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Cultural Q & A, Discuss Regency culture and ask your questions here.
Pyxis
post 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! biggrin.gif

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!* tongue.gif


This post has been edited by Pyxis: Apr 17 2008, 10:29 PM
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Pyxis
post 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 tongue.gif ) 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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Posts in this topic
- Pyxis   Cultural Q & A   Apr 11 2008, 10:49 AM
- - Dreamteam   QUOTE(Pyxis @ Apr 11 2008, 04:49 PM) * Wh...   Apr 20 2008, 09:20 AM
- - Mused   So, who comes up with the original details of the ...   Apr 20 2008, 08:42 PM
|- - Micromys minutus   QUOTE(Pyxis @ Apr 21 2008, 03:02 PM) Whic...   Apr 21 2008, 09:23 AM
- - chiara515   Just to warn you all, this is definitely not a car...   Apr 21 2008, 01:24 PM
- - Dreamteam   Entails were usually set up to pass property to th...   Apr 21 2008, 04:38 PM
|- - Amontillada   QUOTE(Dreamteam @ Apr 21 2008, 04:38 PM) ...   Apr 23 2008, 08:15 AM
- - Mused   Carol Howard says in her endnotes to the novel tha...   Apr 21 2008, 05:32 PM
|- - Essence_of_Insanity   QUOTE(Mused @ Apr 21 2008, 06:32 PM) I...   Apr 22 2008, 12:11 AM
- - Mused   Thanks for the link, Essence! The differentia...   Apr 22 2008, 05:16 PM
- - Pyxis   That was a great link, Essence, thanks! Also,...   Apr 23 2008, 01:23 AM
|- - Acrux   QUOTE(Pyxis @ Apr 23 2008, 06:23 PM) More...   Apr 23 2008, 08:18 AM
- - Sethtaylorsummer   I have a question for you cultural gurus out there...   Apr 26 2008, 06:10 PM
|- - Acrux   QUOTE(Sethtaylorsummer @ Apr 27 2008, 11...   Apr 27 2008, 03:08 AM
|- - Dreamteam   QUOTE(Acrux @ Apr 27 2008, 09:08 AM) QUOT...   Apr 27 2008, 04:52 PM
- - Pyxis   More questions... It seems like the world hasn...   Apr 28 2008, 09:56 PM
|- - Dreamteam   QUOTE(Pyxis @ Apr 29 2008, 02:56 AM) More...   Apr 29 2008, 07:51 AM
- - Siyrean   i always figured the post was like taking the grey...   Apr 29 2008, 12:15 AM
- - Pyxis   Wow, Dreamteam! Fascinating. I wonder if anoth...   Apr 29 2008, 08:06 PM
|- - Dreamteam   QUOTE(Pyxis @ Apr 30 2008, 01:06 AM) In r...   May 1 2008, 06:14 AM
- - ArtemisiaJolie   That's interesting, I always thought the Londo...   Apr 30 2008, 12:36 AM
- - Mused   There's talk in the humor thread about Mr. Ben...   May 4 2008, 03:36 PM
- - Pyxis   I give up! I have searched and searched for i...   May 7 2008, 10:42 AM
- - Dreamteam   I found this about 19th century governessess which...   May 7 2008, 07:06 PM
- - Moose_Starr   So I have a question about medicine and doctors. I...   May 8 2008, 11:27 AM
- - Pyxis   QUOTE(Moose_Starr @ May 8 2008, 10:27 AM)...   May 9 2008, 11:49 AM
|- - Moose_Starr   QUOTE(Pyxis @ May 9 2008, 02:49 PM) Have ...   May 9 2008, 12:27 PM
- - Moose_Starr   So I'm quickly jumping in with another questio...   May 17 2008, 09:22 AM
- - Pyxis   This was such a fascinating topic from the Pride a...   Dec 28 2008, 12:16 AM
- - Dreamteam   Thanks for the questions Pyxis, I can help with th...   Jan 1 2009, 07:59 PM
- - ladyluna   1.On the PBS Masterpiece website though, I remembe...   Jan 5 2009, 08:35 PM


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