Yes, but as the younger daughter (middle, actually, but the youngest is really just a blip in the story), she's set up as the dreamier one who was allowed to indulge in her romantic fantasies, whereas Elinor, as the eldest, had to be more realistic. And of course, that's the trope at play in the relationship between the two of them (sense vs. sensibiliity) which Austen does so well: Elinore has the sense, Marianne the sensibility, but by the end we realize that Elinore has much deeper emotions than she is given credit for, and Marianne has learned some sense.
Loved this insight--and I know we're not reading
Pride and Prejudice right now, but wanted to highlight the similar-yet-different situation with Jane and Elizabeth Bennet in that novel. Jane is a great beauty and both she and Elizabeth understand their familial obligation to marry well--not only to secure their own futures but that of their younger sisters by giving them exposure to circles in which wealthy eligible bachelors moved, and that of their mother, should their father predecease her. There's a scene which as far as I can tell from a quick perusal of the text was not original to Austen, but was created by the screenwriters for the 1995 BBC production which illustrates this point well:
ELIZABETH: "If I could love a man who would love me enough to take me for a mere fifty pounds a year, I should be very well pleased."
JANE: "Yes."
ELIZABETH: "But such a man could hardly be sensible, and you know I could never love a man who was out of his wits."
JANE: "Oh, Lizzy. A marriage where either partner cannot love or respect the other--that cannot be agreeable. To either party."
ELIZABETH: "As we have daily proof. But beggars, you know, cannot be choosers."
JANE: "We are not VERY poor, Lizzy."
ELIZABETH: "With father's estate entailed away from the female line, we have little but our charms to recommend us. One of us at least will have to marry very well. And since you are quite five times as pretty as the rest of us, and have the sweetest disposition, I fear the task will fall on you to raise our fortunes."
JANE: "But Lizzy, I would wish--I should so much like--to marry for love."
ELIZABETH: "And so you shall, I am sure. Only take care you fall in love with a man of good fortune."
JANE: "Well, I shall try, to please you. And you?"
ELIZABETH: "I am determined that nothing but the deepest love will induce me into matrimony. So I shall end an old maid, and teach your ten children to embroider cushions and play their instruments very ill."