Inheritance in Jane Austen's Novels

Republic of the Sudan Ministry of Education and Scientific Research Nile Valley University College of Graduate Studies

INHERITANCE IN JANE AUSTEN’S NOVELS

A Thesis Submitted to the Nile Valley

University in the Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Master’s Degree in

English Literature

by: Fadwa Mustafa Ali Hamid Supervisor: Dr. Ibrahim Mohamed Al- Faki

March 2009

Examination Board:

1. Dr. Ibrahim Mohamed Al – Faki

2. Dr. Abdelnasir Yousif A/Alkareem

3. Dr. Iyman Abbas Al Nour

Dedication

To my family and friends for their sincere support.

III Acknowledgements

The researcher would like to thank her supervisor, Dr. Ibrahim Al –

Faki, for putting up with being asked to read and correct chapter on chapter of this thesis and showing useful advice.

Special thanks are due to Griselda El Tayib who has put the idea of writing about the topic of this thesis after having interesting talks about literature and for her tremendous support, great thanks to my husband and children who have been patiently bearing many of my absences from home.

Also great thanks are due to the Jane Austen Museum volunteers staff at

Chawton U.K. who have given the researcher valuable information with great enthusiasm.

The researcher sincerely thanks her young friends the S.V.P Volunteers who came from the U.K to teach English Language in Sudan, Christopher

William and Tim Davies. Many thanks are due to the University of London

Senate House Library, and to so many others, lawyers and literary friends for their useful pointers and information.

IV Abstract

The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries established the novel at its recognizable form with its colourful genres. Jane Austen is considered the first virtuoso of the novel though "she kept to her own style" a style which as she described "dealt in pictures of domestic life in country villages"; and each picture was painted "on the little but (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work so fine. A brush, as produces little effect after much labour".

Indeed Jane Austen's monuments of six novels are drawn with a fine brush and not a single aspect of the genteel society is ignored.

This research deals with the social and economic aspects of her themes. It discusses with how the concept of inheritance is dealt with in

Jane Austen's novels and how the then current injustice of inheritance laws consolidated the habits of arranged marriages among the upper classes that

Jane Austen criticized within incisive irony.

The first chapter consists of an introduction to the topic. It discusses the social background and inheritance laws of the time and a general background of the personal life of Jane Austen.

The second chapter discusses Jane Austen and her contemporaries, the formation of Jane Austen as a novelist and critical writings on Jane Austen.

V The third chapter which is the core of this research deals with the effect of the law of entailment on the three novels "Sense and Sensibility",

"Pride and Prejudice" and "persuasion" .

The fourth chapter develops the argument of the law of primogeniture, and its effect as manifested in "Mansfield Park".

The final chapter states the conclusion that fiction could be an effective way of influencing people's thinking about their society and so helping to bring about reforms.

مستخلص البحث

إن الرواية بما انتيت إليو من شكميا المت ميز المعروف وأساليبيا وأنواعيا المختمفة إنما اكتمل

بناءىا إبان القرنين الثامن عشر والتاسع عشر. وت عتبر جين أوستن أول شخصية روائية تربعت عمى

عرش الرواية فاستوت فييا خبرتيا واتسع عمميا ورسخت قدميا , عمى الرغم من التزاميا بأسموبيا

الخاص الذي وصفتو ىي بقوليا: " موضوعو صو ر الحياة اليومية في القرى الريفية" وقد كانت ترسم

كالً من ىذه الصور كما وصفت ىي: "عمى قطع ة صغيرة من العاج ال يتجاوز عرضيا البوصتين

أعمل فييا فرشاة ً ناعمةً ت عطي أث اًر ليس بالكبير , بعد عم ل ج د كبير".

والحق أن جين أوستن قد صاغت رواياتيا الس ت بفرشاة ً دقيقة ً ناعمة ً لم ت غفل ناحيةً من

نواحي المجتمع الميذب المحافظ أو ت خطي جانباً من جوانبو.

وجاء بحثنا ىذا ليتناول الجوانب االقتصادية واالجتماعية التي انطوت عمييا األفكار

األساسية في رواياتيا كما تناول مبمغ أثر الميراث عمى الحبكات في ىذه الروايات وكذلك ما سرى

في الناس من ظ المات قوانين المي ارث و ح يفيا والتي وطدت عادات من قبيل الزيجات المصطنعة أو

)زيجات المصمحة( التي سادت مجتمع الطبقات ال ارقية التي صوبت إلييا جين أوسـتن نقداً الذعا

يقوم عمى السخرية ال مم ض ة.

وقد جاء الفصل األول من ىذا البحث مشتمالً عمى المقدمة ومفيضاً النقاش حول الخمفية

االجتماعية وقوانين المي ارث في عصر جين أوسـتن ومعطياً خمفية عامة عن سيرة حياة جين أوسـتن.

VII تناول الفصل الثاني ال كت اب الذين عاصروا جين أوسـتن والعناصر التي صيرتيا روائية ً

مكتممة األدوات وكذلك ما كتب فييا من نقد.

أما الفصل الثالث فقد حمل بين دفتيو ل ب ىذه الرسالة وجوىر موضوعيا إذ تناول أثر قانون

التوريث عمى روايات جين الثالث: )العقل والعاطفة( "Sense and Sensibility" , و)الكبرياء

والتحيز( "Pride and Prejudice" و )اإلقناع( "Persuasion".

عالوةً عمى ما ذكرنا فقد عالج الفصل ال اربع مسألة أثر قانون حق المولود البكر في المي ارث

في رواية )حديقة مانسفيمد( "Mansfield Park".

جاء الفصل األخير ليقرر النتائج التي انتيى إلييا البحث ومنيا إمكانية تأثير أدب الق صص

والتأليف الروائي في الطرق التي يفكر بيا الناس في مجتمعيم ومن ثم فيو مما يساعد في إيجاد

وجوه اإلصالح وطرقو.

VIII Table of Contents

Topics Page

Dedication III

Acknowledgements IV

Abstract V- VI

Arabic VII- VIII

Chapter one: Introduction

1.1 Background 2

1.2 Jane Austen’s Life 4

1.3 Social Life and Inheritance Laws 9

Chapter two:

1. Jane Austen and haer contemporaries 15

2. The Formation of Jane Austen as a novelist 23

3. Critical writings on Jane Austen. 28

Chapter three: The Effect of the Law of Entailment

1. Sense and sensibility 36

2. "Pride and Prejudice" 48

3. "Persuasion" 56

Chapter four: The Effect of the Law of Primogeniture ..

1. "Mansfield park" 67

Chapter five:

Conclusion 79

Chapter One

Introduction

Background:

This study is about the importance of inheritance laws in the themes of Jane Austen‟s novels. This study is one of the very few researches into eighteenth and nineteenth century British Society in this matter in Sudan

A scrutiny of these laws will help to reveal the effect of Jane

Austen‟s implied criticism of these unjust laws, ultimately the reforms of these laws has lead to the equality in legal status enjoyed by woman in modern British Society today. In her novels there is also an underlying tension to the pragmatic forces leading to the arranged marriages of convenience of that era.

Jane Austen novels continue to appeal to worldwide readers, even today, and her works are among the best loved works of English fiction and there are vibrant “Jane Austen Societies” in Britain and

United States.

Inheritance laws in nineteenth century Britain were very strict and unjust in relation to gender. Many of the females of the landed gentry, who did not have a brother as a male heir in the family, were threatened by such laws.

2 The aim of this thesis then is to study the themes of some of Jane

Austen‟s novels in relation to these laws and how they affected the arranged marriages of the time.

Jane Austen herself was never married and being on the fringes of genteel society, she mirrored the maneuvers which were skillfully used with irony in her novels.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the laws of inheritance arbitrated between males and females and between the eldest son and younger brothers rigidly in order to keep the land intact. These laws played great influence on the social structure, such as family rights, marriages, consolidation of ownership of land and so on.

The most important laws discussed here are those of entailment and primogeniture. The law of entailment which was a kind of arrangements whereby the property could descend only to a male heir is crucial in the plot of “Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility”, and “Persuasion”. The law of primogeniture is crucial in “Mansfield

Park” which gives the right of the first born son to inherit the entire state to the exclusion of younger siblings.

3 Jane Austen wrote six novels and a number of minor works. This thesis will focus on “Sense and Sensibility” supported by observations from “Pride and Prejudice” and Persuasion”, affected by the entailment laws. “Mansfield Park” affected by the law of

Primogeniture will be discussed

Jane Austen was a keen ironic observer of the financial realities underpinning the polite society of the genteel characters in her novels.

She fully believed that ideally love should be the overruling factor for women's and men„s choice of life partnership.

1.3. Jane Austen’s life 1.2

Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775 in the village of

Steventon, Hampshire one of eight children. Her father was the rector of the village. Her mother was the daughter of a Church of England clergyman with aristocratic connections. Jane‟s childhood was spent in the rectory. She was sent away to school for a brief period, but most of her education was received from her father, who was a scholar educated at Oxford. At an early age she began to write short pieces to amuse other members of the family, and by 1790 had completed

“Love and Friendship”. By 1797 she was working on her novel,

4 “Pride and Prejudice”. “Sense and Sensibility” was also begun at about this period while Jane was visiting the popular spa town of

Bath. She made many other visits to friends and relations, particularly to the home of her brother Edward at Godmersham Park in Kent. By

1798 she had started writing “Susan”, which was published later on as

“Northanger Abbey”. (Wirdnam 1985: 1)

In 1801 Rev. Austen announced his decision to retire to Bath, news which Jane received with sadness, for she was attached to the country side of Southern England. Although towns and cities appear in her novels, they are not generally viewed in a sympathetic way.

"From 1801 until 1809, when she returned to Hampshire permanently, in Bath, Jane wrote very little, and it appears to have been an unsettled period in her life. She spent her summers at seaside resorts like

Sidmouth and Lyme Regis, and it was at one of these that she met the young man whose early death may have ended the only serious romantic attachment in her life" (Wirdnam 1985: 1). The death of

Rev. Austen, in 1805, left Jane, her sister Cassandra and their mother in an unstable financial position, but they were assisted by other members of the family, and by 1807 they were in Southampton. Jane was overjoyed when her brother Edward offered his mother and

5 sisters a house at Chawton, not far from her childhood home at

Steventon. It meant a return to the life of a country village which provided the material of so much of Jane Austen‟s fiction. During her stay at Chawton she revised her earlier fiction and wrote “Mansfield

Park”, “Emma” and “Persuasion”. The publication of her novels brought acclaim from many sources, but Jane Austen never became conceited, preferring to remain an unknown writer, even to close friends.

The world into which Jane Austen was born was that of the landed gentry of late eighteenth century in England which was going through an Agrarian Revolution following the Enclosures Act of the

17th century, and the fashion for landscaping and improving the mansions and their surroundings i.e. Sotherton in “Mansfield Park” possibly modeled on her brother Edward‟s Godmersham Park in East

Kent. At the same time Britain was experiencing the beginnings of the

Industrial Revolution and the benefits of colonialism. Jane Austen‟s immediate environment was limited geographically, by difficult transport, bad roads and severe winters, to the southern counties with a few sallies into Norfolk and Devonshire and visits to urban centers like Portsmouth and London. It was fashionable to take the waters in

6 spas like Cheltenham and Bath and the prince Regent (suffering from gout ) made sea bathing a health project creating new fashionable resorts at Brighton , Rams gate , Weymouth Lyme Regis etc.

The social environment was framed by the rigid hierarchical class system of the British monarchy and aristocracy based on notions of birth and ancestry. But already in Jane Austen‟s time “ old wealth” was being challenged by “new wealth” from industrialists like their neighbors the Portals successful papermakers, merchants and bankers

(as her brother Henry ) and over seas fortune makers such as Warren

Hastings who became Vice Roy of India and also godfather to Jane

Austen‟s cousin Eliza.

Jane Austen‟s immediate family could be classed as „meritocrats‟ being composed of clergymen, lawyers military and naval officers, many of them the younger sons of aristocratic landowners, well educated to a high standard of living but impoverished by the laws of primogeniture and entailment. These younger sons were victims of inheritance laws. They had to seek careers of their own in Britain or out in the colonies of the British Empire. Their elder brothers however, inherited all their father‟s property and were not required to work.

7 Jane Austen‟s mother Mrs. Cassandra Austen (formerly Miss

Leigh) was very proud of her aristocratic origins. She was named

Cassandra after an ancestress Cassandra, Duchess of Chandos. The

Leigh family could claim descent from a Thomas Leigh, one time

Lord Mayor of London who had the honour of proclaiming Elizabeth

Tudor the first Queen of England .

These sorts of people sought to be classed as gentry. The gentry tended to conservatism in politics and supported the Tories and adhered to the Church of England in order to maintain the settled order of their class structure. Also, to preserve the exclusiveness of this rigid and privileged class structure, marriages were arranged on the basis of status and material gain, rather than romantic love or individual preference. These were observed cynically and closely by the poor clergyman‟s daughter Jane Austen, who with her profound preference for love matches made it the major theme of all her novels.

She in fact ironically criticised the inheritance laws of her time which were unjust, especially to women dependent on their male heirs.

Women had no inheritance of their own. This embodied the law of entailment which excluded females from inheritance. Families which had no sons after their father‟s death were threatened by such law.

8 The way Austen wove her plots and the inner tensions of these themes are the major subject of this thesis.

Jane Austen was interested and informed about important political issues and yet, much of her knowledge remains on the periphery of the world of the novels. In the novels, the world of the gentry becomes only that portion accessible to genteel women and the domestic affairs of three or four families in a country village. Men are never depicted without the presence of women; their purely masculine concerns remain unexplored and even mocked in the care of excessive hunting, fishing or gambling or even sheer idleness

In 1817 Jane health began to deteriorate. It is commonly believed she suffered from Addison‟s disease which causes general weakness. Tomalin's book “Jane Austen, A life" mentioned that recently it has been discovered that it is "possible that her final illness was caused by Lymphoma," (a form of cancer) (Tomalin 2000: 290) and she was moved to Winchester to have adequate medical attention, but died on 18th July 1817 in the arms of Cassandra. Jane Austen was buried in Winchester Cathedral, but her real monument are the six novels completed during her lifetime, which have remained some of the most widely read in the English literature.

9 1.2. Social life and Inheritance laws 1.3

Jane Austen‟s Social life is shown in one of the most interesting periods in British history. It was in the reign of George the third who was then succeeded by the Prince Regent, the heir to the throne.

Towards the eighteenth century England was at war with

France and Spain. Europeans were fighting for territories in the newly discovered western hemisphere, Africa and the Far East and trade was spread all over the rest of the world.

Mr. Austen the authoress‟ father was one of the trustees of a plantation in Antigua, on behalf of an old Oxford University friend.

Jane Austen mentions Antiguan estates belonging to Sir Thomas

Bertram in “Mansfield Park”.

With the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1709, many aristocratic families fled across the English Channel. Many of these

French gentlemen taught languages, music, fencing, dancing and their wives also taught languages and worked as governesses. Jane

Austen‟s cousin Eliza‟s French husband was guillotined in 1794. Eliza managed to escape to England where she met her cousins the

Austen‟s.

10 Cassandra‟s fiancé Rev Tom died in the West Indies in 1795. Henry

Austen joined the Oxfordshire Militia. Jane Austen mentions in

"Pride and Prejudice," Herefordshire where Lydia meets Wickam. Her brothers Charles and Frank Austen both became admirals in the Navy.

Jane got a lot of information from her brothers about the navy.

Australia and India were integrated into the Empire and the Viceroy of India Warren Hastings became the godfather of the widowed

Eliza‟s child.

Poor men could make fortunes from the East India Company and return to England to buy a town house in London and an estate in the country and so enter the ranks of the landed gentry. “Young adventurous boys like William Price in Mansfield Park, seized opportunities afforded by the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars to join the navy in the hope of gaining both honours and prize money”

(Le Faye 2003: 76).

11 ironically makes the snobbish Sir Walter say that the Navy was…"The means of bringing persons of obscure birth into undue distinction, and raising men to honour which their fathers and grandfathers never dreamt of ….” (Le Faye 2003: 77).

The Grand Tour of Europe made by the members of landed gentry ceased because of the war in 1793 and Inland tours were made to the country side sceneries of beauty such as the Lake District. In “Pride and Prejudice” where the Gardners take Elizabeth Bennet for a country tour at Derbyshire.

