Jane Austen For Dummies (39 page)
Read Jane Austen For Dummies Online
Authors: Joan Elizabeth Klingel Ray
Because wealth in Austen's England was based largely on the ownership of land, a way to transmit property ownership needed to exist. The practice of primogeniture and the legal devices involved helped ensure that property stayed in the family. The practice went back to medieval times.
Primogeniture
(derived from
first
[primo]
birth
[geniture]) meant that a family's property and wealth went directly to the eldest son. How important was primogeniture? Extremely! It ensured that property stayed within the family and that the paternal surname would continue in future generations. Sometimes, property belonged to family for many generations â even back to the 1200s. The current family wanted to be sure that ownership of the property extended into the family's future, too. In Austen's day, primogeniture was not required, but it was traditionally practiced.
Thus, a wife's producing a male heir and a spare son was important in Austen's day. This heir not only ensured continuity of the paternal family name, but also the continuity of family ownership of country houses and estates.
When a member of the gentry class had no children, and particularly no sons, he would frequently take measures to ensure family succession. This was the case when Mr. Austen's cousin, Thomas Knight, asked to adopt Edward Austen. Treated like a son by the childless Knights, Edward, the inheritor of the Knights' estates, even changed his surname to Knight in 1812.
Sense and Sensibility
's inheritance muddle
The plot gets moving in the first chapter of
Sense and Sensibility
with a situation revolving around a wealthy country gentleman having no son. The excess of Dashwoods in the first few pages of the novel often confuses the first-time readers. So let me try to set the scene for you.
Mr. and Mrs. Henry Dashwood and their three young daughters move to Norland Park, a large and long-established estate owned by generations of Dashwoods, to care for his aging and ailing Uncle Dashwood â a lifelong bachelor and therefore without any direct heirs. Uncle Dashwood, grateful to his nephew and his family for living with and caring for him for ten years, intends to leave the Norland estate to them. So far, so good, right?
However,
Henry's grown son from his first wife (long deceased) visits Norland, accompanied by his wife and their cute little son, Harry (who would be elderly Uncle Dashwood's great-grandnephew). Uncle Dashwood abruptly changes his will and leaves Norland to the father of 4-year-old Harry, and then to Harry, himself. The novel tells us that old Uncle Dashwood had been charmed by Harry's infant antics during his parents' visits to Norland (SS 1:1). But a logical explanation suggests that Uncle Dashwood was also thinking that leaving the estate to his grandnephew and then to that man's son ensured that the Dashwood name would continue at Norland. After all, if, as Uncle Dashwood had originally planned, Norland went to his nephew and then to that nephew's three daughters, the estate would (Heaven forbid!) pass out of the Dashwood family name when the girls married.
Uncle Dashwood may have been old and frail, but he wasn't stupid. Elderly Uncle Dashwood understood and valued the concept of male inheritance. So he adjusted his will to ensure that at least two more generations of Dashwoods would reside at Norland. But what about Uncle Dashwood's grandnieces who, with their parents, provided ten years of care and comfort for him? By changing his will in favor of male inheritance, Uncle Dashwood has sentenced the three young Dashwood sisters to live in genteel poverty. And so the novel's plot gets rolling.
Like primogeniture, the
entail
was a legal device to ensure that property would be handed down in a way that suited the ancestor, normally to a male heir, thus keeping the family estate intact. The restrictions of an entail could include prohibitions on dividing or selling the estate; in essence, living on entailed property was being that property's life tenant. If the property was entailed on male heirs, and the life tenant had no sons, the property â on the tenant's death â would go to the nearest male heir. The only way to end or cut off an entail would be through an agreement of the current tenant and the next male heir.
Entails were customary and popular, but not required. The impulse behind the entail was the same as that of primogeniture: keeping property in the paternal family line. Granted, the surname may eventually change as the male line moves from sons to brothers, and then to cousins, as it does in
Pride and Prejudice,
where at Longbourn the Bennets will be replaced by Collinses. But a certain male vanityâ no offense to male readers! â compelled male property owners (with rare exception, the only kind!) to want their land and the house(s) on the land to be inherited by the male line of successive generations because at least the property stayed in the family, even distant family. Because a woman's property went to her husband upon marriage, having a daughter, sister, or niece inherit didn't fill the bill of keeping the property in the original owner's line of descent. While entailing property was a gentleman's personal preference â not a legal requirement â England had a lot of property entailed on males in Austen day. (In
Pride and Prejudice,
Sir Lewis de Bourgh did not entail Rosings [PP 2:6].)
