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Notes -
That's certainly the plot of Jane Austen's books - but the theme of the "bastardized modern version" is the conclusion a modern person would draw even if they read the originals.
Yes, the heroines of Jane Austen books have to marry for sound financial reasons. That is not an endorsement of marriage! It's an endorsement of having enough money. For a fun romantic fiction, it's still an excellent plot device to make your character have to go flirt with someone, and then you write about the ups and downs of the flirting versus the finances. The lesson a modern woman takes is that you should have your own apartment and job, and then you will never have to flirt with anyone except Mr. Darcy.
Of course, the point of the "Prejudice" in the "Pride and Prejudice" is that you might not want to flirt with Mr. Darcy either, and you might need to get over yourself and think twice to land a really good match, but that's typically not the theme I see emphasized by modern readers.
Sure, modern adaptations like to recast them as fun romances in pretty frocks. That's the success of Bridgerton, as it took the Regency Romance genre and just made a few changes to bring it up to modern tastes. But Austen is not a Regency Romance (though she might have influenced the genre) and her practicality about "these are the economic facts of life" as well as "what is marriage about? what is love?" are not the same "marry rich" or "get your own money then you can chase the sexual passion" tropes.
She contrasts the mere mercantile marriages for money, which are often unhappy for various reasons, and the romantic entanglements where it's all about passion and sex (from the imprudence of Lydia running off with Wickham, to other relationships in the novels where the attraction is superficial, based on a romantic notion derived from pop culture, and is often revealed to be shallow, fake, and undependable). 'Find someone who you can respect and who respects you, with similar values, and both of you live by a code of honour' is her ultimate message. Elizabeth Bennett gets a rich husband, but not all her heroines do. What matters more is someone compatible, honest, and virtuous. And that holds for what the men should be like, as well as the women.
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Well, a superficial reader who only sees things through a modern lens, sure. But I could similarly recast the story of Les Miserables, Great Expectations, or Madame Bovary with shallow chick-lit themes. This is why actually reading and understanding literature is important, and it's hardly fair to blame Jane Austen for inspiring chick-flicks loosely based on her novels.
I think a lot of people do still read the old classics and "get" what the actual point was, but this is incidentally why I disagree with the popular sentiment that high school English classes are terrible and kill love of reading by making teenagers read old books they may not necessarily enjoy. Not all books are supposed to be "easy" or "fun."
(Though I maintain that Dickens and Austen are actually enjoyable reads; I liked Dickens even in high school. Madame Bovary, on the other hand, was not a book I think any teenager can really relate to. I found it horribly boring in high school, and reread it as an adult and appreciated it much more.)
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