Bath, Clifton and Buxton became famous for their mineral water spas. Of course Jane Austen was very familiar with these places. In

“Persuasion” Anne Eliot‟s friend Mrs. Smith had come to Bath for treatment in the warm mineral waters of Bath. Weymouth, Lyme

Regis and Sydmouth were becoming popular seaside resorts. In

“Mansfield Park” Tom Bertram makes friends with the play boy Mr.

Yates there.

The Prince Regent made Brighton the first fashionable seaside and built the Pavilion in Oriental style.

Day trips and picnics were also made at the time of Jane Austen as a form of meeting, but in her novels these trips always seemed to

12 result in disappointment. In “Persuasion” the trip from Upper Cross to

Lyme was spoilt by the accident of Louisa falling off the Cobb.

It was a custom for the landed gentry to stay in London for some part of the Winter Season for a few weeks. In “Persuasion” Sir Walter and his eldest daughter Elizabeth went to London. In “Sense and

Sensibility” Mrs. Jennings invited Elinor and Marianne to London with her thinking that she will find husbands for them there.

Jane Austen herself visited London for the first time with her parents in 1788.

In later years she was entertained in London by her beloved brother

Henry who lived there. He took her to theatres and gardens.

The most socially important activity was dancing for this was the main way in which young people could become acquainted with each other. It was a way for starting marriages. In “Sense and Sensibility” the balls of London are gatherings for young people. In Pride and

Prejudice" Darcy gets closer to Elizabeth through a dance.

In “Mansfield Park” Sir Thomas Bertram provides a ball for the sake of connecting Fanny to the wealthy Mr. Henry Crawford. Jane

Austen of course criticized arranged marriages through her novels as she fully believed that marriages should be based on mutual attraction

13 rather than fortune. In fact it is said that she never regretted her spinsterhood, though she had several opportunities of a prosperous marriage.

These arranged marriages of convenience at that time were strategies mainly necessitated by the unjustice of laws of entailment and primogeniture.

Owing to the prevailing law of primogeniture the eldest son in the families of the landed gentry inherited the entire estate of the family while the younger sons were disinherited and had to seek careers like naval officers, clergymen, and lawyers. The law of Entailment was a legal arrangement where by the property could descend only to male heir. If there were no direct male heirs it would pass to the next collateral male descendant. In “Mansfield Park” Tom is due to inherit the entire estate of Mansfield Park. “In the reign of George III, young gentlemen of expectation inherited wealth were not supposed to work". (Watt 1963: 41) If they took up a profession it was usually only as matter of social convenience or prestige. Edward Ferrars lamented his lack of training of anything what so ever.

14 The Church as career with which the daughter of a vicar, Jane Austen was very familiar and was regarded not so much as a high vocation from God but rather as means of genteel living.

In Jane Austen‟s novels there is much talk of certain characters being given livings to solve their financial and accommodation problems. There is never a scene in Church or of a clergyman during his job amongst his parishioners as compared for example with some effective doctors and lawyers in her novels.

1.3. Jane Austen’s life:

Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775 in the village of

Steventon, Hampshire one of eight children. Her father was the rector of the village. Her mother was the daughter of a church of England, clergyman with aristocratic connections. Jane‟s childhood was spent in the rectory. She was sent away to school for a brief period, but most of her education was received from her father, who was a scholar educated at Oxford. At an early age she began to write short pieces to amuse other members of the family, and by 1790 had completed “Love and Friendship”. By 1797 she was working on her novel, “Pride and Prejudice”. “Sense and Sensibility” was also begun at about this period while Jane was visiting the popular spa town of

15 Bath. She made many other visits to friends and relations, particularly to the home of her brother Edward at Godmersham Park in Kent. By

1798 she had started writing “Susan”, which was published later on as

“Northanger Abbey”.

Sidmouth and Lyme Regis, and it was at one of these that she met the young man whose early death may have ended the only serious romantic attachment in her life" (Wirdnam 1985: 1). The death of

Revtor Austen, in 1805,left Jane, her sister Cassandra and their mother in an unstable financial position, but they were assisted by other members of the family, and by 1807 they were in Southampton.

Jane was overjoyed when her brother Edward offered his mother and sisters a house at Chawton, not far from her childhood home at

Steventon. It meant a return to the life of a country village which

16 provided the material of so much of Jane Austen‟s fiction. During her stay at Chawton she revised her earlier fiction and wrote “Mansfield

The world into which Jane Austen was born was that of the landed gentry of late 18th century in England which was going through an Agrarian Revolution following the Enclosures Act of the

17th century, and the fashion for landscaping and improving the surroundings big mansions and their surroundings i.e. Somerton in

“Mansfield Park” possibly modeled on her brother Edward‟s

Godmersham park in East Kent. At the some time Britain was experiencing the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution and the benefits of colonialism. Jane Austen‟s immediate environments was limited geographically, by difficult transport, bad roads and sever winters, to the southern counties with a few sallies into Norfolk and

Devonshire and visits to urban centers like Portsmouth and London. It was fashionable to take the waters in spas like Cheltenham and Bath and the prince Regent (suffering from gout ) made sea bathing a

17 health project creating new fashionable resorts at Brighton , Rams gate , Weymouth Lyme Regis etc. It is known that Jane Austen herself enjoyed sea bathing.

(as her brother Henry ) and over seas fortune makers such as Warren

Hastings who became Vice Roy of India and also godfather to Jane

Austen‟s cousin Eliza.

Jane Austen‟s mother Mrs. Cassandra Austen (formerly Miss

Leigh) was very proud of her aristocratic origins. She was named

Cassandra after an ancestress Cassandra, Duchess of Chandos. The

Leigh family could claim descent from a Thomas Leigh, one time

18 Lord Mayor of London who had the honour of proclaiming Elizabeth

Tudor the first Queen of England .

These sorts of people sought to be classed as gentry. The gentry tended to conservatism in politics and supported the Tories and adhered to the Church of England in order to maintain the settled order of their class structure. Also to preserve the exclusiveness of this rigid and privileged class structure, marriages were arranged on the basis of status and material gain, rather than romantic love or individual preference. These were observed cynically and closely by the poor clergyman‟s daughter, Jane Austen who with her profound preference for love matches made it the major theme of all her novels.

The way she wove her plots and the inner tensions of these themes are the major subject of this thesis.

Jane Austen was not uninterested or uninformed about important political issues and yet, much of her knowledge remains on the periphery of the world of the novels. In the novels, the world of the gentry becomes only that portion accessible to genteel women and the domestic affairs of three or four families in a country village. Men are never depicted without the presence of women; their purely masculine

19 concerns remain unexplored and even mocked in the care of excessive hunting, fishing or gambling or even sheer idleness

In 1817 Jane health began to deteriorate. It is commonly believed she suffered from Addison‟s disease which causes general weakness. Tomalin's book Jane Austen "A life" mentioned that recently it has been discovered that it is "possible that her final illness was caused by Lymphoma" a form of cancer) (Tomalin 2000: 290) and she was moved to Winchester to have adequate medical attention, but died on 18 July in the arms of Cassandra. Jane Austen was buried in Winchester Cathedral, but her real monument are the six novels completed during her lifetime, which have remained some of the most widely read in the English literature.

Chapter Two

2.1. Jane Austen and her contemporaries

The Eighteenth Century saw the birth of the English novel in its recognizable form. Among those known as the fathers of this form and admired by Jane Austen were Samuel Richardson, Sir Charles and Henry

Fielding. Samuel Richardson 1689-1761 wrote epistolary novels of which the best known is “Pamela” or “Virtue Rewarded (1740). It is the story of a young lady falsely seduced. “Clarissa Harlow” is his best novel.

Richardson’s novels were models for some of Jane Austen’s juvenilia.

(Thornley, G and Gwyneth, R 1995: 95).

Henry Fielding who was an aristocrat was much admired by Jane Austen.

He was born in Somerset in 1707 and died in 1754. He wrote “Joseph

Andrews” (1742) which is a kind of satire on “Pamela” Samuel

Richardson’s novel. “Joseph Andrews” was considered to mark Fielding’s debut as a serious novelist and he became interested in weaving satire into a romantic novel. “Tom Jones” (1749) is considered Fielding’s greatest novel.

It appeared in eighteen sections, each proceeded by an introduction. He wrote “The History of Jonathan Wild the Great” another satire. Fielding was also considered an accomplished dramatist.

Jane Austen belonged to the Age of Reason. Order was important in men’s thoughts. The prose was balanced. Also Jane Austen watched with a

16 critical eye the rising novelists of the late eighteenth century, several of whom were women. By this time classicism, which had been the major identifying mode of arts generally had given way to Romanticism and reason to sensibility. The sentimental novel became a popular form. It values emotion, individualism and the concept of freedom of choice.

In the same year that Jane Austen was born, Samuel Johnson published his “Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland” and his well known

Dictionary (1775) . He was born in 1709 and died 1784. Dr Johnson was a biographer, lexicographer, an essayist and critic of English literature. He has been praised for his great wit, prose, style and aphorisms. Johnson wrote his novel “Resselas”, “Prince of Abyssinia” 1759. Then he wrote “Lives of the

Poets” (1779-81) with decision and clear expression. Jane Austen admired his style very much and was very influenced by him. (Thornley, G and

Gwyneth, R 1995: 82-83).

Francis Burney (1752-1840) was born in King's Lynn she was a serious novelist, a diarist and her works were literary precursor of the

Romantic novel. She wrote “Evelina”,(1778) “Cecilia, Memoirs of an

Heiress” in 1782 and “Camilla”(1796) an epistolary novel. Jane Austen admired Burney and was influenced by her “Cecilia” (1782) and took from it

17 the title for “Pride and Prejudice”. From “Evilina” Jane Austen got the historical background of her novel “Northanger Abbey”.

Jane Austen admired the poetry of William Cowper (1731 -1800). His verse shows the swing away from the formal classical style of Pope towards a simpler, more natural expression. In 1784 he wrote his long poem “The

Task”.

Robert Burns (1759 -1796) was a farmer whose lyrics became famous.

He used the Scottish dialect. He was one of the pioneers of the Romantic

Movement. Burns wrote “Mary Morrison”, “The Banks of Doone” and

“My love is like a Red Rose". In 1787 Jane Austen began to write poems, stories and plays for her own and her family’s amusement.

Charlotte Turner Smith (1749 -1806) was a poet , a novelist influencing Jane Austen, William Wordsworth and particularly Charles

Dickens. She was a Romantic writer and wrote on Social conditions, politics and was interested in French novelists. She wrote “Emeline” in 1788 around the same period Jane Austen wrote her first play a black comedy called

“Love and Friendship", (1790) which mocked novels of sensibility.

Charlotte Smith also wrote “Celestina”(1791), “Desmond” (1792),“The

Banished Man”(1794) , “The letters of a Solitary wanderer” (1800) . In

1792 she wrote “Young Philosopher” and a poem called “The Emigrant”

18 Mary Shelly who was the famous poet's wife, was born in 1797 and died in 1851 was famous for her “gothic” novel “Frankenstein (1818) a ghost story. It is a pattern of machine-men and is an attempt at science fiction the robots of today. Mary wrote her novel “The last Man” (1826) it is a story of the slow destruction by disease of every member except one of the human race. Jane Austen around the same period published “Northanger

Abbey”, a satire on this sort of novel. (Thornley, G. and Gwyneth, R. 1995:

117).

In 1790 Edmund Burke wrote “Reflections on Revolution in France”.

Burke wrote fine oratorical prose. He was a lawyer and a Member of

Parliament, “Letters to the Sheriffs of Bristol’ (1777). He argued that a wise government must not press its rights vigorously hard. Burke wanted to get rid of slavery.

Thomas Paine (1737-1809) wrote “Rights of Man” in 1971 a reply to

“Reflections of the Revolution” in France. Jane Austen also wrote “The

History of England, by a self confessed partial, prejudiced and ignorant historian”(1791).

Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) is a pioneer of the Gothic novel of overheated works, terror, passion and madness, foreign castles, rapes, fires and tempests. Radcliffe had a real feeling for nature, she arouses interest in

19 describing unusual scenes and sights and strange events. She wrote “A

Sicilian Romance” (1790), “Romance of the Forest” (1791). Her famous novel “The Mysteries of Udolpho” (1794) and “The Italian”1797. In the same period Jane Austen started writing “Elinor and Marianne” which became later on ”Sense and Sensibility”. She also started “Susan” and “Pride and Prejudice” was then published. It is well known that “Northanger

Abbey” of Jane Austen was begun as a satire on Mrs. Radcliff’s “The

Mysterious of Udolpho,” and to show that real life is very different. Jane was a realist and thought that the heroes of the Gothic novel always risked incredible dangers.

In 1792 Robert Bage (1718-1801) a novelist wrote “Man as he is” while in the same year Jane Austen wrote “Lesley Castle” followed by other youthful compositions. He wrote “Barham Owns “(1784) and in (1795) wrote “Hemsproug” a novel. Around the same period, Jane Austen started

“First Impressions.” (1796)

Godwin ( 1756-1836) was a philosopher and a journalist. He wrote

"Fleet Wood” a novel and a biography of lord Chatham. Godwin wrote

“Coleb Willins”(1794) and in (1817) “Man Ville” at the same period Jane

Austen started writing compositions of verses “Oventa” about Winchester races and Swithin Patron Saint of Winchester 9 (www. everything 2. com).

20 William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, with Southey became famous as the lake poets. They liked the Cumberland lake district.

Wordsworth and Coleridge wrote “Lyrical Ballads” (1798), Wordsworth was a poet of nature and had the ability to throw charm over ordinary thing .

Coleridge on the other hand could make mysterious events acceptable to reader’s mind. Neither of them used the old language of poetry much.

Coleridge wrote the poem “The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner”. It describes some strange misfortune that happened to his becalmed ship in the south of the Atlantic. “Christabel” was a long narrative written in 1816 and “Kubla

Khan” in the same year. Jane Austen's “Emma” was published in 1816 by

Murray. The manuscript and copyright of the unpublished “Northanger

Abbey” were recovered from Grossby by her brother Henry. “Persuasion” was written in that same year. Wordsworth wrote “Westminster Bridge” an emotional view of London asleep in 1802. Wordsworth wrote “The

Daffodils”, “The Solitary Reaper” and “Lucy”. The ode on “Intimations of

Immorality” in 1807 is a longer poem . The poet finds the faith of childhood before business of the world has shut off the view of heaven. “The prelude”

(1805), “The Excursion” (1814) is a great work but was never completed.

Coleridge wrote “Biographic Literaria” in 1817. He admired Jane Austen but

Mr. Wordsworth used to say that although he admitted that her novels were

21 an admirable copy of life, he could not be interested in productions of that kind as for him, they lacked imagination. At the same period Jane Austen wrote Northanger Abbey. "Emma" was published in 1816, the same

“Persuasion” was written.

Lord Byron was a romantic figure, but his poetry was much influenced by the classical style of Pope. He satirized many sides of English life. His poetry though powerful, lacks the finest poetic imagination. His words mean only what they say. When he wrote carelessly he wrote beautifully and strongly.

He wrote “Childe Harold Pilgrimage” in 1809, a story of a man who goes off to travel far away because he is disgusted with life’s foolish pleasures. He wrote poems about the East, “The Gaur” (1813), “The Bridge of Abydos”(1813) is a tragic love story. In 1817 Byron wrote “Manfred” a poem, “The Dan Juan” in 1818 which was a long poem of astonishing adventure and satire. In the same period Jane Austen's "Persuasion" was published by her brother Rev. Henry. She used to read Byron’s poetry which influenced her greatly.

Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) is identified as a worthy example of novelist. She was born in Black Burton Oxford. Jane Austen admired her very much and was influenced by her. Maria wrote letters for literary

22 leisured ladies 1797. In 1796 she wrote Children’s books. Her first novel

“Castle Rack-rent” (1800). In 1801 she wrote “Blenda”. In 1804 a collection of stories “Popular Tales”. In the same period 1804 Jane Austen wrote an episratory novel “Lady Susan” not to be confused with “Susan’. In 1805

Maria Edgeworth published her novels “Amilia” and “The Modern

Griselda”. In 1809 “Tale of fashionable life" was written. Jane Austen had an unsuccessful attempt to revive the publication of “Susan”. In 1814

Maria’s novel "Patronage" was written while Jane Austen had her

“Mansfield Park” written and published. In 1817 Maria Edgeworth wrote

“Ormond” a novel while Jane Austen started writing twelve chapters of

“Sanditon” an unfinished novel. (www. everything 2. com).

