Editing Sense and Sensibility (section)

===Societal themes===
A common theme of Austen criticism has been on the legal aspects of society and the family, particularly wills, the rights of first and second sons, and lines of inheritance. Gene Ruoff's book ''Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility'' explores these issues in an extended discussion of the novel. The first two chapters deal extensively with the subject of wills and the discourse of inheritance. These topics reveal what Ruoff calls "the cultural fixation on priority of male birth".<ref name=":6">{{Cite book|title=Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility|last=Ruoff|first=Gene|publisher=Harvester Wheatshaff|year=1992}}</ref> According to Ruoff, male birth is by far the dominant issue in these legal conversations. Ruoff observes that, within the linear family, the order of male birth decides issues of eligibility and merit.<ref name=":6" /> When Robert Ferrars becomes his mother's heir, Edward is no longer appealing to his "opportunistic" fiancée Lucy, who quickly turns her attention to the foppish Robert and "entraps him" in order to secure the inheritance for herself.<ref name=":6" /> Ruoff comments that Lucy is specifically aiming for the heir because of the monetary advantage.<ref name=":6" /> William Galperin, in his book ''The History Austen,'' comments on the tendency of this system of patriarchal inheritance and earning as working to ensure the vulnerability of women.<ref name=":7">{{Cite book|title=The History Austen|url=https://archive.org/details/historicalausten0000galp|url-access=registration|last=Galperin|first=William H.|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|year=2003}}</ref> Because of this vulnerability, Galperin contends that ''Sense and Sensibility'' shows [[Marriage in the works of Jane Austen|marriage]] as the only practical solution "against the insecurity of remaining [[An Unmarried Woman|an unmarried woman]]."<ref name=":7" />

[[Feminist literary criticism|Feminist]] critics have long been engaged in conversations about Jane Austen, and ''Sense and Sensibility'' has figured in these discussions, especially in the context of the patriarchal system of inheritance and earning. Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar's seminal [[Feminist theory|feminist]] work ''[[The Madwoman in the Attic|The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Imagination]]'' contains several discussions of this novel. The authors read the beginning of ''Sense and Sensibility'' as a retelling of ''[[King Lear]]'' from a female perspective and contend that these "reversals imply that male traditions need to be evaluated and reinterpreted from a female perspective."<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|title=The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination|url=https://archive.org/details/madwomaninattic00sand|url-access=registration|last1=Gilbert|first1=Sandra M.|last2=Gubar|first2=Susan|publisher=Yale University Press|year=1979|pages=[https://archive.org/details/madwomaninattic00sand/page/120 120]–172}}</ref> Gilbert and Gubar argue that Austen explores the effects of patriarchal control on women, particularly in the spheres of employment and inheritance. In ''Sense and Sensibility'' they educe the fact that Mr. John Dashwood cuts off his stepmother and half sisters from their home as well as promised income, as an instance of these effects. They also point to the "despised" Mrs. Ferrars's tampering with the patriarchal line of inheritance in her disowning of her elder son, Edward Ferrars, as proof that this construction is ultimately arbitrary.<ref name=":2" /> Gilbert and Gubar contend that while ''Sense and Sensibility'''s ultimate message is that "young women like Marianne and Elinor must submit to powerful conventions of society by finding a male protector", women such as Mrs. Ferrars and Lucy Steele demonstrate how women can "themselves become agents of repression, manipulators of conventions, and survivors."<ref name=":2" /> In order to protect themselves and their own interests, Mrs. Ferrars and Lucy Steele must participate in the same patriarchal system that oppresses them.

In the chapter "''Sense and Sensibility:'' Opinions Too Common and Too Dangerous", from her book ''Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel,'' [[Claudia L. Johnson|Claudia Johnson]] also gives a feminist reading of ''Sense and Sensibility.'' She differs from previous critics, especially the earliest ones, in her contention that ''Sense and Sensibility'' is not, as it is often assumed to be, a "dramatized conduct book" that values "female prudence" (associated with Elinor's sense) over "female impetuosity" (associated with Marianne's sensibility).<ref name=":3">{{Cite book|title=Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel|last=Johnson|first=Claudia|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=1988|pages=49–72|chapter="Sense and Sensibility: Opinions Too Common and Too Dangerous"}}</ref> Rather, Johnson sees ''Sense and Sensibility'' as a "dark and disenchanted novel" that views "institutions of order" such as property, marriage, and family in a negative light, an attitude that makes the novel the "most attuned to social criticism" of Austen's works.<ref name=":3" /> According to Johnson, ''Sense and Sensibility'' critically examines the codes of propriety as well as their enforcement by the community.<ref name=":3" /> Key to Austen's criticism of society, runs Johnson's argument, is the depiction of the unfair marginalisation of women resulting from the "death or simple absence of male protectors."<ref name=":3" /> Additionally, the male characters in ''Sense and Sensibility'' are depicted unfavourably. Johnson calls the gentlemen in ''Sense and Sensibility'' "uncommitted sorts" who "move on, more or less unencumbered by human wreckage from the past."<ref name=":3" /> Johnson compares Edward to Willoughby in this regard, claiming that all of the differences between them as individuals do not hide the fact that their failures are actually identical; Johnson calls them both "weak, duplicitous, and selfish," lacking the honesty and forthrightness with which Austen endows other "exemplary gentlemen" in her work.<ref name=":3" /> 

[[Mary Poovey]]'s analysis in ''The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer: Ideology as Style in the Works of [[Mary Wollstonecraft]], [[Mary Shelley]] and Jane Austen'' concurs with Johnson's on the dark tone of ''Sense and Sensibility.'' Poovey contends that ''Sense and Sensibility'' has a "somber tone" in which conflict breaks out between Austen's engagement with her "self-assertive characters" and the moral codes necessary to control their potentially "anarchic" desires.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book|title=The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer: Ideology as Style in the Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley and Jane Austen|url=https://archive.org/details/properladywomanw0000poov|url-access=registration|last=Poovey|first=Mary|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=1984|isbn=9780226675282}}</ref> Austen shows, according to Poovey, this conflict between individual desire and the restraint of moral principles through the character of Elinor herself.<ref name=":4" /> Except for Elinor, all of the female characters in ''Sense and Sensibility'' experience some kind of female excess. Poovey argues that while Austen does recognise "the limitations of social institutions", she demonstrates the necessity of controlling the "dangerous excesses of female feeling" rather than liberating them.<ref name=":4" /> She does so by demonstrating that Elinor's self-denial, especially in her keeping of Lucy Steele's secret and willingness to help Edward, even though both of these actions were hurtful to her, ultimately contribute to her own contentment and that of others.<ref name=":4" /> In this way, Poovey contends that Austen suggests that the submission to society that Elinor demonstrates is the proper way to achieve happiness in life.