Inheritance Laws of 18th and 19th Century England

By: Tommy S.

Image: The Bennet Sisters

“Oh! my dear,” cried his wife, “I cannot bear to hear that mentioned. Pray do not talk of that odious man. I do think it is the hardest thing in the world, that your estate should be entailed away from your own children; and I am sure, if I had been you, I should have tried long ago to do something or other about it.”

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Inheritance Laws

One of the main instigators of Mrs. Bennet’s “poor nerves” (Austen 2), is the anxiety associated with what will happen to her and her children if Mr. Bennet passes before them. The customs of the time dictated that land and wealth be passed down from male to male unless some anomaly occurred in which a woman was to be entitled to the estate. Within the book, The Law’s Disposal of a Person’s Estate Who Dies with no Will or Testament Peter Lovelass describes the laws and customs of inheritance at the time. Lovelass’ inclusion in the appendix of “A man, possessed of money, plate, household goods, a leasehold estate for years […] gives it all to his wife” (Lovelass 270) shows the absurd idea of a women inheriting titles. The italics draw attention to the fact that his wife was to inherit the estate, exemplify the rarity of women being named within a will. Common law at the time did not prohibit women from inheriting land but their certain laws were meant to keep women from inheriting.  The reason for Mr. Bennet not being able to change who inherited Longbourne after his death is the idea of a fee tail and fee simple entails, Mr. Bennet a in the boat of a fee tail, “A “fee tail male” was the legal means to present the “entail” through the male line”(Jeffers) which made it so that the Bennet women could not inherit Longbourne.  This book may be prejudice to the time because of a calculation in Eileen Spring’s book states “that nearly 42 percent of women would be heiresses by common law” (Spring 12) which may also be bias due to the fact that it contradicts the primary sources construes that women were not to inherit anything.

Grade-1 Mansion

Inheritance and Marriage

The inheritance laws of the time allowed for males to retain power and change the meaning of marriage. In Pride and Prejudice Charlotte marrying Mr. Collins is indicative of her wanting to be taken care of and him wanting a wife to have heirs with. Their marriage is a look at a lot of the other marriages at the time. The culture was accepting and even encouraging of it, thinking that marrying is for the greater good and betterment of society. Mr. Collins reason for wanting to marry Elizabeth was for the greater good of the Bennet family, allowing Longbourne to remain in the family.  “For Charlotte Lucas, to marry was to marry well” (Moe 1). Moe proves the idea that reasons for marriage were different in the 18^th century. Moe’s statement is an important point that reflects the idea of marrying to be taken care of for the rest of her life, which insinuates the idea that Charlotte Lucas is a metaphor of the society Jane Austen lived in.

The Greater Good

The inheritance laws influenced the reasons for marriage, but these ideas are overshadowed by the idea of the greater good that is present throughout Pride and Prejudice. The idea of the greater good in Pride and Prejudice is ironic because almost everyone is looking out for themselves. Mrs. Bennet wants her daughters to be married so they can take care of her. Elizabeth does not want to marry Mr. Collins because she does not like him, she does not marry Darcy the first time he proposes because of her pride, and only accepts his second proposal because she saw his estate. When Elizabeth first sees Pemberley and how the servants respect him, she thought “to be mistress of Pemberley might be something!” (Austen 169), shows that her first thought of Pemberley is what it would be like to be mistress. Wickham manipulated Lydia to get an entail from her parents. Mr. Bingley and Mr. Bennet are two cases in which they actually care about others. Mr. Bingley listens to everyone when they tell her not to marry Jane because that is in the interest of everyone else. Mr. Bennet wants his daughters to do what makes them happy, he encourages them to do what makes them happy which is my idea of the greater good.Primogeniture made the greater good impossible for most to achieve.

Works Cited

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Oxford University Press, 2008

Burrows, Thomas. “Grade-1 Mansion.” DailyMail. 24 Aug 2014. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2730716/That-s-quite-return-investment-Eighteenth-century-country-manor-sold-dilapidated-wreck-just-ONE-POUND-goes-market-2-3MILLION.html

Jeffers, Regina. “Primogeniture and Inheritance and the Need for a Widow’s Pension in Jane Austen’s Novels.” Regina Jeffers Blog. 20 November 2017. Web. 30 October 2019.

Keen, Mary. “The Gardens at Stowe House.” Spectator. 6 August 2016. https://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/08/aristocratic-18th-century-england-was-one-long-picnic/

Lovelass, Peter. The Laws Disposal of a Person’s Estate who Dies Without Will or Testament 9^th   Edition”.  London. 1812. Retrieved from  https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=osu.32437122221712&view=2up&seq=6&skin=mobile

Moe, Melina. “Charlotte and Elizabeth: Multiple Modernities in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.” ELH: English Literary History, vol. 83, no. 4, 2016, pp. 1075-1103. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2017580090&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Nya. “The Bennet Sisters”. History and Film Blog. https://historyandfilmblog.wordpress.com/2017/11/15/review-pride-prejudice-2005-faithful-till-the-end/

Spring, Eileen. Law Land, and Family: Aristocratic Inheritance in England, 1300 to 1800. The University of North Carolina Press, 1993. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohosto.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=24604&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Unknown. “Alison Steadman as Mrs. Bennet.” Los Chicos De La Princessa Jazmin. 30 July 2010. http://loschicosdelaprincesajazmin.blogspot.com/2010/07/odiosas-comparaciones.html