In 1802 Walter Scott wrote a collection of ballads, called

“Minstrelsy”. In this same year Jane Austen revised “Susan” later on

“Northanger Abby”. Sir Walter Scott was Jane Austen’s particular favorite.

He wrote poetry. “The Lady of the last Minstrel” 1805 based on an old

Scottish story. “Marmior” (1808) “The Lady of the Lake” (1810)

“Christabled” and “The Lord of the Isles” were written, “Guy Mannering” in

1815 written while Jane Austen began “Persuasion”.

23 Scott is rather difficult to read, his historical novels are too deep and long for a modern reader, and his style is sometimes heavy . He loved people and could tell stories well (Thornley, G and Gwyneth, R. 1995:118-119).

Wright, p.17). In fact Jane Austen was Scott’s favorite writer they both attempted to reconcile the claims of the mind and the heart and make that conflict a central issue in their novels. Finally, Jane Austen had the satisfaction of earning the sum of £160 for "Pride and Prejudice" which became very popular.

All this ended when she died in 1817 at the early age of forty one.

2.2. The Formation of Jane Austen as a Novelist:

It is not surprising that Jane Austen is considered to be the first virtuoso of the novel. Starting from her own family who were very intelligent and well read. They read alone and aloud together and wrote and performed their own plays. Her early writings are considered to originate in her early family’s hilarious incidents on their return home after a party. She was very quick to distinguish between the genuine and the false and to learn the vividity of caricature and good-humored realism.

24 Jane Austen was very well informed with much that mattered in

English literature. This is mainly due to her father’s rich library and family discussion circles at home. Jane Austen favorite writers were known as the father’s of the English novel in the eighteenth century.

She admired Johnson, Cowper who were her favorite moral writers particularly Walter Scott. She was influenced by them, and preaching against the excess of Romanticism, she had her own highly sophisticated writing technique. She read Richardson and Fielding, Stern Charlotte Lennox , Fany

Burney, Anne Radcliffe, Charlotte smith and so on. Jane Austen and her family read Shakespeare plays.

Again starting from the family Jane’s mother was a great reader and she wrote accomplished light verse. Her brother James also had his mother’s appetite for verse. He wrote serious poetry and dramatic prologues for the plays put on with his brothers at home. He founded a magazine “The

Loiterer” (1789-91)- Jane herself was writing at the age of twelve. At first it was burlesque parody of all the absurdities she observed in her widening acquaintance. Claire Tomalin, Jane Austen’s recent biographer, suggests that these early stories are influenced by the boyish humour with which she was so familiar at home. In “Jack and Alice”, dedicated to her brother Francis, there are jokes about drunkenness, food, violent death and accidents

25 speculation about adult behavior and rude remarks about personal appearances. She says that Jane Austen retained that tough and unsentimental approach in her adult work, her “Comedies of Manners”

"however conventionally happy their endings, have a hard, shrewd core to them". (Dick.2000:90)

At the age of fourteen, she dedicated “Love and Friendship” to her glamorous cousin Eliza, who had married a French count who was later guillotined by the Revolutionaries. “Love and Friendship” is an epistolary work which is related to the sensibility of the time that was very fashionable while still in her teens, Jane changed her subject matter and her range increased, her comical “History of England (1791) is full of family jokes and references. In 1792 Jane wrote “Lesley Castle”, a scandalous tale of child abandonment, adultery and conversions to Roman Catholicism topics with which her father’s Church of England was much concerned in a spirit of literary Criticism. He was an exceptional father to his exceptional daughter.

He unrestrictedly opened his library to her ever since she was a small child.

Mr. Austen admired her work very much and encouraged Jane greatly.

These early stories were composed for her own family’s amusement.

She made small literary step to “Lady Susan” written when she was nineteen. In the same year she started “Elinor and Marianne”, the original

26 overshoot of “Sense and Sensibility” and in 1796 -7 “First Impression”, which eventually became “Pride and Prejudice” . Her father thought so highly of it that he offered it to a publisher, who rejected it. Bravely enough she wrote “Susan “ which became “Northanger Abby”. All these books she accomplished in her early twenties.

Jane’s regular writing activity stopped in 1805 probably due to her father’s death. She left an unfinished novel called “The Watson’s” in that year, but when she settled in Chawton village in their home given to them by her brother Edward which he inherited from the Knights who had adopted him. She then started writing again when she was cheered up by successful publication. She began “Mansfield Park” in 1811, “Emma” in 1814,

“Persuasion” in 1816, but “Sanditon” remained unfinished at her death in

1817. Her novels were published anonymously, but her authorship become often with her readers extending to aristocratic and even court circles. The

Prince Regent whom Jane did not like, hinted he "would allow a work to be dedicated to him. Jane followed his wishes reluctantly". (Dick 2000:91).

27 against Napoleon in which two of her brothers were engaged as officers in the Navy. She was a patriot, she loved England intensely and it was the only country she knew. Although she knew London well, and towns like Bath and

Southampton, most of her life was lived in the serene countryside which was not polluted by factories of the Industrial Revolution. Her novels reflect eighteenth century civility. The darker side of life and the poverty of the working class she did not write about, for she never visited any industrial town. She lived all her life on the fringes of the landed gentry in middle class calmness and comfort. Jane Austen set herself as an author to look into the real and powerful insights of the human condition that her work reveals.

It is important to have a regard for the nature of the society in which she lived and wrote and her relationship to it. She took up newly found opportunities for women to write and publish their work. She was aware of the writings of others of her sex and only too conscious of the subordinate and marginal positions of women in society. She writes of women who are more than just the victims of that society, but who challenge and rise above conventional norms and contemporary notions of women and their conduct.

Many of the issues of power, property and gender with which Jane Austen deals with such humour and insight, remain unresolved today. But writers like Jane Austen, Dickens , Bernard Shaw, Ibsen and Zola later in the

28 nineteenth century helped to bring about social consciousness and many social reforms.

She never regretted her spinsterhood. She had a gift for friendship and love for her extended family. Her children were her novels as she described them.

When she saw “Sense and Sensibility” finally in print she said “I can no more forget it, than a mother can forget her sucking child”, and “Pride and

Prejudice” was her “darling child” (Dick 2000:88). Childless spinster she may have been but “her children” are her books-surviving into the Twenty

First century to our delight and intellectual benefit.

2.3. Critical Writings on Jane Austen

The publication of her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh’s

“Memoirs of Jane Austen” in 1870 led to Austen’s wider popularity and prompted much more critical interest.

29 By the end of the nineteenth century, many publishers had produced editions of her major novels which have never subsequently been out of print.

Through most of their critical history the works of Jane Austen have tended to gather many views, with supporters and detractors starting from every member of her family. They would compare the novels with different comments, the interesting thing about these early critical comments that they pin point the issues that have continued to fascinate critics up to now. Her letters to Cassandra (her sister) during March 1814 report her brother

Henry’s comment from his first reading of “Mansfield Park” and it is clear that Cassandra herself has already read the manuscript.

Henry has enjoyed it, and praises the characters, particularly Lady Bertram and Mrs. Norris. He likes Fanny, and admires Henry Crawford as a clever, pleasant man, though doubtless his admiration did not extend to Henry’s morals. (Wirdram 1985:80)

"According to Jane Austen Henry found the last half of the novel extremely interesting". ((Wirdram 1985:79)

A family friend, of the Austen's Lady Gordon comments about Jane Austen saying: "In most novels you are amused for the first time with a set of ideal people whom you never think of after words. In Miss Austen’s works, especially in “Mansfield Park” you actually live with them, you fancy yourself one of the family…..There is scarcely an incident or conversation, or a person that you are not inclined to imagine you

30 have at one time or another in your life been a witness to, born a part in, & been a acquainted with." (Wirdram 1985:80)

The Biographer Clair Tomalin says that Lady Bess Borough, a friend of the dramatist Sheridan and of the Prince of Wales, was greatly amused by the novel, although she complained that it ended “stupidly, referring to

“Sense and Sensibility”. Sixteen-year –old princess Charlotte (daughter of the Prince of Wales) wrote in a letter that “Marianne and me are very alike in disposition, that certainly I am not so good, the same imprudence, and however remain very alike”.(Dick 2001: 99)

The biographer Claire Tomalin mentioned in her book on Jane Austen

"A Life" that the publisher himself Mr. Egerton “praised it for it’s Morality”.

(Tomalin 1998:228) She is referring here to Austen's novel “Mansfield

Park”.

Sir Walter Scott praised Jane Austen’s works in 1815 saying:

The narrative of all her novels is composed of such common occurrences as may have fallen under the observation of most folks; and her dramatis personae conduct themselves upon the motives and principles which the readers may recognize as ruling their own and of most of their acquaintances. (Dick 2001:99)

31 Scott also argues that Jane Austen’s kind of novel marked a new departure in that it avoided a craving of her incident and an overemotional and sentimental effect on the reader.

Richard Whately in 1821, four years after Jane Austen’s death approves of "Jane Austen’s didactic purposes in her writings" (Wirdnam

1985:81)

Macaulay is neither the first nor the least distinguished commentator to compare Jane Austen to Shakespeare. Shakespeare has had neither equal nor second but among the writers who have approached nearest to the manner of the great master there is no hesitation in placing Jane Austen a woman of whom England is justly proud (Wrigh 1962:18).

In the nineteenth century Jane Austen was attacked by the popular novelist Charlotte Bronte (1816) and the poet Elizabeth Barret Browning for what they saw as limiting lack of emotion or passion in her writing. Like

Wordsworth, Miss Bronte praises Jane Austen for her accuracy and like him; she feels in her a want of imagination, though the language is different.

Charlotte Bronte says about Jane Austen that “She does her business of delineating the surface of the lives of genteel English people curiously well.

There is a Chinese fidelity, a miniature delicacy in the painting”. (Wright

1962:19)

32 Miss Bronte confuses the distinction between dispassion and superficiality: The very cool observation calmness with which Jane Austen writes, leads Charlotte Bronte to believe that Jane Austen is an author of surface only. What she does not see, is that in Jane Austen’s treatment of her material there is by implication “that stormy sisterhood the passion and good deal more, than an occasional graceful but distant recognition of the feeling”

(Wright 1962: 9). Jane Austen concerned with morals, the way how people behave and based on three or four families in a country village.

In the United States Mark Twain (1835-1910) and Ralph Waldo

Emersion (1803-1930) described Jane Austen 's novels as tedious. At the beginning of the Twentieth century D.H .Lawrence (1885-1930) found her novels snobbish among other things.

Among Jane Austen’s supporters, include George Eliot (1817-80) and her partner the writer G.H Lewes ( 1817-78) who admired Miss Austen but saw her work as likely to appeal to an intellectual elite within a small circle of cultivated minds.

Richard Simpson argues that Miss Austen’s novels are set out to teach. He saw Jane Austen as a detached critic of society, using irony as a tool. (Windram 1985:p 81), Henry James (1843-1916) and Rudyard Kipling

(1865-1936) have been admirers of Jane Austen. They saw her as precursor

33 in literary technique especially in “Emma”. D.W Harding, a Twentieth century critic rejected the notion that Jane Austen was a light delicate, humanist and shows instead that her satirical comments are often directed at the reader i.e. the society around her. She was aware of society’s shortcomings, but out of respect for the virtues of civilized order, her attack are disguised as comic she offers “her reader every excuse for regarding as rather exaggerated figures of fun, people whom she herself detests and fears”. (Wirdnam, 1985: 82).

Trilling even said that "Jane Austen’s irony is sometimes directed against itself and in favour of hard literalness." (Wirdnam, 1985:83) In her previous novels Jane Austen had shown that wit and vivacity were virtues but in “Mansfield Park” for example these become a form of deceit. “Virtue is to be found in plain speaking or even awkwardness.” (Wirdnam 1985:83)

More recently Miss Austen has been called both a capitalist bourgeois and in a sense a “Marxist”. David Daiches says that Jane Austen is the only

English novelist of stature who was "in a sense a Marxist before Marx". who exposes the economic basis of social behaviours with an ironic smile".

(Watt 1963:11) Julia Kavanagh, a recent critic, noted that "there is almost a tragic strain in Miss Austen’s comedies" (Dick 2001:100). In 1998 Brain

34 Southan wrote the comprehensive work of Jane Austen: “The critical

Heritage” (Dick 2001:101).

Julian Wilmot Wynne wrote “Jane Austen and Sigmund Freud”.

(1998) David Lodge who has rejected the new criticism of aesthetic constrain has discovered that Jane Austen’s novels can be an instrument of ideology, a genre founded on bad faith, on the pretence that bourgeois culture is "natural", using the dominance of the authorial voice." (Dick

2001:102).

There is a tremendous amounts of material written about Jane Austen and there is still much to be written.

In praising Jane Austen, Virginia Wolf said that “The child who formed her sentence so finely when she was fifteen never ceased to form them, and never wrote for the prince Regent or his librarian, but for the world at large”(Watt 1963:.21).

This crystallized picture of Jane Austen’s writings show that she writes with deep meaning which gifts sufficient intellect and understanding to the whole world.

E.M Forster confessed that Jane Austen was his favorite author. This admiration for Jane Austen is based partly on compatibility of temperament.

Both Jane Austen and E.M Forster attempted to reconcile the claims of the

35 head and the heart, and indeed make that conflict a central issue in their novels. Forester’s in his “Aspects of the Novel” singles out for especial praise the way that the characters in Jane Austen’s novels are originally related to their environment and to each other; and he uses Jane Austen as a signal example of how to create what he calls “round” as opposed to “flat” characters, that is characters who are three dimensional enough to develop, or surprise us convincingly: “All her characters” Forster declares, “are round or capable of rotundity” (qtd. in Watt 1963:9)

In 1949 the economic approach to Jane Austen was examined in the terms of literary criticism by Mark Shchorer in his important essay

“Fiction and the (Matrix of Analogy)” (1949). "Here the values of commerce and property, the counting house and the inherited estate” are traced in Jane Austen’s characteristic diction and metaphor". (Watt

1963:12).

Q.D Levis's "A theory of Jane Austen's writings" (1941-2), is much nearer to that of a professional writer than of a miraculously gifted amateur"

(Guard 1998:25). Andre Gide’s finely balanced judgment that Jane Austen exhibits “an exquisite mastery of whatever can be mastered”. (Watt

1963:14). In her limited world, this makes her ever so true in her writings.

Chapter Three

The Effect of the Law of Entailment

3.1. Introduction to “Sense and Sensibility”:

There are three inheritance themes in “Sense and Sensibility.”

The main theme concerns Mr. Henry Dashwood, his second wife and their three daughters who lived with Mr. Dashwood‟s wealthy Uncle at

Norland Park the Dashwood ancestral estate. The old uncle died and the estate was left to his nephew Mr. Henry Dashwood as expected, but very soon after Mr. Henry‟s early death it passed to John Dashwood his son by his first marriage and then it was to pass to John‟s male descendants. In fact John Dashwood does not really need to increase his wealth because he is married to a wealthy wife. Mr. Henry Dashwood thinks that his wife and three daughters need the inheritance more than his son, but he has no hand in changing the prevailing law of entailment, that excluded women out of inheritance, that is why he is so worried and on his death bed he asks his son John to promise to assist his step mother and half sisters. Unfortunately for Henry‟s women folks John

Dashwood breaks his promise gradually by many cunning tricks of his greedy wife Fanny. They move into Norland without warning as

38 soon as the funeral has finished and from that moment Mrs. John

Dashwood becomes the ruling mistress of Norland. Fanny manages to convince her husband John that his father‟s request has nothing to do with financial help. She persuades him to find them a small house and send them occasional gifts of game or fish from his estate.

The second theme is a different kind of inheritance which concerns the fortune of Mrs. Ferrars, Fanny's mother. This women‟s kind of independent property was uncommon for women at that time. (it could possibly be the female fee of entailment.) She is against the marriage of her eldest son Edward Ferrars to Anne Steele their poor relative so Mrs Ferrars changes her inheritance to her younger conceited son Robert Ferrars. Anne Steel whose engagement to Edward dashes the hopes of Elinor, finally elopes with the now wealthy Robert.

