Answer:
What Charles Dickens was exposing through his social novel "Oliver Twist", and especially in this particular excerpt from the book, is the view that the rich of England, and especially London, had on the issue of poverty, particularly how to stop the increase in numbers of poor people. Thus, it portrays how well-to-do English people prefered to go with the option of stopping poverty by preventing poor people from marrying and thus producing more children, through divorce of poor couples, and separation of those who were poor.
This is part of the themes that are exposed in "Oliver Twist" the social novel by Charles Dickens, that was published in a serial, between 1837-39. It was not published as a book per se until 1839. "Oliver Twist", also known as "The Parish Boy´s Progress", exposes the hypocrisy of English society during the 19th century, especially when dealing with such difficult issues as child labor and poverty, and how to handle them.
