The Austin novels made a lot more sense to me when I started to think of them as closer to tales of corporate Mergers & Acquisitions, rather than love stories. The rich familes then were like large corporations are now, and a marriage was a very financial merger.

I think I realised this when I first read Pride and Prejudice and the main character started talking about basically falling in love with the Pemberley estate.

Thereafter, any time I visit an English country house with extensive gardens, the massive wealth expenditure to create them makes a lot more sense when you view them as M&A marketing budget.

This is hopefully too cynical, and the truth is somewhere in between - but it's equally naive to read Austen as straight love stories with a modern perspective - there's a lot of clear focus on the incomes and social situations in the text.