The third theme is the inheritance of John Willoughby. He is loved by

Marriane the middle daughter of Mr. Henry Dashwood, but he never requests her hand in marriage in spite of much flirtations. He is cousin and heir presumptive of the reclusive and wealthy Mrs. Smith of

Allenham court who summons him now and then. Willoughby‟s extravagant life style has left him in financial difficulties and he is

39 supposed to marry a Miss Grey who has ₤ 5,000 of her own in the hope of restoring his fortunes.

The fourth theme is Colonel Brandon‟s inheritance. After the death of his eldest brother Colonel Brandon inherited the estate of

Delaford. He is an honest friend and devoted to Marianne and later on he marries her after her disappointment over Willoughdy. Coloned

Brandon kindly offers a modest part of his estate the vicarage of

Delaford to help Edward Ferrars to get married, while Edward‟s own mother deprives him from his inheritance.

3.2. Exiled Away

“Sense and Sensibility”, the first of Jane Austen‟s works to be published, is not easily labeled as either an ironic comedy of manners or a morality tale. It is first and foremost a political novel. "The family, its relationship to the ownership and inheritance of land and status, are examined here" (Austen 1993:5). The role of women within the family and the power relationship between women themselves, as well as between women and men are all to be found amongst its themes.

The place and order of things is established from the first sentence, the family of Dashwood has long been settled in Sussex” The

Dashwoods a group of women (mother and three daughters), are of course anything but settled, no Settlement of any great substance having been provided for them. They (mother and three daughters)must go leaving Norland Park and Sussex for Barton Cottage in a county so far distance from Sussex as Devonshire. The “Furrowed brow” is the law of property prior to the reforming land Acts of the early twentieth century, was clearly grasped by Jane Austen, she illustrated it with implicit criticism, "a system of entailment that threw women upon the mercy of their male relatives, directly in the line of entailment. In a few brief lines, the many kinds of unjust and perversity of this system of inheritance are revealed" (Austen 1993:5). The property relationship is clearly mapped out.

It is evident that the the Dashwood family had a wonderful life in

Sussex with the old uncle of their father. They happened to be there to compensate for the loss of the uncle‟s sister who used to look after him.

The father Mr. Henry was in fact the old uncle‟s nephew and his legal inheritor of the Norland Park where they all lived very respectably and happily,: “The family of Dashwood had been long settled in Sussex.

Their estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of their property, where for many generations they had lived in so

41 respectable a manner as to engage the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance. The late owner of this estate was a single man, who lived to a very advanced age, and who for many years of his life had a constant companion and housekeeper in his sister, But her death which happened ten years before his own, produced a great alteration in his home, for to supply her loss, he invited and received in to his house the family of his nephew, Mr. Henry Dashwood, "the legal inheritor of the Norland estate, and the person to whom he intended to bequeath it" (Austen 1993:9).

Mr. Henry Dashwood had a son from a previous marriage who is a half brother to his three daughters. John Dashood the son was wealthy, he was provided for by the fortunes of his mother and also his wife moreover his wealth would increase when he succeeds to Norland Park that is by being the only male son of Mr. Henry. His half sisters would be out of inheritance because they are females. In reality the Norland estate was more important to the daughters than to the son but by such rigid entailment laws there was no chance for them.

After having led a splendid life at Norland Park, unfortunately

“The old Gentleman died, his will was read, and like almost every other will gave as much disappointment as pleasure. He was neither so unjust

42 nor so ungrateful as to leave his estate from his nephew; but he left it to him on such terms as destroyed half the value of the bequest. Mr.

Dashwood had wished for it more for the sake of his wife and daughters than for himself or his son, but to his son, and his son‟s son; a child of four years old, it was secured in such a way as to leave to himself no power of providing for those who were most dear to him, and who most needed a provision" (Austen 1993:9).

Mr. Henry was very disappointed by the will of the late uncle and he became more anxious about his women Folk‟s future unfortunately not very long after the uncle‟s death Mr. Henry himself became very ill.

When the danger was known his son was sent for. On his death bed Mr.

Henry asked his son eagerly to give every assistance to his mother – in – law (nowadays step- mother) and three half sisters. The son being affected by his father‟s request promised his father that he would.

"His son was sent for as soon as his danger was known, and to him Mr. Dashwood recommended, with all the strength an urgency which illness could command, the interest of his mother in –law and sisters" (Austen 1963:10). Mr. John Dashwood had not the strong feeling of the rest of the family; but he was affected by a recommendation of such a nature at such a time and he promised to do

43 every thing in his power to make them comfortable. His father has rendered easy by such an assurance.

Mr. Henry Dashwood passed away leaving behind him a sad widow and three sad daughters. Will Mr. John Dashwood keep his promise to his father? Thus begins the plot will he be a shelter to his mother-in-law and half sisters?

"Mr. John Dashwood did not have a strong feeling for the rest of the family, he was mainly concerned about his wife and son but in general he was well respected for he conducted himself with propriety in the discharge of his ordinary duties." (Austen 1993:10) but sadly enough his wife Fanny had a very bad strong influence on him. She had a black heart and she was a big hypocrite with her cunning tricks she would do her hardest to prevent him from helping the rest of the family.

"No sooner was his father‟s funeral over than Mrs. John

Dashwood, without sending any notice of her intentions to her mother- in-law, arrived with her child and their attendants. No one could dispute her right to come; the house was her husband‟s from the moment of his father‟s decease" (Austen 1993:10).

Mrs. Dashwood and her three daughters were provoked by the ungracious arrival of Mrs. John Dashwood Fanny, in fact Mrs.

Dashwood was disgusted that she wanted to leave the house, her previous much loved home. Being persuaded by Elinor the eldest daughter Mrs. Dashwood stayed and so as to avoid a breach with the girls' brother as Elinor requested.

It is a deep sadness to say that Mrs. Henry Dashwood and her daughters are cheated out of inheritance, as Fanny persuaded her only too amenable husband that he does not need to offer any financial assistance to his mother in-law (step mother) and three half sisters"

(Dick 2001:54).

Mr. John Dashwood meant to keep his promise to his father but how will he perform it?

Mr. John Dashwood proposed to give a generous three thousand pound to his sisters, which would be more much less than his father intended with cunning arguments and apparent deference to her spouse,

Fanny demolishes her husband‟s diminishing proposals of assistance in turn, until they are able to agree that their obligations would be more than adequately fulfilled by occasional gifts of fish and game. Her arguments in sequence are that, their small son would be deprived of money given away; his sisters are only half blood and therefore hardly related; his father was light headed at the time of the request; any

45 annuity to Mrs. Dashwood might tie up money for many years, his father never intended help to include money, his step mother (mother- in

–law) and sisters will live so modestly that they will in any case have more money than they can spend; Mrs. Dashwood will not need any gift of furniture for her house when she moves, since she already has enough.

Mr. Dashwood says to his wife "It was my father‟s last request to me „That I should assist his widow and three daughters' (Austen

1993:10). Fanny gives a very cunning reply to her husband. „"He did not know what he was talking of, I dare; ten to one but he was light headed at the time. Had he been in his right sense, he could not have thought of such a thing as begging you to give away half your fortune from your own child" (Austen 1993:12).

Mr. John Dashwood thinks something must be done for his ladies since he has given the promise to his father on his deathbed.

But Fanny is still fighting greedily for her boy Harry, again she intrudes,

46 be gone for ever, if indeed it could ever be restored to our poor little boy…. " (Austen 1993:12).

Influenced by his wife‟s argument Mr. John Dashwood replies

"why to be sure" Said her husband, very gravely „That would make a great difference'. The time may come when Harry will regret that so large a sum was parted with. If he should have a numerous family, for instance, it would be a very convenient addition" (Austen 1993:12).

Not only are John and Fanny unwilling to part with even a tiny portion of their big wealth but they are completely satisfied with their self- justifications. "To be sure indeed to say the truth, I am convinced within myself that your father had no idea of your giving them any money at all the assistant he thought of, I dare say, was only such as might be reasonably expected of you; for instance, such as looking out for a comfortable small house for them………..and sending them presents of fish and game and so forth, whenever are in season…….how excessively comfortable your mother in law and her daughters may live on the interest of seven thousand pounds………..They will live so cheaply! Their house keeping will be nothing at all………‟ (Austen

1993:14).

Mr. John Dashwood completely agrees to her greedy opinion trying to relieve himself, he replies “Upon my word” said Mr.

Dashwood „I believe you are perfectly alright. My father could mean nothing more by his request to me than what you say….‟ (Austen

1993:14).

Fanny shows the ugliest part of her selfishness and greed by putting her eyes on Mrs. Dashwood s' silver plates which she had all her life at Norland Park. “Certainly”, returned Mrs. John Dashwood

„But however one must be considered. When your father and mother moved to Norland…………all the china plate and linen was saved and now is left to your mother. Her house will therefore be almost completely fitted as soon as she takes it' (Austen 1993:14) In fact Mr.

John Dashwood gradually excuses himself from his promise to his father. He reaches the degree that he would take what privately belonged to his mother in law and his sisters.

He finally resolved, that it would be absolutely unnecessary, to do more for the widow and her daughters than such kind of neighborly acts as his own wife pointed out.

By Fate, Fanny‟s brother Edward Farrar‟s and Elinor, the eldest

Dashwood daughter become attached to each other during the

Dashwoods stay of six months at Norland Park. But generally Mrs.

Dashwood and her daughters are unhappy in their old home, which is now taken over by the terrible Fanny.

A timely invitation from Sir John Middleton, Mrs. Henry

Dashwood‟s cousin provides them with a small house on his estate at a low rent in Devonshire. The Dashwoods have mixed feelings about the move. They feel very happy to settle in their new home in Barton

Cottage, but are also sad because of their former grand days and memories.

Elinor believes that Edward and she are in love with each other in spite of Edward‟s low spirits. She is deeply hurt when she learns from the cruel Lucy Steel that she and Edward have been secretly engaged for four years. Silly Anne Steele, Lucy‟s sister on seeing her sister to be favorite with Edward‟s mother and the Middleton‟s reveals Lucy‟s engagement with Edward. The snobbish Ferrar‟s throw the penniless

Steels out of their house. Fanny claims to be ill from the shock, and

Mrs. Farrars says she will cut off Edward‟s inheritance unless he cancels his engagement.

Edward determines to honour his engagement and Mrs. Ferrar‟s makes her younger and favorite son Robert to be her heir. In fact Robert is very shallow.

Elinor nearly lost hope when a servant Thomas came from Exeter to say that Mr. Ferrar‟s is married and he has seen him and Lucy Steel in town. It is almost more than Elinor can bear when Edward arrives on horse back later that day and reveals that he is at last free. Lucy has broken her engagement to him. She married his wealthier brother

Robert. So the Mr Farrars seen by Thomas the servant was infact Robert and not Edward. For once Elinor loses her control of her emotions, she runs out of the room crying out her heart in tears of joy.

Lucy Steele has an eye for her financial advantage and turns out to be a manipulative and successful social climber, when she seizes her chance to trap Robert Ferrars the wealthier brother.

Edward, ordained as a clergyman, is offered a living by Colonel

Brandon their faithful friend and with some mean- spirited financial assistance from Mrs. Ferrars, his mother, is able to marry Elinor and they move into the parsonage at Delaford.

Eventually Marianne, Elinor‟s younger sister, recovers over her misery over Willoughby‟s betrayal as a lover and marries Colonel

Braden the patient suitor. Their mother and youngest sister Margaret are very contented to see them happily married. Elinor is happy in her harmonious marriage and helps Edward and encourages him to make reconciliation with his mother.

Jane Austen rounds up the story by rewarding the Dashwood patient and virtous ladies by giving them a happy ending after suffering greatly from being disinherited and exiled from their much loved old

Norland Park.

3.3. Introduction to "Pride and Prejudice":

The main inheritance theme in "Pride and Prejudice" is the

Bennet‟s entailed property.

"As for the Longbourn family themselves, Mr. and Mrs Bennent have been married for twenty three years…… Eldest daughter Jane,

…Elizabeth …Mary.. Kitty… and Lydia. Mrs. Bennet has passed the menopause, so there is now no hope that there will ever be a son to inherit Longbourn and keep the estate safe for the Bennets under the terms of the entail…it was a legal arrangement whereby the property could descend only to a male heir. If there was no direct male heir, as in the Bennet‟s case, then the next nearest male collateral descendant of the owner who had originally created the entail would inherit"

The second inheritance theme concerns Mr. Charles Bingley on whom Mrs. Bennet is pinning her hopes, arrives at Herdfordshire, with his two elder sisters………..and especially to Mrs Bennet‟s interest,

"has his own lump- sum inheritance of ₤100,000 and an income of between ₤4,000 and ₤5,000 a year" (Le Fayer 2003:186). He has inherited all this of after his father's death.

The third inheritance theme concers “Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy‟s property, Turns out to be an even greater matrimonial prize than Mr.

Bingley . Mr. Darcy comes from Derbyshire, where his ancestral estate of Pemberly is said to be worth ₤10,000 a year………., he inherited his great estate five years ago when his father died”. (Le Fayer 2003:188)

At the end of the novel he marries Elizabeth the pretty and intelligent daughter of the Bennets.

3.4. A Truth Universally acknowledged

Jane Austen is always criticizing the preference of males to females, she is ironically mocking her society through her novels. A woman‟s position is very weak in inheriting a land. She is always in need of a man of property to secure her life. There is great tension between families wherever there is a single man (male) of fortune looking for a wife. It is usually the mothers who have to fight for their daughters, especially for those who have no brothers as male heirs. It is a very striking notice showing such preference of males to females and the threatened females from the very beginning of the first chapter of the novel "Pride and Prejudice”.

53 land to the nearest male relative. These apprehensions of Mrs. Bennet are sarcastically raised by Jane Austen in the very opening words of the novel.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife". (Austen

1993:219).

The Bennet family is in a critical situation, the father‟s property is entailed to his male heir, the Rev. Collins his cousin "(Mr. Bennet‟s property consists entirely of an estate with two thousand a year, Which unfortunately for his daughters, was entailed indefault of heirs males on a distant relation" (Austen 1993:253). This is very worrying for Mrs

Bennet and her daughters. If her husband dies, she and her daughters will be threatened by the coming male heir.

In the beginning of the novel Mr. Bennet asks his wife about the gentleman who is coming from the north to live near them at the nearby estate of Netherfield. He asks if the young man is married or single.

Then she answers eagerly.

"Oh! Single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!" (Austen

1993:219).

Mrs. Bennet is pressurizing her husband to go and call on the new neighbor Mr. Bingley in order to open doors for her daughters to be seen socially, she says:

“When a woman has five grown up daughters, she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty.” (Austen 1993:219).

The business of Mrs. Bennet‟s life is to get her daughters married. After that she thinks, she will be relieved.

"If I can but see one of my daughters happily settled at Netherfield”.

Said Mrs. Bennet to her husband, "and all the others equally well married, I shall have nothing more to wish for" (Austen 1993:222).

Sometime later Mr. Bennet and his family are all gathered together at breakfast, they have a debate about who might come that day, Mr.

Bennet has asked his wife if she had ordered a good dinner then after amusing himself he explained:

"About a month ago I received this letter and about a fortnight ago I answered it, for I thought it a case of delicacy and regaining early attention. It is from my cousin, Mr. Collins, who when I am dead, may turn you all out of this house as soon as he pleases” (Austen 1993:252)

Mrs. Bennet is really shocked and she answers:

"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” (Austen 1993:25).

Mr. Collins was not a sensitive man, self conceited with a weak mind. As revealed in this part of his letter.

"Having now a good house and very sufficient income, he intended to marry; and in seeking reconciliation with the Longbourn family he had a wife in view, as he means to choose one of the daughters, if he found them as handsome and amiable as they were represented by common report. This was his plans of amends-of atorement- for inheriting their father‟s estate; and he thought it an excellent one, full of eligibility and suitableness and excessively generous and disinterested on his own part” (Austen 1993:257).

Mr. Collins being so sure of himself says to Elizabeth although there are many amiable young women in his neighborhood he chooses her (Elizabeth), and that he is doing her family a favour, knowing that he is their nearest male heir, but his greed is let out gradually.

