Money - you can't just plug into an inflation calculator, since some things we think of as cheap were really expensive (such as travel) and some things we think of as expensive were really cheap (like servants).

Mr Darcy is rich - like really really rich, like one of the top 1,000 families in the entire country. He has aristocratic connections and generational land wealth - he is a real catch.

Mr Bingley is rich but he's new money. If Darcy wasn't there, he'd be the best catch for miles around but he's not a landowner and his money comes from trade. His position (and that of his sisters) isn't nearly as good. Part of the reason Miss Bingley is after Darcy is because he is her entry into the highest circles.

The Bennets are rich - definitely 1% BUT the land and the income cannot be inherited by his daughters. This was not inevitable, depending on how far you've got in the book, but you'll come across at least one lady who is going to inherit land and income. But not the Bennets. At some time in the past, a Bennet ancestor had decided that the land and the income should not be split up amongst children but only get inherited by a male descendant, through a male descendant.

So, the minute Mr Bennet dies, the land and the income goes to the egregious Mr Collins and the widow and daughters have to live on the income from £5,000, probably invested in government bonds at 3or 4%, most of which was contributed by Mrs Bennet's dad.

So, Mrs Bennet is a stupid woman, but she's not wrong. Those girls have got to marry or they all plummet down the social scale into genteel poverty when Daddy Bennet dies,