The opening sentence says that a rich single man must be in want of a wife.
Jane Austen begins Pride and Prejudice with one of English literature’s most famous lines: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” The statement immediately introduces the novel’s central concern: marriage is treated not simply as romance, but as a social and financial arrangement.
The wording is also comic and ironic. It sounds like an objective universal principle, yet the surrounding story shows that the “truth” mainly reflects the hopes of families with unmarried daughters. Mrs Bennet, in particular, is eager to see her five daughters married to financially secure men.
A common mix-up is to remember the sentence as saying that a rich man “needs” a wife. Austen’s phrasing is more pointed: he is presumed to be “in want of” one. The arrival of wealthy bachelor Charles Bingley at Netherfield makes that assumption immediately relevant, while the novel later tests whether marriage should be based on money, status, affection, or mutual understanding.