The entail situation is what worries Mrs. Bennet in
Pride and Prejudice.
She and her daughters face being ejected from their home, Longbourn, after Mr. Bennet dies. This situation occurs because the Longbourn estate “was entailed in default of heirs male, on a distant relation” (PP 1:7). In the Bennets' case, Longbourn's being entailed on male heirs means that in the absence of a Bennet son, the estate goes to Mr. Bennet's nearest male relative, the unpleasant and empty-headed Mr. Collins. Mr. Bennet inherited Longbourn for his lifetime; however, he can't change the male entail so that his wife and daughters can remain at their family home after his death without the cooperation of the next male in line, Mr. Collins. And Mr. Collins looks upon Longbourn with too much longing even to think of giving it up for the Bennet sisters' sake! His only plan to help the Bennet women is to help himself to either Jane or Elizabeth Bennet. And Mrs. Bennet, in her desperation about losing her home, is ready to force Elizabeth to accept Collins's proposal.
Among the gentry, the eldest son in a family knew that he had one career in store for him: being a gentleman estate-owner and running the family estate â the estate he would inherit when his father died. But as early as the Elizabethan period (16th century), England's Lord Chief Justice, John Popham, complained that inheritance laws requiring fathers to leave their entire property to their eldest sons led to a lot of unruly and even sexually irresponsible elder sons! Popham was not the only person to observe that restricted inheritance could lead to prodigal elder sons. In fact, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth's father, Henry VIII, the “Statute of Wills” (1540) permitted you to leave your property to anyone you wanted, provided you had your desires about the passage of your property in a will. (This statute was passed not because of reckless elder sons, but because of the King's desire for land revenues!) But at the same time, Parliament did not abolish the “Statute of Uses” from four years earlier, which supported primogeniture. So primogeniture remained the preferred inheritance method, and eldest sons could be good boys or bad boys â depending on the temper of one's father. Or unless the elder son's mother was
Sense and Sensibility
's Mrs. Ferrars: Though Edward Ferrars is the elder of two sons, he did not inherit the family wealth when his father died because his father left the Ferrars fortune to his wife (SS 1:3). Throughout the novel, Mrs. Ferrars uses her control of the family's money and property to try to control her two sons: First Edward, the elder, is her heir; then she disinherits him, giving the elder son's role to her younger son; then she disinherits both of them; and finally she gives the “primo” role to her younger son again! Each change depended on how pleased or displeased she was with her sons. But the situation of the Ferrars family was not common. Most families, while knowing primogeniture was not the law, practiced this medieval tradition, thus ensuring the eldest son's future.
Because there weren't many Mr. Ferrarses around, the eldest son enjoyed a life of complete freedom. Knowing that he would inherit the family estate and title, if there was one, he could be as irresponsible and stupid as he wanted. He knew his future was secure. After all, landowners wanted to see their property stay in the family, and it was tough to break with tradition. But while the son was under age 21, he was still under Dad's legal thumb. And Dad could always stop any allowance money from flowing into Junior's pockets. But it's surprising what fathers put up with!
An example of the carefree heir is Captain Frederick Tilney from
Northanger Abbey
. Captain Frederick Tilney is an officer in the army. Although he's heir to the Abbey, his father, General Tilney, feels that an occupation is worthwhile. A “very fashionable-looking . . . young man,” Frederick, nevertheless, appears to the novel's heroine as having “taste and manners . . . inferior” to his younger brother's. Frederick is, indeed, deficient in these areas, but with primogeniture on his side, who needed taste and manners? Interestingly, Frederick's younger brother, Henry, observes that Frederick will not go beyond flirting with Isabella Thorpe â a young woman who sees Frederick as a great catch and needs his money â because he “would not have the courage to apply in person for their father's consent” (NA 2:11). This comment suggests that Frederick might fear action taken by his formidable father, the general, who likes to have his own way and isn't afraid to exert his will. While the general may not disinherit Frederick, he could refuse to send him money, causing him to be financially strapped. But Frederick appears to know that and doesn't want to cause problems with his father, the general.
