Handsome Young Men

"Kitty and Lydia take [Wickham's] defection much more to heart than I do. They are young in the ways of the world, and now yet open to the mortifying conviction that handsome young men must have something to live on, as well as the plain." (Austen 145).

This passage, spoken by Elizabeth to her aunt Mrs. Gardiner, is a good example not only of the themes of class structure and financials that are present in the novel, but also a good example of Austen's wonderful character-building in the characters of Lydia and Kitty. Mr. Wickham is an officer, a low-rank, without much money. This means that, in those days, although he was handsome, young, and appeared to be charming, he was not necessarily thought very highly of, and could not do whatever he liked, such as marry someone (like Elizabeth) without very much money; they would not have been well-supported. This theme is an important one in the book, as the girls are always trying to marry to their financial advantage since they have not very much inheritance.
Kitty and Lydia are, as Elizabeth says, young and foolish, which are the essential points of both their characters, although they try to make themselves mature and womanly by flirting and marrying at a young age. They don't yet know (and, in Lydia's case at least, perhaps never will know,) the social etiquette of the time, or these rules of class structure that held up their society.