A man may find it as necessary to marry well as a woman--I am thinking particularly of Colonel Fitzwilliam's comments to Lizzie in P&P, when he laments that some men (including himself) do not have free choice in the matter. There was not the urgency for many men as for women, perhaps, since they could exercise a profession.

CW, of course, has made his fortune, and does not have to marry for prudence. But I think it was just expected that a man should marry and start a family. My own parents married in 1966--not for prudence, and not because they were forced to--but it never occurred to either one of them to do anything else. You got married, and then you had kids--that's what you did.