Lady Catherine de Bourgh

There's been some controversy about Lady Catherine's character. On the page, she is this awesome caricature of a grande dame – just a totally overbearing, domineering woman who has always gotten her own way and can't stand to have anyone disagree with her. That's fine, and it's definitely funny to see her confront Elizabeth and try to get her to agree never to marry Darcy. Yikes, lady, take it down a notch!

However, the fact that the one financially independent woman in the whole novel (remember, she is a super-rich widow) is shown to be this horrible buffoon has struck people as way unfair. Is Austen playing into stereotypes here about how women and power shouldn't mix? Is there some other reason to have Lady Catherine in the story other than so Darcy has his own embarrassingly awful relative and so shouldn't come down too harshly on Elizabeth's family?