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Cultural Q & A, Discuss Regency culture and ask your questions here. |
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 Apr 11 2008, 10:49 AM
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Pride and Prejudice is set during the Regency period of England, a time of strict social and cultural rules. The purpose of this thread is to explore the time period in order to better understand the novel by placing it in it's social context. If you have a question, ask it here. If you have the time to research, please share your knowledge. And if you are a world famous Jane Austen expert...this is the place for you! 
Feel free to share your resources, but please keep in mind that this is a discussion forum, posting lengthy essays tends to limit conversation. Instead, we want to hear what you discovered and why you found it important.
I found a really great site, which I have unfortunately been unable to peruse as much as I would like. It is called Jane Austen's World, and it looks very interesting.
I'll start with a couple of questions of my own...
* What exactly is an entail, and how does it work?
* What was the social standing of women at the time? Could they own property, or did it have to be controlled by a male relative?
* Why, why, why do they do this "He was born in --------shire"? *it drives me nuts!* 
This post has been edited by Pyxis: Apr 17 2008, 10:29 PM
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Apr 20 2008, 09:20 AM
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A 'Sirius' Veil Whisperer
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QUOTE(Pyxis @ Apr 11 2008, 04:49 PM)  * What exactly is an entail, and how does it work? * What was the social standing of women at the time? Could they own property, or did it have to be controlled by a male relative? * Why, why, why do they do this "He was born in --------shire"? * it drives me nuts!*
To answer two of these:
Entail means that, on the death of the occupier, property could only be passed on to a specified type of descendent, such as male, female, or with a particular surname within the family, etc. Mr Bennet didn't own the estate outright, it had come to him from his father because of the entail which specified that it could only be passed down through male heirs. If the Bennets had had a son it would have gone to him but, as they didn't, it had to go to their nearest male relative. What would happen if Mr Bennet had had no brothers or if those brothers had no sons would also be set out in the will, it may have passed to a male in Mr Bennet's uncle's family or even to the eldest female.
"He was born in --------shire" is used because it was common for authors at the time to create a sense of realism by "masking" the exact name of a place to suggest that they were referring to a real place but wanting to protect the identity and privacy of the real people there. Nowadays when authors use real place names and locations they tend to use a disclaimer to explain that the people, and sometimes exact locations (e.g. buildings etc) are fictional.
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Apr 21 2008, 09:02 AM
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So, I did some snooping and found some stuff on entails to add to what Dreamteam already enlightened us about...
According to The Columbia Encyclopedia here an estate was entailed to prevent it from falling apart as it was divided equally among heirs, and was generally in effect for several generations. It sounds like the original "entailer" (I'm not a lawyer, so don't be disappointed if I'm not incredibly technical here ) made a decision that the property needed to stay as one piece, which makes sense if you have people farming on your property and you don't want them to be displaced, so they controlled the rights to inheritance by making possession of the property conditional. Now, why a property was not eligible to be passed to a female heir is still a mystery to me, unless that was purely the decision of the "entailer". In which case, I can understand Mrs. Bennet's resentment of the situation.
Reading more about entails in Wiki...I know, not the most reliable resource, but I find it easy to understand...it is theDe donis conditionalibus chapter of the English Statutes of Westminster, passed 1285, which originated the law of entail. According to the Wiki article above:
QUOTE The operation of the statute soon produced innumerable evils : " children, it is said, grew disobedient when they knew they could not be set aside ; farmers were deprived of their leases; creditors were defrauded of their debts; innumerable latent entails were produced to deprive purchasers of the land they had fairly bought; treasons also were encouraged, as estates tail were not liable to forfeiture longer than for the tenant's life " (Williams, Real Property). On the other hand, by limiting inheritance to the eldest son, the other issue were forced to seek employment elsewhere, thus, it has been argued, preventing the growth of a landed caste. The professions of the church, the army and the law were constantly recruited from the younger sons of landed families, preventing the gap between nobility and the rest.
Interesting, eh?
Which brings me to my next question, what was the political, social, and economic standing of women? Why would the original entailer choose to disqualify female heirs?
Edited to add: Another question.
I am confused about the "titles" of English society and what they mean. We have Sir William Lucas, who has a title but is poor. How did he get this title? Darcy doesn't have a title, neither does Bingley, but they seem to garner more respect. What is 'higher' a Baron or a Knight, and does a Duke trump them all? What is Bennets social position, as he has neither title nor much money?
This post has been edited by Pyxis: Apr 21 2008, 09:22 AM
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 Apr 21 2008, 09:23 AM
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QUOTE(Pyxis @ Apr 21 2008, 03:02 PM) Which brings me to my next question, what was the political, social, and economic standing of women? Why would the original entailer choose to disqualify female heirs?
Well, until the 1882 Married Women's property act, a married woman's property would become her husband's possesion. (apart from some small things called "paraphernalia".) So perhaps the passing on of property to the daughters would mean that it passed out of the family when she married (which she would be expected to do).
Well, politically, women couldn't vote, and couldn't stand as a member of parliament. The first woman to take a seat in parliament was Lady Nancy Astor, in 1919. Although she was not the first woman to be elected - this was Constance Markievicz who was a member of Sinn Fein and so never took her seat. Women in Britain got the vote in 1918, although this was not all women, or all men.
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Apr 21 2008, 01:24 PM
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Just to warn you all, this is definitely not a carefully researched post, because I am at work, but I did have some thoughts...
QUOTE "He was born in --------shire" is used because it was common for authors at the time to create a sense of realism by "masking" the exact name of a place to suggest that they were referring to a real place but wanting to protect the identity and privacy of the real people there.
I never knew that that was used as a "privacy" thing, but it shows up soooo frequently, and it has always bugged me, too! Thanks for the info, Dreamteam!