"But the fact is, that being as I am, to inherit this estate after the death of your honoured father, (who however may live many years longer,) I could not satisfy myself without resolving to choose a wife from among his daughters, that the loss to them might be as little as possible, when the melancholy event takes place- which however, as I have already said may not be for several years. This has been my motive, my fair cousin, and I flatter myself it will not sink me in your esteem. And now nothing remains for me but to assure you in the most animated language of the violence of my affection. To fortune I am perfectly indifferent, and shall make no demand of that nature on your father, since I am well aware that it could not be complied with; and that one thousand pounds in the 4 percents. Which will not be yours till after your mother‟s decease" (Austen 1993:277-278)

It was absolutely necessary for Elizabeth to interrupt him:

"You are too hasty, sir", she cried. „You forgot that I have made no answer. Let me do it without further loss of time. Accept my thanks for the compliment you are paying me. I am very sensible of the honour of your proposals, but it is impossible to me to do otherwise than decline them" (Austen 1993:278).

Elizabeth finds it exceedingly puzzling to convince Mr. Collins of her refusal. He continues saying:

"You must give me leave to flatter myself, my dear cousin that your

refusal of my addresses is merely words of course. My reasons for

believing it are briefly these:- It does not appear to me that my hand

is unworthy of your acceptance, or that the establishment I can offer

would be any other than highly desirable. My situation in life, my

connection with the family de Bourgh, and my relationship to your

own, are circumstances highly in my favour; and you should take it

into further consideration that in spite of your manifold attractions, it

is by no means certain that another offer of marriage may ever be

made to you. Your portion is unhappily so small that it will in all

likelihood undo the effects of your loveliness and amiable

qualifications. As I must therefore conclude that you are not serious

in your rejection of me, I shall choose to attribute it to your wish

increasing my love by suspense, according to the usual practice of

elegant females" (Austen 1993:279).

Jane Austen‟s criticism of the preference of males to females in

her society continues on and on. In chapter fifty on the first page, of

"Pride and Prejudice", the need of a son for the Bennet‟s family is

58 important because he will be a protector of their economical situation. Unfortunately for them their dream of having a son is not fulfilled and instead the family has five daughters.

"When first Mr. Bennet had married, economy was held to be perfectly useless; for of course, they were to have a son. This son was to join in cutting off the entail, as soon as he should be of age, and the widow and younger children would by that means be provided for” (Austen 1993:386).

In the last chapter of “Pride and Prejudice” Mrs. Bennet is happy to get rid of her two loving daughters having got them married. With what that Pride she afterwards visits Mrs Bingly and talks of Mrs.

Darcy may be guessed. Mrs. Bingley is her daughter Jane who married the young gentleman from the north. He inherited his big fortune from his father who gained it by trade. Mrs. Darcy is Mrs

Bennet‟s very clever daughter Elizabeth she is married to Mr. Darcy of Derbyshire with a noble mien and of great fortune which he inherited from his father.

This great happiness ought to make Mrs. Bennet sensible, lovable and well- informed woman for the rest of her life; though perhaps it was lucky for her husband, who might not have tasted domestic

59 felicity in such a strange way that she was occasionally nervous and continuously silly.

"Jane Austen not only carried her characters in her mind‟s eye,

but took enduring interest in their later lives, she told her family

that Kitty Bennet was happily married to a clergyman near

Pemberly, while Mary obtained nothing lighter than one of her

Uncle Phillip‟s clerks and was happy to be a star in the society of

Meryton. Jane Austen did not enlarge upon the summing-up with

which she finished the story in the last chapter, and which still

leaves scope for the reader to wonder whether Miss Bingly

succeeded in finding a husband for herself, whether Georgiana

the shy Darcy girl married? How the Collinses dared to return to

Hunsford and face their share of Lady Catherine‟s wrath and even

to hope that Mrs Bennet‟s nerves might possibly overcome her,

leaving Mr Bennet free to marry a more suitable second wife and

produce a son who would oust Mr. Collins from the entailed

inheritance of Longbourn". (Le Faye 2003: 202-203).

This hopeful suggested continuation makes it a possibility for

Mr. Bennet to have an heir male who will push Mr. Collins out of

the inheritance. In a reversed plot of inheritance in “Sense and

Sensibility”, the male is a half brother of three sisters inherits

their father‟s property and being pushed by his greedy wife he

pushes his three half sisters and their mother out of their fine

home to a small country cottage far away given to them by a

cousin.

Jane Austen‟s concept of realising the preference of males to

females is emphasized in her great themes of inheritance and this

is obvious in "Sense and Sensibility."

3.5. Introduction to “Persuasion”:-

The main inheritance theme in “Persuasion” concerns young Mr.

Willian Eliot. He is heir presumptive to the Baronetcy and Kellynch estate. Sir Walter Eliot and his eldest daughter Elizabeth eagerly sought a marital acquaintance with young Eliot which suited their family pride for sometime young William Eliot was not interested in the Eliot from whom his father had been outranged, indulged in his extravagant loose life style in the city. But when he was overthrown by debts, he began planning to make a reconciliation with the Eliots. Young Eliot, thought that through a marriage to Anne Eliot, could reinforce his inheritance, and to keep sir Walter from marrying Mrs. Clay a widow and false friend of the Eliots, such marriage would produce a probability of the

61 birth of a son for Sir Walter who would deprive young William Eliot from the Eliot‟s inheritance.

Luckily for Anne, she comes to know young Eliot‟s real vicious character through her sincere school friend Mrs. Smith. Thus she rejects his proposals, knowing his real aims.

Anne‟s happy fate brings her back to Captain Wentworth who was once rejected by her family and from whom at the age of seventeen was persuaded to break up the engagement. This was mainly because he had no money or property at that time.

The second theme is the inheritance of the Musgrove‟s, Mary Eliot‟s parents in law. Charles Musgrove being the eldest son and owing to the prevailing primogeniture law he is to inherit the Musgrove‟s entire estate but he gains social status by marrying Mary Eliot the daughter of a baronet.

The third theme is the inheritance of the Hayters the Musgrove‟s poorer cousins. Their eldest son (Charles) Hayters intends to modernize the property when he inherits the entire estate of the Hayters.

Henrietta Musgrove is engaged to Charles Hayter so both families suppose such arranged marriage will be advantageous.

3.6. A triumphant wealthy captain now

The opening page of chapter one in "Persuasion" begins with the following words.

"Sir Walter Eliot, of Kellynch Hall in Somersetshire was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the

Baronetage….." (Austen 1993:1115) This indicates that he only cared for the title and property. He was very obsessed and proud of his family history.

Sir Walter owned Kellynch Hall his large and comfortable mansion.

Because he had no son but only three daughters his property had to be inherited by his male cousin Mr. William Walter Eliot by the law of entailment.

Sir Walter would always open at this page of his favorite volume of Baronetage far from being neither modest nor humble.

“Walter Eliot, born March 1, 1760 married July 15, 1784

Elizabeth daughter of James Stevenson, Esq., of South Park in the county of Gloucester; by which lady (who died 1800) he has issue,

Elizabeth, born Jun 1, 1785; Anne born August 9, 1789; a still-born son,

November 5, 1789; Mary born November 20, 1791" (Austen

1993:1115).

Sir Walter‟s character is of vanity of person and situation, after the date of Mary‟s birth his youngest daughter Sir Walter added more information to the original paragraph of his family history book being fascinated by her marriage to the heir of the Musgrove family, eldest son Charles Musgrove.

"Married December 16, 1810, Charles son and heir of Charles

Musgrove‟s, Esq.; of Upper cross, in the county of Somerset." (Austen

1993:1115) It is very likely that Sir Walter would not have married his daughter Mary to the Musgrove‟s had they no property then as they were just farmers.

More outcome of Sir Walter information from his almost sacred book of “Baronetage” is as follows "thinking that he would bring about a fine marriage for his vain and proud daughter Elizabeth who was another version of his character, with William Walter Eliot his heir presumptive

This heir presumptive, the very William Walter Eliot, Esq., whose rights had been so generously supported by Sir Walter had disappointed Elizabeth Sir Walter‟s eldest daughter, for her father was seeking him to get to him marry her. This is of course to secure her life style by such arranged marriage.

Jane Austen has very cleverly set a plan for young Mr. Eliot to marry Elizabeth.

In one of their spring excursions to London when Elizabeth was in her first bloom, young Mr. Eliot had been forced into the introduction.

"Mr. Eliot was that time a very young man, just engaged in the study of law, and Elizabeth found him externally agreeable and every plan in his favour was confirmed" (Austen 1993:1117-1118). They invited him to

Kellynch Hall many times but he never came although they met him many times in London. Infact it was rumored that he had married a rich woman of inferior birth. Sir Walter and Elizabeth were very disappointed by such news and gradually all acquaintances between them and young Eliot ceased.

As for Anne Eliot the second daughter of Sir Walter Eliot was a pretty girl with gentleness, modesty, taste, and feeling when she first met Captain Wentworth who was staying at that time at Monkfort. He was at that time a remarkably fine young man and promising commander with intelligence and spirit. He and Anne gradually were in deep love.

Unfortunately for them, Sir Walter thought it was a somewhat degrading alliance and Lady Russel a great friend of the Eliot‟s family

65 thought it was a most unfortunate one. Anne was persuaded to believe the engagement was wrong, so she turned him down, and he left the neighbourhood, a disappointed man, but Anne was never able to forget him.

Almost eight years later they meet through his sister the new tenant at Kellynch Hall.With the very natural determination not to reopen the subject of their old affair, he is cool towards Anne.

Now having fulfilled all his early promise, he wishes to marry as he says to his sister only half playfully.

Captain Fredrick Wentworth comes to Upper Cross to the

Musgrove‟s and he is very impressed by their kindness, high spirits and flattering talks. Mary Eliot who has the pride of the Eliots, disapproves of the engagement between her sister in law Henrietta Musgrove and

Charles Hayter her cousin. She thinks that he is only a country curate, but her husband Charles does not agree with her for besides having his regards for his cousin Charles Hayter was an eldest son and he saw things as an eldest son himself. He says to Mary "He is the eldest son; whenever my uncle dies; he steps into a very pretty property. The estate at Winthrop is not less than…….." (Austen 1993: 1155) There is a

66 reference here to arranged marriages being affected by the hopes of inheritance.

At the Musgrove‟s, Anne meets captain Wentworth when she comes to see her sister Mary who lived with her parents in law. Captain

Wentworth came to go shooting with Charles Musgrove. He is cool with

Anne Eliot but can not ignore her altogether because they are bound to meet each other through the family connections. He then starts to be kind to her when he gently moves the troublesome young boy Charles

Musgrove from her back. It was on the excursion to Lyme that he is forced to return all of his attention and affection to his first love when

Louisa who has been seeking his attention behaved so stupidly and

Anne so coolly. At Bath very much later, he thinks that he had been unjust to her and in Lyme he had begun to understand himself.

Jane Austen is being very critical here about such arranged marriages made by her society presented in the character of the snobbish Sir Walter, Lady Russel, the proud Mary and her husband

Charles Musgrove, the heir presumptive of Musgrove‟s. Anne somehow could not refuse Lady Russel‟s advice she saw her advice like that of a parent and Anne was only a girl of nineteen years old, and had lost her mother.

Then comes the moment after so many years that the heir presumptive young Mr. Eliot wants to make reconciliation with the

Eliots. In Bath they meet and he is a personable widower by then.

"He had explained all the appearance of neglect on his own side, it originated in misapprehension entirely…..upon the hint having spoken disrespectfully…….." (Austen 1993:1188)

Quite astonishingly, Sir Walter, Elizabeth, Lady Russel all

Russel encourages Anne Eliot to think of marrying Eliot; she told Anne that she had been praised by the heir presumptive of Kellynch Hall.

Lady Russel says to Anne, "I own that to be able to regard you as the future mistress of Kellynch, the future Lady Eliot, to look forward and see you occupying your dear mother‟s place, succeeding to all her rights and all her popularity will be the highest gratification to me" (Austen

1993:1200). Anne for sometime enjoys toying with the idea of marrying him, but then after a month she feels some hesitation. So far she knows nothing but good about young Mr. Eliot, but still rejects, the possibility of marrying him, despite the prudential values inherent in such an

68 attachment her rejection is based on the hopeless commitment to another and her own opposing standards.

During Anne‟s stay at Bath, Captain Wentworth arrives and encounters her with William Walter Eliot. He was shocked and there was an obvious jealousy of her affection. Anne was very a affected and confused.

Luckily for Anne, she goes to see a school friend Mrs. Smith who has come to Bath for treatment by the warm sulphuric water. From Mrs.

Smith, Anne learns a lot about the true character of young Mr. Eliot.

"Mr. Eliot is a man without heart or conscience; a designing, wary, cold-blooded being, who thinks only of himself; for his own interest or ease, would be guilty of any cruelty, or any treachery, that could be perpetrated without risk of his general character …….Those whom he has been the chief cause of leading into ruin, he can neglect and desert without the smallest compunction….." (Austen 1993:1222).

Mr Eliot had ruined Mrs Smith and her husband greatly. He married an inferior woman just for the sake of making fortune through the quickest process of marriage, thus to free himself from Sir Walter‟s and Elizabeth‟s designing of the matching between the heir of Kellynch and the young lady (Elizabeth Eliot) Mr. Eliot actually is a big hypocrite

69 he is not affectionate to Misses Eliots but infact “He has come to Bath to keep Sir Walter from marrying Mrs. Clay, and thus from the possibility of producing a male heir to Kellynch. Young Mr. Eliot succeeds in that endeavor – by enticing Mrs. Clay to London, out of harm‟s way” (Wright 1962:172). Anne is now free to reject young Mr.

Eliot.

At Lyme in a discussion with Captain Harville a sincere friend of captain Wentworth Anne is over heard by Captain Wentworth, Anne reveals her own strong commitment to a certain aspects of the system of values implied by the word love.

"I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one, you need not covet it) is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone." (Wright 1962:168).

This very warm statement arouses Captain Wentworth‟s enthusiasm and he soon proposes to Anne. They rejoice and are reconciled not only with each other but the whole family is overjoyed.

Jane Austen cleverly ends up with Captain Wentworth a triumphant wealthy man now accepted by the family; he has fulfilled every promise with his optimistic temperament declared nine years before. Anne is now a mature woman of seven and twenty.

Chapter Four

The Effect of the Law of Primogeniture

4.1 Introduction to "Mansfield Park":

Crawford thinks little of the role of a poor clergyman‟s wife. When Tom the eldest son is near to death, she expresses her own callous thoughts in a letter to Fanny, the poor and humble heroine.

"And now do not trouble yourself to be ashamed of either my feelings or your own., Believe me they are not only natural, they are philanthropic and virtuous. I put it to your conscience, whether „Sir Edmund‟ would not do more good with all the Bertram property, than any possible “Sir”.." (Austen

1906: 332-333)

Thus Mary Crawford wishes secretly for the death of Tom so that

Edmund can inherit the entire Bertram property and she will be raised by marriage to him to the Baronetcy.

Another theme of inheritance in "Mansfield Park" is when Mrs. Norris maneuvers Maria Bertram into an engagement with the stupid Mr. James

Rushworth because he is a man of property which he has inherited in the near by estate of Sotherton court and worth ₤12,000 a year income.

72 Another minor theme of inheritance reflected through an arranged marriage is when Sir Thomas Bertram tries to convince Fanny to marry Mr.

Henry Crawford also because he is a wealthy man. Sir Thomas assures

Fanny that she will live a settled and honourable life since Henry has great wealth as he has inherited his father‟s estate at Everingham in Norfolk.

Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and their effects on her society. These inheritance themes are conveyed so well by Jane Austen as to give tension to her suspenseful and interesting complex plots.

73 4.2. Eldest son gets lion's share

Mansfield Park is the home of Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram and their children. "Maria Ward has become Lady Bertram through her marriage to

Sir Thomas Bertram a wealthy Baronet who also owned great estates in

Antigua" (now a days the West Indies). (Wirdnam 1985:7)

Reverend Norris the rector of Mansfield although she did not have strong feeling for her husband. With herself importance and energy, she almost had complete authority of Mansfield Park while Lady Bertram was just indolent.

Their third sister Mrs. Price had made a marriage to a penniless young naval officer by allowing her feelings to over power her judgments and she ended up with too little money and too many children. All these unequal marriages brought disastrous consequences. Jane Austen criticized such marriages by putting them in contrast. She fully believed in equality in the relationship between a man and women.

