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Not surprisingly, very soon Mr. Elton gets engaged to Miss Hawkins. Austen ironically writes: “he had gained a woman of 10,000 pounds, or thereabouts; and he had gained her with such delightful rapidity.” But Mrs. Elton is actually a vain, self-important, presuming, ignorant, and ill-bred woman. Except for her fortune, she is not at all Harriet's superior in every aspect. However, this marriage does satisfy both the wife and the husband. As for Mrs. Elton, her vanity is gratified and as to Mr. Elton, the property that his wife brings will guarantee his comfort and dignity in future. This defective marriage without true love is satirized by Jane Austen
 
    In the time of Emma lived, Britain was undergoing a transition from the earlier stage of capitalism to capitalist industrialization, bourgeoisie was more and more important in Britain. Mrs. Elton is a daughter of a businessman, she is the representation of bourgeoisie, and Emma is the representation of aristocrat, so they looked down upon each other, Mrs. Elton’s eagerness to demonstrate her superiority over others, represented the consciousness of bourgeoisie. The consciousness of enhancing its social status, the consciousness of defeating the aristocrat, to some degree, Mrs. Elton’s consciousness of to be competitive is a great  aspect of feminist consciousness
   

Ⅳ.Class Limitation in Jane Austen’s Feminist consciousness
 
4.1 Over-emphasis on the Importance of money in Women’s Destiny
 
In Austen's eyes marriage always performs a complex function in women's destiny. Marriage establishes economic security and social status; it provides a professionless class with the occupation to take care of children that is potentially to the individual as well as to the society. Thus, it is not surprising that the state of marriage is not only essential to a tolerable existence for most women, but it is, for the English girl of Jane Austen's day, “the one time in her life when her destiny lay not in her family's hands, or in her husband's, but to a significant degree in her own”.
 
Austen has a clear understanding of the function of money in daily life, especially in marriage. In the time of the Regency when Austen lived, Britain was undergoing a transition from the earlier stage of Capitalism to Capitalist Industrialization. Money was getting more and more important in people's mind.
 
Although Jane Austen emphasized the importance of love to a successful marriage, she had never overlooked the indispensable role of money in a satisfactory match, in particular in women's marriages. In Emma, though Frank's mother marries poor Captain Weston out of love, this marriage turns out to be a failure. The couple lives on the husband's narrow income. The unhappy wife dies and leaves her husband poorer and unhappier than ever.
 
Although Jane Austen insisted that love was the very of a marriage, she was no romantic in her toward marriage. In fact, novels showed ironically that the period of courtship was the least period of a woman's life, the one moment in which her entire future----social, emotional and economical----was decided. As a result, many male critics from Walter Scott to Marvin Mudrick complained Jane Austen overvalued the “mercenary” motive in a woman's choice of husband.
 
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