About entailing - I have seen entailed property discussed so many times in novels that I assumed is was just the norm. I didn't know that there were different ways that a property could be entailed; everything I've read about it (yes, always fiction) involved the nearest male heir. And I think the idea was still in effect well into the 20th century, as it is definitely discussed in Dorothy Sayers, and it even comes up in a few Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh novels...
In the last Dorothy Sayers short story (the one with the kids and the stolen peaches), there is a discussion about Peter's property being entailed, and Miss Quirk says that she thinks that dividing the property like they do in France is so much better for the kids, to which Harriet responds, "Yes, but it's bad for the property," or something like that. (Yes, I know it is completely sick that I remember that off the top of my head...) That would have been right before WWII. Point being, I wouldn't necessarily take that character's opinion as gospel truth, but maybe entailment was not as prevalent in other parts of Europe, or at least did not last as long.
It was very common for second sons, especially second sons in very high-standing families, to enter the church. I am less familiar with England specifically, but a couple of centuries earlier in Continental Europe, second sons of kings or important duchies would frequently become bishops or cardinals or other high-ranking church officials, so they were still "aristocracy" if you will, but in a different arena. And weren't second sons frequently given an "allowance", for lack of a better way to put it, so they did have an income, if not land?
I think the whole land vs. money is another disconnect that we have with that era. It seems to me (again, just from reading way too many books), that the two were seen rather differently. Something for me to research when I get home...
I certainly don't know a whole lot about the heirarchy of titles - like I said, I just read a lot - but I think that some titles are given, while others you are just born into. Aren't knights given their title for doing something? I think there is some overlap in titles, too, right? Like "sir" would be a knight, but aren't there people with other titles who are called "sir"? A marquis is "Lord So-and-so", I think, but, to go back to Dorothy Sayers (hint, hint, could we discuss those sometime...??  ), Peter was "Lord Peter", and he was the second son of a duke... So, yeah, I don't really understand how it works, either, but I do think that titles fall somewhere into that mix of something that was seen a bit differently, too. There are lots of stories (especially set later) where families with titles have lost a lot of money, but they are still respected as being high-standing members of society. Another thing for me to look up...
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Apr 21 2008, 04:38 PM
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A 'Sirius' Veil Whisperer
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Entails were usually set up to pass property to the eldest son, although there were other ways to do it, probably to ensure that property, and any inherited titles, stayed within the family name.
Titles - hmm, this is huge. This is a site with a lot of info about British nobility, far too much to copy and paste here, so I think the best thing would be to give the link here, this page in particular gives the lists of precedence for men and women, again its much too long to copy and paste (for instances there are seven different types of Knight). Bear in mind that these were titles in use in 1818.
This is a more condensed list from the BBC, the highlights of which are:
Gentlemen
QUOTE The main distinguishing characteristic of a gentleman was that he did not work for a wage. In other words, gentlemen were non-landed 3 individuals without a trade or occupation but with an income. In practice, this generally meant that they owned land, but this was a private matter and not official rule or governance of that land, which would most likely be ruled by a landed noble. One could also be a gentleman by the support of a stipend from a higher-ranking noble in return for services such as being a scribe, astrologer, or someone with another sort of academic skill. Doctors were also gentlemen, and were careful not to be considered professionals. 'Doctor' was originally an academic title that simply means 'teacher', and the use of the term indicates that they saw themselves as academics rather than professionals, unlike surgeons, who performed actual surgery and were commoners.
Esquires
Knights - The female equivalent of a Knight is a Dame but the wife of a knight would use the title "Lady", the husband of a Dame has no title. Knight titles are not hereditary.
Baronets
Barons
Viscounts
Counts
Marquis
Duke
Grand Duke
Archduke
Prince
King
Emperor
I tried to pull out basic explanatory details but it began to get a little too complicated round about "Baron" so its probably better that you follow the link and read the details. Hope that's a start
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2791929#footnote4
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Jo's Book Nook is now reading Sense and Sensibility - just click on the image "THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED!" roared Black. "DIED RATHER THAN BETRAY YOUR FRIENDS, AS WE WOULD HAVE DONE FOR YOU!" |
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Apr 21 2008, 05:32 PM
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Perusing the Magical Menagerie
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Carol Howard says in her endnotes to the novel that Mr. Lucas acted as mayor. This lead him to address the king with the concerns of those he represented. So, civic duty earned him the knighthood. He gets to be "Sir," and Mrs. Lucas gets to be "Lady," but the next generation have no titles. Lady Lucas is a different kind of Lady than Lady Catherine.
I don't know how to do those quote boxes. Could someone direct me to a place where I could learn? I'd like to be able to give credit where it's due.
I've got another question. This was an era with strict conservative rules of behavior. How much of the body was considered acceptable? I know women's fashions were all based on classical Greek ideals, but that doesn't seem to fit my idea of the social customs. I mean, men and women were only allowed to touch under very specific circumstances, yet, I've seen some quite low necklines. And, while you would never give your friend's wife a foot massage, these period dramas give me the impression that these toga-like gowns were often very revealing. This could be inaccurate, though.
Do we have any experts out there?
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Apr 22 2008, 12:11 AM
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QUOTE(Mused @ Apr 21 2008, 06:32 PM) I've got another question. This was an era with strict conservative rules of tbehavior. How much of the body was considered acceptable? I know women's fashions were all based on classical Greek ideals, but that doesn't seem to fit my idea of the social customs. I mean, men and women were only allowed to touch under very specific circumstances, yet, I've seen some quite low necklines. And, while you would never give your friend's wife a foot massage, these period dramas give me the impression that these toga-like gowns were often very revealing. This could be inaccurate, though.
Do we have any experts out there?
I find the answer best articulated here.
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