Mrs. Norris decided that the Bertram ought to help the poorer Prices by bringing one of their children, Fanny to Mansfield Park to be educated

74 with their girls, assuring Sir Thomas that Fanny would not be a romantic threat to his sons. There is a sign here that Fanny is forbidden to marry the sons of the highly placed Baronet since she is considered the poor relative.

These are Mrs. Norris‟s reassurance "My dear Sir Thomas….but breed her up with them from this time suppose her even to have the beauty of an angel, and she will never be more to either than a sister". (Austen 1963:4).

Fanny a ten year old timid girl arrived at Mansfield Park a great country mansion. She was introduced to the Bertram children, Tom,

Edmund, Maria and Julia. Edmund was kind and sympathetic to her. Fanny was grateful and she began to develop an everlasting love for him. Edmund intended to be ordained but Tom being the eldest son, owing to the prevailing law of primogeniture is to inherit the Baronetcy and all the landed property of the Bertrams. He was an extravagant playboy:

Mr. Norris died and "the living hereafter for Edmund, and had his uncle died a few years sooner… and given to a friend to hold until he were old enough for orders. But Tom‟s extravagance had previous to that event, been so great….and the younger brother must help to pay for the pleasure of the elder". (Austen 1963:16).

Since Tom was irresponsible, Dr. Grant an outsider had to be appointed in order to supervise the parish of Mansfield.

75 The law of primogeniture plays a big role in Mansfield Park as the eldest son by this law is to inherit all his entire father‟s property after his decease; this is interested in Tom the eldest son of the Bertrams. In those days the younger sons being deprived of their father‟s inheritance were sent to seek jobs such as lawyers, naval officers or clergymen or to the colonies, this is embodied in Edmund the younger son of the Betrams who is planning his career as a clergyman.

Sir Thomas and his son Tom had to leave for Antigua to see about their overseas estate leaving behind Mrs. Norris and Edmund in charge of

Mansfield Park, Lady Bertram being indolant and incompetent.

After sometime Tom returned but his father did not. One theme of arranged marriage is shown ironically by Jane Austen through Mrs. Norris‟s act of maneuvering Maria into an engagement with Mr. James Rushworth a stupid wealthy neighbor knowing that he has recently inherited the near by estate of Sotherton Court. But Edmund could see a fault in the business. He was saying to himself "If this man had not twelve thousand a year, he would be a very stupid fellow" (Austen 1963:29).

The Grants were visited at the parsonage by Henry and Mary Grawford

Mrs. Grant‟s half brother and sister. Later on Mrs. Grant too like Mrs.

76 Norris was planning an arranged marriage between Mary Crawford and Tom

Bertram. Mary agreed believing that she could marry well: to advantage she was attracted by Tom‟s position as an eldest son into fancying that with him would be a good chance. And being the mistress of

Mansfield Park later was not too bad. Mary thought that he was pleasant, agreeable with large acquaintances and a great deal to say.

"The reversion of Mansfield Park, and a baronetcy, did no harm to all this. Miss. Crawford soon felt , that he and his situation might do, she looked about her with due consideration and found almost everything in his favor, a Park, a real Park five miles round, a spacious modern- built house, so well placed…..and of being Sir Thomas hereafter‟s.. She believed she should accept him".(Austen 1963:35-36).

On the other hand Edmund was attracted by Mary‟s beauty and lively personality, not knowing her real character.

Mrs. Norris suggested that all the young people should go to Mr.

Rushworth‟s grand house in Southerton Mr. Rushworth was making some improvement in his house grounds. During this visit lots of strange behaviors were revealed.

The worldly Mary made degrading remarks about clergymen in a talk with Edmund and Fanny who both believed that a clergyman is the agent responsible for the improvement of the society as a whole. Although Maria was engaged to Mr. Rushworth, she was exchanging many flirtations with

77 Henry Crawford and Mary was trying hard to persuade Edmund from being a clergyman because she was gradually falling in love with him.

Sir Thomas was to return to Mansfield but the news was not happily received by Julia and especially Maria who‟s marriage would then take place. Mary shared their feeling for she did not want Edmund to be ordained. Tom returned from visiting friends but Mary was then certain that she preferred Edmund.

On his return to England Sir Thomas was surprised and impressed by

Fanny‟s improvements of health and beauty and began showing his affection, and she seemed no longer terrified by him.

Henry Crawford tried in many ways to make Fanny fall in love with him. He dwelled on Fanny‟s improved appearance and Mary his sister relates his motive to his piqued vanity but later on Henry was moved by

Fanny‟s affection for her brother William and he then began to feel genuine attraction for her.

Sir Thomas decided to give a ball for the benefit of Fanny and

William her newly arrived midshipman brother at Mansfield Park from a sea voyage. But Sir Thomas‟s real aim of that ball was to get Fanny nearer to

Henry Crawford. This is another theme of arranged marriages shown by

Jane Austen‟s clear mirror of her genteel society.

78 "In a few minutes Sir Thomas came to her, and asked if she were engaged and the „yes Sir‟, to Mr. Crawford was exactly what he had intended to hear. Mr. Crawford was not far off; Sir Thomas brought him to her…." (Austen 1963:209)

Sir Thomas was pleased to see that Mansfield Park was highly successful in turning out elegant young ladies, but excepting for Fanny he was not aware of their lack of principles. Then Sir Thomas informed Fanny that Mr. Henry Crawford had formally requested her hand in marriage.

Fanny was upset, she conveyed her refusal but was unable to detail her doubts about Henry. Sir Thomas praised Mr. Henry and accused Fanny of ingratitude.

"The advantage or disadvantage of your family…of your parents…..never to seem a moment‟s share in your thoughts on this occasion. How they might be benefited…..throwing a way from you such an opportunity of being settled in life….Here is a young man of sense, of character…. and of fortune….and let me tell you Fanny that you may live eighteen years longer in the world, without being addressed by a man of half Mr. Crawford‟s estate" (Austen 1963:241)

Henry had inherited a state at Everingham in Norfolk since he was a school boy at Westminster.

Jane Austen very ironically pictures Lady Bertram‟s point of view of marriage as she (Lady Bertram) was disappointed by Fanny‟s refusal to the wealthy Mr. Henry Crawford.

79 "No my dear ….. If you were married to a man of such good estate as Mr. Crawford. You must be aware, Fanny that it is every young woman‟s duty to accept such a very unexceptionable offer as this". (Austen 1963: 252)

But Lady Bertram is blind to the fact that other kinds of improvements can take place through marriage.

Sir Thomas and Edmund agreed that Fanny should make some change and go to visit her parents at Portsmouth. Sir Thomas hoped that an absence from wealth and elegance would incline Fanny to accept Henry‟s offer.

Finding in her own home in Portsmouth a coarse father, a slatternly mother and uncontrollable children, Fanny missed Mansfield Park‟s orderly ways, but she helped in her family‟s house and gave special consideration to her sister Susan.

Fanny received many letters during her stay at Portsmouth. In a letter from Edmund telling her about his visit to London, Fanny learns that he had met Mary but was upset by her altered behavior. So he had decided to delay his proposal to her (Mary). He had then returned to Mansfield.

Later on, Fanny received a sad letter from Lady Bertram informing her that Tom has been taken ill and Edmund had gone to nurse him and bring him home.

80 A shocking letter came from Mary to Fanny. It conveyed a painful proof of Mary‟s hard heart. Mary explained that Tom‟s health was deteriorating and her letter revealed how eager she was to see Edmund become the eldest son. It is very likely that in the event of Tom‟s death,

Mary will agree to marry Edmund, even though he is a clergyman for then he is to inherit all the Bertram‟s property.

"And now, do not trouble yourself to be ashamed of either my feeling or your own. Believe me, they are not only natural, they are philanthropic and virtuous. I put it to your conscience, whether "Sir Edmund” would not do more good with all the Bertram property, than any possible Sir". (Austen 1963:332-333)

The theme of inheritance here is very dominant and especially the law of primogeniture is conveyed by Jane Austen through Tom the eldest son.

But Mary‟s selfishness and worldly character is clarified by the talent of

Jane Austen‟s irony in picturing Mary‟s callous thought of Edmund becoming an eldest son after the possible death of Tom, and then he would be able to inherit all the Bertram‟s property.

Fanny thoughts of Edmund were completely different from those of

Mary‟s and she was absolutely shocked by Mary‟s letter for she (Fanny) loved Edmund only for himself.

In another shocking letter from Mary to Fanny, she learned that Henry was connected with some scandalous event at the Rushworth‟s in London.

81 Then Fanny was further aware of the scandal by a letter from Edmund telling her that Maria had eloped with Henry and Julia with Tom‟s friend

Mr. Yates.

At last Fanny was requested to return to Mansfield Park bringing her sister Susan with her. Edmund came the following morning and he was deeply moved at seeing Fanny again. Fanny‟s feelings were greater if not the same.

Edmund and Fanny helped to nurse Tom and to comfort Lady Bertram.

Edmund told Fanny his account of his last meeting with Mary. He has been shocked by her reaction to the scandal for she (Mary) believed that Maria‟s reputation might be rescued by an eventual marriage with Henry. She has spoken lightly of Maria‟s disgrace.

Edmund was finally awakened and could then see Mary‟s true nature.

Luckily for Fanny, Edmund began to realize that he had always loved

Fanny.

In the last chapter of “Mansfield Park” Edmund and Fanny are happily married. Jane Austen shows that there can be couples who possess all the requirements for a successful marriage without the interference of arranged marriages that only considers fortune and property rather than affectionate

82 love. She ridiculed these aspects of society‟s worldly considerations that can and should be changed.

Chapter Five

Conclusion

Jane Austen as a social critic made her implied criticism of the unjust laws of inheritance particularly the law of entailment and of primogeniture.

These laws have affected the plots of Jane Austen’s novels. She was very aware of these unjust laws which lead to unhappy consequences of arranged marriages. Jane Austen mocked these arranged marriages with great irony for she believed that marriage should be based on love rather than fortune.

So she set a pattern for the romantic novel still popular today.

Mothers who had no sons as male heirs to protect them and their daughters after a father’s death, were very anxious to see their daughters get married to men of fortune. These gentlemen of fortunes were the focus of the genteel society ladies because they usually are expected to inherit title and property from their families from father to son through generations back to their ancestors, due to the prevailing laws of inheritance.

The effect of the law of entailment is portrayed by Jane Austen in

"Sense and Sensibility" through the unsympathetic characters of Fanny and her husband Mr. John Dashwood. They ousted the widowed Mrs. Dashwood and her three daughters away from Norland Park their beloved and ancestral home. Mr. John Dashwood being the son and male heir to Norland Park estate and Antigua estates by the law of entailment had no mercy on his step

84 mother and three half sisters and they were exiled far away to a small cottage offered to them by a kind cousin. There are other unsympathetic characters who played great role over arranged marriages such as Mrs.

Ferrars in “Sense and Sensibility". In "Pride and Prejudice", Mrs. Bennet was not wise in the way she was hunting husbands for her daughters.

The Rev Mr. Collins in “Pride and Prejudice” is to inherit the Bennets as Mr. Bennet had no direct male heir, for he had five daughters and no son.

Mrs. Bennet got very hysterical on hearing her husband say that Rev Collins who is his cousin and male heir would turn Mrs. Bennet and her daughters all out of their home when Mr. Bennet died. Mrs. Bennet was crudely hunting husbands for her daughters. Jane Austen opened the novel "Pride and Prejudice" with the famous sarcastic sentence" it’s a truth Universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of good fortune, must be in want of a wife" In "Persuasion" young Mr. William Eliot another ugly character of Jane Austen, is the heir presumptive to the Eliot Property of

Kellynch Hall. This is because unfortunately for Sir Walter’s family, he had no direct male heir, but three daughters In "Persuasion" young Mr. William

Eliot was trying to maneuver Mrs. Clay out of the way of Sir Walter so that there would not be a possibility of them getting married and producing a son to inherit Kellynch Hall. In "Mansfield Park" Tom Bertram was to inherit

85 the entire estate of Mansfield Park as the eldest son due to the prevailing law of primogeniture which gave the right of inheritance to the eldest son and deprived younger sons such as Edmund Bertram who is to take another career was to be ordained as a clergyman.

Jane Austen is to be considered as one of these advocates of justice, to have influenced through her fiction. In fact there has been many improvements of women's rights concerning property in England.

The law of the Married Woman’s Property Act In 1882 is a crucial example but politically and economically women in England were still subject to inequality and injustice. In 1926 the Settled Land Act reorganized the entailment. Until after the First World War they did not get enfranchised and it was until after the Second World War that the principle of equal pay for equal work was introduced by the Butler Education Act.

The female western reader of today might find it difficult to comprehend the subtleties and suppressed passivity of Jane Austen's

86 heroines who can never take the initiative in choosing their marriage partners. They have to wait submissively always for the man to take the initiative in a proposal. The match makers in these novels are often shown as clumsy, unfeeling and entirely guided by consideration of worldly wealth, snobbish regard for status by birth which governs who inherits who and consequently, who marries who.

87 References

Austen, J. Complete Novels of Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice Glasgow: Harper Collins Publishers. 1993.

Austen, J. Complete Novels of Jane Austen Glasgow: Harper Collins Publishers. 1993. ______, Sense and Sensibility.

Austen, J. Complete Novels of Jane Austen Glasgow: Harper Collins Publishers. 1993. ______, Persuasion

Austen, J. Complete Novels of Jane Austen Glasgow: Harper Collins Publishers. 1993 ______, Introduction by Paul boating

Austen. Mansfield Park. London. J.M.Dent + Sons, 1963.

Dick, D. Sense and Sensibility. York Notes. Hong Kong: 2001.

Guard, R. Jane Austen Novels. The Art of Clarity Bath. Bath press, 1998.

Le Faye, D. Jane Austen. The World of Her Novels Singapore: Frances Lincoln 2003.

Pasco, P. Pride and Prejudice. Hong Kong, Pearson Edment. 2006.

Thornley, G and Gweneth, R. An outline of English Literature. China: Longman, 1995.

Tomalin, C. Jane Austen- A life, England: Penguin Books Clays, 2000.

Watt, I. Jane Austen. A collection of critical Essays. Englewood: Prentice Hall, 1963.

Windnam, R. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen Macmillan Master Guides. Malasia, 1985.

Wright, AH. Jane Austen's Novels. A study in structure Britain, Penguin Books, 1962.

Net: http://en. Wikipedia. org/wiki/ www.pearson-books.com/yorknotes www.everything2.com www.jane-austen-museum.org.uk.

APPENDIX

Preference of males to females

Before the Norman Conquest 1066 the preference of male females rule

“This precedence if for older than feudalism but the feudal influence made for its retention or resuscitation”. At the same time, it is clear that as early as the reign of Henry I. Women could inherit after men? It will be shown that this preference holds good not only in the descending, but also in the ascending line; and that, after some controversy, it has been applied to ascertain the order in which the remotest collateral is entitled to inherit”.

A Summarized explanation of Preference of males to females:

Even before the Norman Conquest in 1066 the preference of males to females was the rule feudalism (in the Middle Ages) strengthened this rule.

(So such a preference not a only in the descending, but also in the ascending line).

Later even the remotest collateral is made entitled to inherit. So

Preference to males is a story throughout history.

1. P. and M. ii 259; vinegar doff, English society 253 2. P. and M. ii 260; Henry I.’s charter § 3. 3. P. and M ii 303 “ we connote say now a days that there is any obvious proper place for 5 half blood in a scheme of inheritance especially in our pave telic scheme”.

90 The Law of Primogeniture:

Primogeniture is the common law right of first born son to inherit the entire estate, to the exclusion of younger siblings. It is the tradition brought by the Normans of Normandy to England in 1066.

According to the Norman tradition; the first born inherited the entirely of parent‟s wealth, estate, title or office. In the absence of children inheritance passed to the collateral line. This may have resulted in large number of younger sons of the British aristocracy emigrating to the colonial southern united states.

Net: http:// en. Wikipedia . org /wiki/ primogeniture.

1The Entailed Interest:

The fee tail or entailed interest was an estate in land which so long as the original grantee (tenant intail) on any of his lineal descendants remained alive. Historically the entail of land holiday designed to retain land within the family.

