Janeite
Janeitism did not begin until after the publication of J. E. Austen-Leigh's "A Memoir of Jane Austen" in 1870, when the literary elite felt that they had to separate their appreciation of Austen from that of the masses. The term "Janeite" was originally coined by the literary scholar George Saintsbury in his 1894 introduction to a new edition of "Pride and Prejudice". As Austen scholar Deidre Lynch explains, "he meant to equip himself with a badge of honor he could jubilantly pin to his own lapel". In the early twentieth century, Janeitism was "principally a male enthusiasm shared among publishers, professors, and literati". Rudyard Kipling even published a short story entitled "The Janeites" about a group of World War I soldiers who were secretly fans of Austen's novels.
Pride and Prejudice
Mr. Bennet of the Longbourn estate has five daughters but his property is entailed, meaning that none of the girls can inherit it. His wife has no fortune, so it is imperative that at least one of the girls marry well to support the others upon his death. Jane Austen's opening line, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife", is a sentence filled with irony and playfulness. The novel revolves around the importance of marrying for love, not simply for money, despite the social pressures to make a good (i.e., wealthy) match.