Men and morality in Mansfield Park.

Men, money and marriage were joined together by a fourth M, Morality. Throughout Mansfield Park we see men determining the course of a women's through the authority they have gained by being the sole heir. As a result, women being the dependent, money less others have been confined to the domestic sphere as items or objects whom are defined by the men whom they associate with. This patriarchal system is maintained by the transference of power from a father to a husband, this marriage represents the ideal of a burgeoning mercantile middle class. Thus Marriage as a contract or a business deal arises, where upon a women sells herself, her body and her sexuality to the highest bidder, this ideal is inculcated into women, who then themselves seek to get their "penny worth" out of this marriage. However, this marriage is a delusion, a myth perpetuated by the men, who represent it as a means for women to escape their plight in life, a mean for them to gain a better a life and transcend social restrictions. However as demonstrated in the case of Maria Bertram, at the end of the day their is no escape, women are forever trapped in this system and the only difference in their situation is that their prison now becomes one made of gold and overflowing with riches, yet it is a prison nonetheless. Thereby it does not offer a means for social mobility as a women's place in life remains stagnated and restricted.The only advantage thus marriage serves is towards the men of the family who gain material benefits along with further social; respectability, hence to safeguard their interests they make use of morality to bind women to this contract. Hence it becomes a duty for women to subvert their sexuality in luie of socially advantageous marriages, one that look good for their male kins, as seen in the case of Thomas Bertram's support of Mary Bertram marriage to an intellectually inferior Mr Rushworth and his support of fanny's marriage to her morally inferior Henry Crawford, despite it being glaringly obvious that none of these women would be happy in this marriage. He was further aid by the fact that they had internalized this mindset of the patriarchal society hence "Maria Bertram was beginning to think matrimony  a duty" and "rule of moral obligation. her evident duty as to marry Mr Rushworth if she could" 

As Mary Crawford puts it,   "everybody should marry as soon a they can do it to their advantage" except in real life it was if they could do it to the material and social advantage of their men folk.