2 Family law Gender and State: Historical Overview:

The very being on legal existence of woman is suspended during the marriage.

3 The heir limited class: Fee tail the estate was still inheritable (denoted by the word 'fee") body meaning the lineal descendants of the original tenant in tail, sometimes female. In such a case the estate could not pass to an heir of the wrong sex. Nor could it pass to the ascendants or sibling of the original tenant. It would pass only to his direct descendants of the correct sex.

1 Element of land law. fourth edition. Kevin Gray. Susan Francis Gray O.U.P. page 72 (land)

2 Crentray 200 3b page 403

3 Introduction. Text book on land page 6 O.U.P Machenzie and Phillips.

92 Married Women’s Property Act

1882

(45: 46 Vict 75)

17. Questions between husband and wife as to property to be decided in a

Summary way.

In any question between husband and wife as to the little of or possession of property, either party may apply by summons or otherwise in a Summary way to the High Court or such county court as maybe prescribed and the court may, on such application (which may be heard in private), make such order with respect to the property as it thinks fit.

In this section „Prescribed‟ means prescribed by rules of court and rules made for the purpose of this section may confer jurisdiction on county courts whatever the situation or value of the property in dispute.

As amended by the statute Law (Repeals) Act 1969 Matrimonial and Family

Proceedings Act 1984, s 43.

Ref : History of English Law S E 3 Hol

93 The rules of Primogeniture and comparcenary At the very time when Primogeniture was becoming the general rule for lands held by free tenure the original reason for the establishment of the rule was fast sinking into oblivion (military). We have seen that in the thirteenth century the military needs of the feudal host. For the old explanation a new but similar one was substituted based upon national needs. In Edward 1st. reign it is said to be needed in order to maintain a race of wealthy landowners who can see to it that the land is cultivated and the cultivators protected.1 A Summarized Explanation The original reason for the establishment of the general rule of primogeniture applied to all lands held by free tenure was to meet military needs, when this reason ceased to be significant the interests of the landowners were substituted by national ones.

1. History of English Law Law(3) S E 3 Hol

94 "Entail" or "entailment" more strictly known as "fee tail" in legal discourse, is an obsolescent practice in English common low, by which an estate of real property cannot be sold, willed outside the family, or otherwise alienated by its owner, and must pass to the owner's (usually male) descendents upon his death. Entail is perhaps best known as a serious financial problem faced by the families of Jane Austen's female protagonists. The term "fee tail" comes from the Medieval Latin Feodum talliatum, which literally means "property which has been cut out" The difference between "fee tail" and "fee simple" (the inheritance practice most commonly used today) is that in "fee tail" the property is granted "to A and the heirs of his body," whereas in fee simple, the phrasing is "to A and his heirs." The crucial difference is that in fee tail the heirs must be biological children begotten by the owner, whereas in fee simple the heirs can be anyone designated as such by the owner. Land granted under fee tail was said to be "in tail" and was deemed "entailed" to the biological offspring of the owner. How it worked The whole point of entail was so that the landed nobility of feudal times could make sure that land would remain in their family forever. Otherwise, all it would have taken was one foolish young fellow whose father died young to sell of his land to make some quick money, and the family's primary sources of wealth and power would be entirely dissipated. In practice, entail had many powerful protections for the family who owned the land, because any rights to the land granted by the current owner immediately were lost upon that owners death. For example, it would be foolish for anyone to grant a mortgage on entailed land because as soon as the current owner died, the children who inherited the land would have no obligation to repay the mortgage since their interest was considered prior in right over the mortgage. Similarly, any agreement struck between the owner and a tenant was only good for the duration of the owners life, after which point the new owner would have no obligations to uphold the agreement.

95 Although in the simplest form of entail, the land was entailed to any offspring of the owner, the most typical form of entail used "fee tail male," in which only male offspring could inherit the land, although it was possible to have "fee tail female," in which only daughters could inherit, as "fee tail special" in which other conditions were attached, such as only allowing the land to pass to legitimate children born in wedlock. Entail created problems for families when the owner of the land failed to have children which survived him, or more typically, failed to have a son. In this case, the land would go back up the family tree through previous owners until their sons or their sons were found. This was the problem faced by the Bennets in Jane Austen's pride and prejudice- since Mr. Bennet had only daughters, all his land was entailed to cousin, Mr. Collins, and thus his daughters were threatened with the prospect of utter impoverishment upon their father's death.

www. Everything 2.com

96 A Brief Chronology of the life of Jane Austen 1775 Birth at Steventon Rectory, near Basingstoke, Hampshire. December 16 1782 At school at Oxford with her sister under Mrs. Crawley, De. Cooper's sister. 1783 The school moved to Southampton where Jane nearly died of a 'putrid sore throat'. 1785- 1787 Jane and Cassandra at Mrs. Latournelle's Abbey School, Reading. 1790 'Love and Friendship' written. 1791 'The History of England', 'by a partial, prejudiced and ignorant historian' written with illustrations by Cassandra. 1792 'Lesley Castle written; Followed by other youthful compositions. 1796 October- 'First impressions' written (subsequently' pride and prejudice' when published) 1797 August 1797- 1798 'Sudan' written; (later named 'Northanger Abbey' when published posthumously). 1797 Publication of 'First Impressions' rejected by Cadell. 1801 Removal from Steventon to Bath with her parents on her father's retirement as Rector. 1802 Proposal of marriage from Harris Bigwither, accepted that evening, but after a December 2 sleepless night turned down the following morning. 1803 Unfinished novel' The Watsons' stared. 1803 'Susan' sold by her father to Crosby and advertised, but not then printed. 1804 Lady Susan' (different story to Susan') written. 1805 January Death of her father Rev. George Austen and burial at Bath. 21 1806 Removal with mother and sister from Bath to join her brother Frank in Southampton. 1809 July 9 Arrival at Chawton and move into the house provided b her brother Edward from his inheritance of the estate of Thomas Knight. The house is now a museum. 1809 Unsuccessful attempt to revive publication of 'Susan'. 1811 Sense and Sensibility', by a Lady' accepted and published by Egerton through negotiations by her brother Henry. 1813 'Pride and Prejudice', 'by the author of Sense and Sensibility' published by Egertio. 1814 Mansfield Park' written, and published by Egerton. 1816 Emma' published by Murray and dedicated to HRH the prince Regent. 1816 Manuscript and copyright of unpublished 'Northanger Abbey' recovered from Crosby for £10 by her brother Henry- without disclosing the real authorship. 1815- 1816 'Persuasion' written by 18 July 1816. 1817 Uncompleted draft of 'Sanditon' – first twelve chapter only written. 1817 May 24 Jane moved to lodging rooms on 1st floor of No. 8 College Street, Winchester for treatment by Mr. Lyford, physician well known to their family. 1817 July 15 Composition of verses 'O Venta' about Winchester races and St. Swithin, patron Saint of Winchester. 1817 July 18 Jane Austen died at 8 College Street, aged 41 years, with her sister Cassandra present. 1817 July 24 Her burial in North Aisle of Winchester Cathedral. 1818 Northanger Abbey' and 'Persuasion' published posthumously by brother Rev. Henry Thomas Austen.

Jane Austen's House, Chawton, Alton. Hampshire, GU34 1SD.

1 Background:

This study is about the importance of inheritance laws in the themes of

Jane Austen‟s novels. This study is one of the very few researches into eighteenth and nineteenth century British Society in this matter in Sudan

A scrutiny of these laws will help to reveal the effect of Jane

States.

The aim of this thesis then is to study the themes of some of Jane

Austen‟s novels in relation to these laws and how they affected the arranged marriages of the time.

2 Jane Austen herself was never married and being on the fringes of genteel society, she mirrored the maneuvers which were skillfully used with irony in her novels.

The law of primogeniture is crucial in “Mansfield Park” which gives the right of the first born son to inherit the entire state to the exclusion of younger siblings.

Jane Austen wrote six novels and a number of minor works. This thesis will focus on “Sense and Sensibility” supported by observations from “Pride and Prejudice” and Persuasion”, affected by the entailment laws. “Mansfield Park” affected by the law of Primogeniture will be discussed

Jane Austen was a keen ironic observer of the financial realities underpinning the polite society of the genteel characters in her novels.

3 She fully believed that ideally love should be the overruling factor for women's and men„s choice of life partnership.

1.3. Jane Austen’s life 1.2

Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775 in the village of

Friendship”. By 1797 she was working on her novel, “Pride and

Prejudice”. “Sense and Sensibility” was also begun at about this period while Jane was visiting the popular spa town of Bath. She made many other visits to friends and relations, particularly to the home of her brother Edward at Godmersham Park in Kent. By 1798 she had started writing “Susan”, which was published later on as “Northanger Abbey”.

(Wirdnam 1985: 1)

4 novels, they are not generally viewed in a sympathetic way. "From 1801 until 1809, when she returned to Hampshire permanently, in Bath, Jane wrote very little, and it appears to have been an unsettled period in her life. She spent her summers at seaside resorts like Sidmouth and Lyme

Regis, and it was at one of these that she met the young man whose early death may have ended the only serious romantic attachment in her life"

(Wirdnam 1985: 1). The death of Rev. Austen, in 1805, left Jane, her sister Cassandra and their mother in an unstable financial position, but they were assisted by other members of the family, and by 1807 they were in Southampton. Jane was overjoyed when her brother Edward offered his mother and sisters a house at Chawton, not far from her childhood home at Steventon. It meant a return to the life of a country village which provided the material of so much of Jane Austen‟s fiction.

During her stay at Chawton she revised her earlier fiction and wrote

“Mansfield Park”, “Emma” and “Persuasion”. The publication of her novels brought acclaim from many sources, but Jane Austen never became conceited, preferring to remain an unknown writer, even to close friends.

The world into which Jane Austen was born was that of the landed gentry of late eighteenth century in England which was going through an

Agrarian Revolution following the Enclosures Act of the 17th century, and the fashion for landscaping and improving the mansions and their

5 surroundings i.e. Sotherton in “Mansfield Park” possibly modeled on her brother Edward‟s Godmersham Park in East Kent. At the same time

Britain was experiencing the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution and the benefits of colonialism. Jane Austen‟s immediate environment was limited geographically, by difficult transport, bad roads and severe winters, to the southern counties with a few sallies into Norfolk and

Lyme Regis etc.

Portals successful papermakers, merchants and bankers (as her brother

Henry ) and over seas fortune makers such as Warren Hastings who became Vice Roy of India and also godfather to Jane Austen‟s cousin

Eliza.

6 high standard of living but impoverished by the laws of primogeniture and entailment. These younger sons were victims of inheritance laws.

They had to seek careers of their own in Britain or out in the colonies of the British Empire. Their elder brothers however, inherited all their father‟s property and were not required to work.

Jane Austen‟s mother Mrs. Cassandra Austen (formerly Miss Leigh) was very proud of her aristocratic origins. She was named Cassandra after an ancestress Cassandra, Duchess of Chandos. The Leigh family could claim descent from a Thomas Leigh, one time Lord Mayor of London who had the honour of proclaiming Elizabeth Tudor the first Queen of

England .

These sorts of people sought to be classed as gentry. The gentry tended to conservatism in politics and supported the Tories and adhered to the

Church of England in order to maintain the settled order of their class structure. Also, to preserve the exclusiveness of this rigid and privileged class structure, marriages were arranged on the basis of status and material gain, rather than romantic love or individual preference. These were observed cynically and closely by the poor clergyman‟s daughter

Jane Austen, who with her profound preference for love matches made it the major theme of all her novels. She in fact ironically criticised the inheritance laws of her time which were unjust, especially to women dependent on their male heirs. Women had no inheritance of their own.

7 This embodied the law of entailment which excluded females from inheritance. Families which had no sons after their father‟s death were threatened by such law. The way Austen wove her plots and the inner tensions of these themes are the major subject of this thesis.

In 1817 Jane health began to deteriorate. It is commonly believed she suffered from Addison‟s disease which causes general weakness.

Tomalin's book “Jane Austen, A life" mentioned that recently it has been discovered that it is "possible that her final illness was caused by

Lymphoma," (a form of cancer) (Tomalin 2000: 290) and she was moved to Winchester to have adequate medical attention, but died on 18th July

1817 in the arms of Cassandra. Jane Austen was buried in Winchester

Cathedral, but her real monument are the six novels completed during her lifetime, which have remained some of the most widely read in the

English literature.

8 1.2. Social life and Inheritance laws 1.3

Towards the eighteenth century England was at war with France and Spain. Europeans were fighting for territories in the newly discovered western hemisphere, Africa and the Far East and trade was spread all over the rest of the world.

Mr. Austen the authoress‟ father was one of the trustees of a plantation in Antigua, on behalf of an old Oxford University friend. Jane Austen mentions Antiguan estates belonging to Sir Thomas Bertram in

“Mansfield Park”.

With the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1709, many aristocratic families fled across the English Channel. Many of these

French gentlemen taught languages, music, fencing, dancing and their wives also taught languages and worked as governesses. Jane Austen‟s cousin Eliza‟s French husband was guillotined in 1794. Eliza managed to escape to England where she met her cousins the Austen‟s.

Cassandra‟s fiancé Rev Tom died in the West Indies in 1795. Henry

Austen joined the Oxfordshire Militia. Jane Austen mentions in "Pride and Prejudice," Herefordshire where Lydia meets Wickam. Her brothers

9 Charles and Frank Austen both became admirals in the Navy. Jane got a lot of information from her brothers about the navy.

Australia and India were integrated into the Empire and the Viceroy of

India Warren Hastings became the godfather of the widowed Eliza‟s child.

In “Persuasion” Captain Wentworth has massed prize money to the sum of ₤25,000. Admiral croft made sufficient fortune, so he thought of buying an estate in Somerset. He had been a younger son of a previous generation of landowners, since it is his nephew Henry who inherited the family property. Jane Austen also in “Persuasion” ironically makes the snobbish Sir Walter say that the Navy was…"The means of bringing persons of obscure birth into undue distinction, and raising men to honour which their fathers and grandfathers never dreamt of ….” (Le Faye 2003:

77).

The Grand Tour of Europe made by the members of landed gentry ceased because of the war in 1793 and Inland tours were made to the

10 country side sceneries of beauty such as the Lake District. In “Pride and

Prejudice” where the Gardners take Elizabeth Bennet for a country tour at

Derbyshire.

Bath, Clifton and Buxton became famous for their mineral water spas.

Of course Jane Austen was very familiar with these places. In

“Persuasion” Anne Eliot‟s friend Mrs. Smith had come to Bath for treatment in the warm mineral waters of Bath. Weymouth, Lyme Regis and Sydmouth were becoming popular seaside resorts. In “Mansfield

Park” Tom Bertram makes friends with the play boy Mr. Yates there.

The Prince Regent made Brighton the first fashionable seaside and built the Pavilion in Oriental style.

Day trips and picnics were also made at the time of Jane Austen as a form of meeting, but in her novels these trips always seemed to result in disappointment. In “Persuasion” the trip from Upper Cross to Lyme was spoilt by the accident of Louisa falling off the Cobb.

Mrs. Jennings invited Elinor and Marianne to London with her thinking that she will find husbands for them there.

Jane Austen herself visited London for the first time with her parents in

1788.

11 In later years she was entertained in London by her beloved brother

Henry who lived there. He took her to theatres and gardens.

London are gatherings for young people. In Pride and Prejudice" Darcy gets closer to Elizabeth through a dance.

In “Mansfield Park” Sir Thomas Bertram provides a ball for the sake of connecting Fanny to the wealthy Mr. Henry Crawford. Jane

Austen of course criticized arranged marriages through her novels as she fully believed that marriages should be based on mutual attraction rather than fortune. In fact it is said that she never regretted her spinsterhood, though she had several opportunities of a prosperous marriage.

These arranged marriages of convenience at that time were strategies mainly necessitated by the unjustice of laws of entailment and primogeniture.

12 descendant. In “Mansfield Park” Tom is due to inherit the entire estate of

Mansfield Park. “In the reign of George III, young gentlemen of expectation inherited wealth were not supposed to work". (Watt 1963:

41) If they took up a profession it was usually only as matter of social convenience or prestige. Edward Ferrars lamented his lack of training of anything what so ever.

The Church as career with which the daughter of a vicar, Jane Austen was very familiar and was regarded not so much as a high vocation from God but rather as means of genteel living.