A really problematic elder son with a father who lets him get away with bad conduct is
Mansfield Park
's Tom Bertram. He gambles and loses so much money that his younger brother Edmund's future income for “âten, twenty, thirty years, perhaps for life” is drastically affected by their father's having to sell a church living (the clergyman's salary) with the best income to a stranger, even though Sir Thomas Bertram had been holding it for Edmund for the time he became ordained. While Sir Thomas tries to humiliate Tom into better behavior, Tom's only reaction is to think that his “father had made a most tiresome piece of work of it” and that “he had not been half so much in debt as some of his friends” (MP 1:3). Tom's father even takes him to the family's plantation property in Antigua for a year, but Tom returns and goes back to his same, old irresponsible ways. Sir Thomas clearly does not have the emotional and intellectual power over Tom that General Tilney has over Frederick. So Tom just does what he wants. While Sir Thomas is clearly disturbed by his heir's actions, he never gives any sign of planning to write a will and change inheritance order, even though his younger son, Edmund, is far more deserving than Tom. Tom knows he's safe. It's only after a near-fatal illness that Tom sees the error of his ways and improves.
In Austen's youthful novella (a short novel)
Lady Susan,
Sir Reginald de Courcey is terribly worried that his only son and heir, Reginald, will marry the conniving, sexually notorious and older Lady Susan. But all Sir Reginald does is write a letter to his son and namesake, begging him to rethink his opinions of the woman (Letter 12). Sir Reginald even says in his letter that “it is out of my power to prevent your inheriting the family Estate.” After all, Sir Reginald has just one son and wants the De Courcey estate to stay with the De Courceys.
One didn't figure out how to run a large country estate by osmosis. In fact, when Edward Austen completed his Grand Tour, he had to return to the Godmersham Estate in Kent so he could discover how to run it.
The country estate was a complex economic ministate on which the survival of the resident family, household staff, tenant farmers and their families, and workers depended. A successful estate owner needed a good head for business. (For more on running the estate, see Chapter 11.)
As Austen illustrates, in literature as in life, characters can be successful, but characters can also fail in their positions:
Darcy, in
Pride and Prejudice:
Darcy, who is 28 in the novel, lost his father when he was 23 (PP 2:12). He immediately became master of the great Pemberley estate because he was of age (over 21). While the character's youth occurs off-stage, it isn't difficult to infer that he was well-prepared to succeed his father at Pemberley. After all, the “intelligent” housekeeper, Mrs. Reynolds, who was with the family since Darcy was 4, enthusiastically testified that he was “âthe best landlord, and the best master . . . that ever lived. . . . There is not one of his tenants or servants but what will give him a good name'” (PP 3:1).
Darcy also handles another episode with maturity, insight, and justice. Shortly after his father's death, Darcy had to deal with the younger Wickham's request that he wanted to study law instead of becoming a clergyman. As Darcy writes to Elizabeth, “I knew that Mr. Wickham ought not to be a clergyman” (PP 2:12). And while Darcy was suspicious of Wickham's desire to study law, Darcy adhered to his father's wishes to help him: He saw to it that Wickham “resigned all claim to assistance in the church” and gave him £3,000, which dissolved all connections between the two men and released Darcy of his promise to his father.
Rushworth, in
Mansfield Park:
For every good character, there has to be a bad, or so it seems. Rushworth is the exact opposite of Darcy. He's too stupid to be a good master. Furthermore, the run-down condition of his tenants' houses on his Sotherton estate attest that the previous Rushworth generation was either too careless or too self-involved to look after those who worked for them (MP 1:8).
Sir Walter Elliot, in
Persuasion:
There's no indication that when Sir Walter Elliot inherited Kellynch Hall and the surrounding property that it was in an unstable financial status. But after the death of his wife, who kept him and his expenses in line, Sir Walter considers only his vain and selfish desires, and he leaves Kellynch in debt.
Neither Rushworth nor Sir Walter had the intelligence and character to be good masters like the real Edward Austen or the fictional Darcy.