cousin Mr Collins would be in receipt of Longbourn.

Throughout the whole novel, at social events may it be a ball or somebody has visited the Bennets, Jane and Elizabeth are both very conscious of what idea Mrs Bennet is giving to people of them, such as Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy. The Bennets are at quite a few social events that include possible husbands for the girls, and Mrs Bennet always seems to be at the extreme of an emotion. She is not portrayed as a calm character, and in this way is similar to her younger daughters Kitty and Lydia. Lydia was overwhelmed by the arrival of the soldiers, and was completely obsessed with them from the moment they arrived. She was very flirtatious around them, when she bumped into them in the village she was over friendly, and they enjoyed the company. Kitty, of course followed suit. She was influenced by her younger sister and both girls liked spending time with the Captains. This was good for the family name, as they were known for four of their daughters to be making good friends with the gentlemen. They were flirtatious and "...Catherine and Lydia had been fortunate enough never to be without partners, which was all that they had yet learnt to care for at a ball.”. This quote shows how carefree they are- nothing matters because they are too young to be needing to find a husband. It is also ironic, because little did they know that Lydia would soon be the first married out of all her sisters at the age of fifteen. She later gossips about the Harringtons and how her aunt Philips thinks that Elizabeth should have married Mr Collins, and bursts, "Have you seen any pleasant men? Have you had any flirting? I was in great hopes that one of you would have got a husband before you came back. Jane will be quite an old maid soon, I declare. She is almost three-and-twenty! Lord, how ashamed I should be of not being married before three- and-twenty!”. She is inconsiderate in what she chooses what to say, and she just talks with no filter. She tends to exclaim suddenly rather than explaining slowly.

Elizabeth must not only cope with a distant father, an eccentric mother, two wildly behaved younger siblings and a square younger sister, she has to deal with many conflicts within her family. One of these conflicts was when Mr Collins, Elizabeth’s cousin, proposed to her. Elizabeth’s idea of marriage is with somebody who she loves, and equally loves her back. Her mother and father had very different opinions on the proposal, as expected. One afternoon her father calls her into his office to speak to her parents privately, and explains that ”An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do.”. This makes Mrs Bennet very uneasy, but Elizabeth then realises that her father is supporting her, by saying that he would agree with her with the refusal, Elizabeth feels more comfortable with the situation. In the third volume she has to defend herself against Lady Catherine, when she comes to Longbourn to criticise Elizabeth for marrying Mr Darcy before he has even proposed a second time. She is protective of her family, and when Lady de Bourgh objects the Bennets due to their low connections, she defends them and strongly states that she is in fact equal to Mr Darcy because "He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman's daughter; so far we are equal.”. Elizabeth shows that she is a strong and independent woman, even when her social superior, who in this scenario is Lady Catherine, tries to avoid her nephew marrying Elizabeth.

In Pride and Prejudice, the role of family is important. The novel is somewhat based around the security of families, and the social connections that they have. For marriage, the husband would have to get to know the family briefly, and then the courteous thing to do was to ask the girl’s father for his blessing for their marriage. Mrs Bennet has been waiting her whole life for her daughters to get married, and this contrasts her other half, Mr Bennet. He is very laid back in his daughters’ love lives and leaves Mrs Bennet the excitement of finding her daughters a husband. It is ironic because when the time comes for Jane to be proposed to, Mrs Bennet physically is not ready. She is described as running to Jane’s room in her dressing gown with the news; “He came, and in such very good time that the ladies were none of them dressed. In ran Mrs. Bennet to her daughter's room, in her dressing gown, and with her hair half finished…”. Mr Bingley has come to propose to Jane and Mrs Bennet is not ready for it. This shows that her whole life has been a design, and she has tried to plan everything, but whilst she is planning her daughters life she has no time to prepare herself.

In conclusion, family in Pride and Prejudice is significant because family is the foundation of each person’s life, especially daughters. In the time that Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice, families were thought of as your immediate family, since people often married their cousins.