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Austen's Pride and Prejudice reveals a society based on manners: In this society, the well-being of everyone relies on people maintaining their proper places and behaving according to a strict code of manners. For the Bennet sisters, their chances of marriage depreciates with every show of impropriety.
From the opening scene, it is important to understand the very real danger that faces the Bennet sisters if they do not marry. Upon Mr. Bennet's death, the sisters' cousin, Mr. Collins, will inherit the small Longbourn estate. That means that the family will have no source of income and no place to live. A marriage of one of the girls to a wealthy man is one of the few remaining options for the family, though the girls suffer from having an incredibly small dowry to attract a man with.
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." Chapter 1-- signifies that a man's role is to secure a family after acquiring support for that family.
If a woman is partial to a man, and does not endeavour to conceal it, he must find it out. Chapter 6--again on the roles of a woman.
"Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life." Chapter 6 further reveals the roles of people in the society in which Austen wrote.
Jane Austen's most famous work portrays a society fixed in social class, fixed in gender identity, and fixed in familial relationships with the patriarch as head of household, of course.
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