The social
expectation in is that women will marry. Anything else is unacceptable.
Women are also expected to marry a person of their own class.
Harriet shows
how unacceptable it is for a woman not to marry when she expresses deep shock at Emma's
declaration that she will never marry. To be an old maid like Miss Bates is, to Harriet, a
terrible fate. Emma actually agrees with her, saying it is ridiculous to be unmarried and poor,
but that she, Emma, will be an unmarried older woman with money, so people will fear and respect
her. But in the end, threatened with spinsterhood when she finds out the Jane Fairfax is
marrying Frank and when she fears Mr. Knightley will marry Harriet, she wants desperately to
marry Mr. Knightley herself. Partly...
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