14 2.1. Jane Austen and her contemporaries

Richardson‟s novels were models for some of Jane Austen‟s juvenilia.

(Thornley, G and Gwyneth, R 1995: 95).

Henry Fielding who was an aristocrat was much admired by Jane

Austen. He was born in Somerset in 1707 and died in 1754. He wrote

“Joseph Andrews” (1742) which is a kind of satire on “Pamela” Samuel

Richardson‟s novel. “Joseph Andrews” was considered to mark

Fielding‟s debut as a serious novelist and he became interested in weaving satire into a romantic novel. “Tom Jones” (1749) is considered

Fielding‟s greatest novel. It appeared in eighteen sections, each proceeded by an introduction. He wrote “The History of Jonathan Wild the Great” another satire. Fielding was also considered an accomplished dramatist.

Jane Austen belonged to the Age of Reason. Order was important in men‟s thoughts. The prose was balanced. Also Jane Austen watched with a critical eye the rising novelists of the late eighteenth century, several of

15 whom were women. By this time classicism, which had been the major identifying mode of arts generally had given way to Romanticism and reason to sensibility. The sentimental novel became a popular form. It values emotion, individualism and the concept of freedom of choice.

In the same year that Jane Austen was born, Samuel Johnson published his “Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland” and his well known Dictionary (1775) . He was born in 1709 and died 1784. Dr

Johnson was a biographer, lexicographer, an essayist and critic of English literature. He has been praised for his great wit, prose, style and aphorisms. Johnson wrote his novel “Resselas”, “Prince of Abyssinia”

1759. Then he wrote “Lives of the Poets” (1779-81) with decision and clear expression. Jane Austen admired his style very much and was very influenced by him. (Thornley, G and Gwyneth, R 1995: 82-83).

Francis Burney (1752-1840) was born in King's Lynn she was a serious novelist, a diarist and her works were literary precursor of the

Romantic novel. She wrote “Evelina”,(1778) “Cecilia, Memoirs of an

Heiress” in 1782 and “Camilla”(1796) an epistolary novel. Jane Austen admired Burney and was influenced by her “Cecilia” (1782) and took from it the title for “Pride and Prejudice”. From “Evilina” Jane Austen got the historical background of her novel “Northanger Abbey”.

Jane Austen admired the poetry of William Cowper (1731 -1800).

His verse shows the swing away from the formal classical style of Pope

16 towards a simpler, more natural expression. In 1784 he wrote his long poem “The Task”.

Robert Burns (1759 -1796) was a farmer whose lyrics became famous. He used the Scottish dialect. He was one of the pioneers of the

Romantic Movement. Burns wrote “Mary Morrison”, “The Banks of

Doone” and “My love is like a Red Rose". In 1787 Jane Austen began to write poems, stories and plays for her own and her family‟s amusement.

Charlotte Turner Smith (1749 -1806) was a poet , a novelist influencing Jane Austen, William Wordsworth and particularly Charles

Dickens. She was a Romantic writer and wrote on Social conditions, politics and was interested in French novelists. She wrote “Emeline” in

1788 around the same period Jane Austen wrote her first play a black comedy called “Love and Friendship", (1790) which mocked novels of sensibility. Charlotte Smith also wrote “Celestina”(1791), “Desmond”

(1792),“The Banished Man”(1794) , “The letters of a Solitary wanderer”

(1800) . In 1792 she wrote “Young Philosopher” and a poem called “The

Emigrant”

Mary Shelly who was the famous poet's wife, was born in 1797 and died in 1851 was famous for her “gothic” novel “Frankenstein (1818) a ghost story. It is a pattern of machine-men and is an attempt at science fiction the robots of today. Mary wrote her novel “The last Man” (1826) it is a story of the slow destruction by disease of every member except

17 one of the human race. Jane Austen around the same period published

“Northanger Abbey”, a satire on this sort of novel. (Thornley, G. and

Gwyneth, R. 1995: 117).

In 1790 Edmund Burke wrote “Reflections on Revolution in France”.

Burke wrote fine oratorical prose. He was a lawyer and a Member of

Parliament, “Letters to the Sheriffs of Bristol‟ (1777). He argued that a wise government must not press its rights vigorously hard. Burke wanted to get rid of slavery.

Thomas Paine (1737-1809) wrote “Rights of Man” in 1971 a reply to

“Reflections of the Revolution” in France. Jane Austen also wrote “The

History of England, by a self confessed partial, prejudiced and ignorant historian”(1791).

“Pride and Prejudice” was then published. It is well known that

“Northanger Abbey” of Jane Austen was begun as a satire on Mrs.

18 Radcliff‟s “The Mysterious of Udolpho,” and to show that real life is very different. Jane was a realist and thought that the heroes of the Gothic novel always risked incredible dangers.

(1795) wrote “Hemsproug” a novel. Around the same period, Jane Austen started “First Impressions.” (1796)

Godwin ( 1756-1836) was a philosopher and a journalist. He wrote

"Fleet Wood” a novel and a biography of lord Chatham. Godwin wrote

“Coleb Willins”(1794) and in (1817) “Man Ville” at the same period Jane

Austen started writing compositions of verses “Oventa” about Winchester races and Swithin Patron Saint of Winchester 9 (www. everything 2. com).

William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, with Southey became famous as the lake poets. They liked the Cumberland lake district. Wordsworth and Coleridge wrote “Lyrical Ballads” (1798),

Wordsworth was a poet of nature and had the ability to throw charm over ordinary thing . Coleridge on the other hand could make mysterious events acceptable to reader‟s mind. Neither of them used the old language of poetry much. Coleridge wrote the poem “The Rhyme of the Ancient

Mariner”. It describes some strange misfortune that happened to his

19 becalmed ship in the south of the Atlantic. “Christabel” was a long narrative written in 1816 and “Kubla Khan” in the same year. Jane

Austen's “Emma” was published in 1816 by Murray. The manuscript and copyright of the unpublished “Northanger Abbey” were recovered from

Grossby by her brother Henry. “Persuasion” was written in that same year. Wordsworth wrote “Westminster Bridge” an emotional view of

London asleep in 1802. Wordsworth wrote “The Daffodils”, “The

Solitary Reaper” and “Lucy”. The ode on “Intimations of Immorality” in

1807 is a longer poem . The poet finds the faith of childhood before business of the world has shut off the view of heaven. “The prelude”

(1805), “The Excursion” (1814) is a great work but was never completed.

Coleridge wrote “Biographic Literaria” in 1817. He admired Jane Austen but Mr. Wordsworth used to say that although he admitted that her novels were an admirable copy of life, he could not be interested in productions of that kind as for him, they lacked imagination. At the same period Jane

Austen wrote Northanger Abbey. "Emma" was published in 1816, the same “Persuasion” was written.

Lord Byron was a romantic figure, but his poetry was much influenced by the classical style of Pope. He satirized many sides of

English life. His poetry though powerful, lacks the finest poetic imagination. His words mean only what they say. When he wrote carelessly he wrote beautifully and strongly.

20 He wrote “Childe Harold Pilgrimage” in 1809, a story of a man who goes off to travel far away because he is disgusted with life‟s foolish pleasures. He wrote poems about the East, “The Gaur” (1813), “The

Bridge of Abydos”(1813) is a tragic love story. In 1817 Byron wrote

“Manfred” a poem, “The Dan Juan” in 1818 which was a long poem of astonishing adventure and satire. In the same period Jane Austen's

"Persuasion" was published by her brother Rev. Henry. She used to read

Byron‟s poetry which influenced her greatly.

“Castle Rack-rent” (1800). In 1801 she wrote “Blenda”. In 1804 a collection of stories “Popular Tales”. In the same period 1804 Jane

Austen wrote an episratory novel “Lady Susan” not to be confused with

“Susan‟. In 1805 Maria Edgeworth published her novels “Amilia” and

“The Modern Griselda”. In 1809 “Tale of fashionable life" was written.

Jane Austen had an unsuccessful attempt to revive the publication of

“Susan”. In 1814 Maria‟s novel "Patronage" was written while Jane

Austen had her “Mansfield Park” written and published. In 1817 Maria

Edgeworth wrote “Ormond” a novel while Jane Austen started writing

21 twelve chapters of “Sanditon” an unfinished novel. (www. everything 2. com).

In 1802 Walter Scott wrote a collection of ballads, called

“Minstrelsy”. In this same year Jane Austen revised “Susan” later on

“Northanger Abby”. Sir Walter Scott was Jane Austen‟s particular favorite. He wrote poetry. “The Lady of the last Minstrel” 1805 based on an old Scottish story. “Marmior” (1808) “The Lady of the Lake” (1810)

“Christabled” and “The Lord of the Isles” were written, “Guy

Mannering” in 1815 written while Jane Austen began “Persuasion”.

Scott is rather difficult to read, his historical novels are too deep and long for a modern reader, and his style is sometimes heavy . He loved people and could tell stories well (Thornley, G and Gwyneth, R. 1995:118-119).

As admirer of Jane Austen, Sir Walter Scott wrote, “That young lady had a talent for describing the involvements, feelings and characters of ordinary life, which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with”(qtd. in Wright, p.17). In fact Jane Austen was Scott‟s favorite writer they both attempted to reconcile the claims of the mind and the heart and make that conflict a central issue in their novels. Finally, Jane Austen had the satisfaction of earning the sum of £160 for "Pride and Prejudice" which became very popular.

All this ended when she died in 1817 at the early age of forty one.

22 2.2. The Formation of Jane Austen as a Novelist:

It is not surprising that Jane Austen is considered to be the first virtuoso of the novel. Starting from her own family who were very intelligent and well read. They read alone and aloud together and wrote and performed their own plays. Her early writings are considered to originate in her early family‟s hilarious incidents on their return home after a party. She was very quick to distinguish between the genuine and the false and to learn the vividity of caricature and good-humored realism.

Jane Austen was very well informed with much that mattered in

English literature. This is mainly due to her father‟s rich library and family discussion circles at home. Jane Austen favorite writers were known as the father‟s of the English novel in the eighteenth century.

Lennox , Fany Burney, Anne Radcliffe, Charlotte smith and so on. Jane

Austen and her family read Shakespeare plays.

Again starting from the family Jane‟s mother was a great reader and she wrote accomplished light verse. Her brother James also had his mother‟s appetite for verse. He wrote serious poetry and dramatic

23 prologues for the plays put on with his brothers at home. He founded a magazine “The Loiterer” (1789-91)- Jane herself was writing at the age of twelve. At first it was burlesque parody of all the absurdities she observed in her widening acquaintance. Claire Tomalin, Jane Austen‟s recent biographer, suggests that these early stories are influenced by the boyish humour with which she was so familiar at home. In “Jack and

Alice”, dedicated to her brother Francis, there are jokes about drunkenness, food, violent death and accidents speculation about adult behavior and rude remarks about personal appearances. She says that

Jane Austen retained that tough and unsentimental approach in her adult work, her “Comedies of Manners” "however conventionally happy their endings, have a hard, shrewd core to them". (Dick.2000:90)

Roman Catholicism topics with which her father‟s Church of England was much concerned in a spirit of literary Criticism. He was an

24 exceptional father to his exceptional daughter. He unrestrictedly opened his library to her ever since she was a small child. Mr. Austen admired her work very much and encouraged Jane greatly.

These early stories were composed for her own family‟s amusement. She made small literary step to “Lady Susan” written when she was nineteen. In the same year she started “Elinor and Marianne”, the original overshoot of “Sense and Sensibility” and in 1796 -7 “First

Impression”, which eventually became “Pride and Prejudice” . Her father thought so highly of it that he offered it to a publisher, who rejected it.

Bravely enough she wrote “Susan “ which became “Northanger Abby”.

All these books she accomplished in her early twenties.

Jane‟s regular writing activity stopped in 1805 probably due to her father‟s death. She left an unfinished novel called “The Watson‟s” in that year, but when she settled in Chawton village in their home given to them by her brother Edward which he inherited from the Knights who had adopted him. She then started writing again when she was cheered up by successful publication. She began “Mansfield Park” in 1811, “Emma” in

1814, “Persuasion” in 1816, but “Sanditon” remained unfinished at her death in 1817. Her novels were published anonymously, but her authorship become often with her readers extending to aristocratic and even court circles. The Prince Regent whom Jane did not like, hinted he

25 "would allow a work to be dedicated to him. Jane followed his wishes reluctantly". (Dick 2000:91).

No wonder Jane Austen is influenced in her writing by both eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for she is the daughter of both. She was born in the last quarter of the eighteenth century and her adult life ended in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. England was involved in war against Napoleon in which two of her brothers were engaged as officers in the Navy. She was a patriot, she loved England intensely and it was the only country she knew. Although she knew London well, and towns like Bath and Southampton, most of her life was lived in the serene countryside which was not polluted by factories of the Industrial

Revolution. Her novels reflect eighteenth century civility. The darker side of life and the poverty of the working class she did not write about, for she never visited any industrial town. She lived all her life on the fringes of the landed gentry in middle class calmness and comfort. Jane Austen set herself as an author to look into the real and powerful insights of the human condition that her work reveals. It is important to have a regard for the nature of the society in which she lived and wrote and her relationship to it. She took up newly found opportunities for women to write and publish their work. She was aware of the writings of others of her sex and only too conscious of the subordinate and marginal positions of women in society. She writes of women who are more than just the

26 victims of that society, but who challenge and rise above conventional norms and contemporary notions of women and their conduct. Many of the issues of power, property and gender with which Jane Austen deals with such humour and insight, remain unresolved today. But writers like

Jane Austen, Dickens , Bernard Shaw, Ibsen and Zola later in the nineteenth century helped to bring about social consciousness and many social reforms.

Jane Austen could have become the mistress of a large house and estate, the kind of happy ending she planned for her heroines, but she refused the proposal from Harris Bigg-Wither feeling that she must not marry only for status, money and property. She fully believed that one should not marry for money or convenience unless it was reinforced by love. She never regretted her spinsterhood. She had a gift for friendship and love for her extended family. Her children were her novels as she described them. When she saw “Sense and Sensibility” finally in print she said “I can no more forget it, than a mother can forget her sucking child”, and “Pride and Prejudice” was her “darling child” (Dick 2000:88).

Childless spinster she may have been but “her children” are her books- surviving into the Twenty First century to our delight and intellectual benefit.

27 2.3. Critical Writings on Jane Austen

The publication of her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh‟s

“Memoirs of Jane Austen” in 1870 led to Austen‟s wider popularity and prompted much more critical interest.

By the end of the nineteenth century, many publishers had produced editions of her major novels which have never subsequently been out of print.

Park” and it is clear that Cassandra herself has already read the manuscript.

"According to Jane Austen Henry found the last half of the novel extremely interesting". ((Wirdram 1985:79)

28 A family friend, of the Austen's Lady Gordon comments about Jane Austen saying: "In most novels you are amused for the first time with a set of ideal people whom you never think of after words. In Miss Austen‟s works, especially in “Mansfield Park” you actually live with them, you fancy yourself one of the family…..There is scarcely an incident or conversation, or a person that you are not inclined to imagine you have at one time or another in your life been a witness to, born a part in, & been a acquainted with." (Wirdram 1985:80)

(daughter of the Prince of Wales) wrote in a letter that “Marianne and me are very alike in disposition, that certainly I am not so good, the same imprudence, and however remain very alike”.(Dick 2001: 99)

The biographer Claire Tomalin mentioned in her book on Jane

Austen "A Life" that the publisher himself Mr. Egerton “praised it for it‟s

Morality”. (Tomalin 1998:228) She is referring here to Austen's novel

“Mansfield Park”.

Sir Walter Scott praised Jane Austen‟s works in 1815 saying:

Scott also argues that Jane Austen‟s kind of novel marked a new departure in that it avoided a craving of her incident and an overemotional and sentimental effect on the reader.

Richard Whately in 1821, four years after Jane Austen‟s death approves of "Jane Austen‟s didactic purposes in her writings" (Wirdnam

1985:81)

Jane Austen a woman of whom England is justly proud (Wrigh 1962:18).

Like Wordsworth, Miss Bronte praises Jane Austen for her accuracy and like him; she feels in her a want of imagination, though the language is different. Charlotte Bronte says about Jane Austen that “She does her business of delineating the surface of the lives of genteel English people curiously well. There is a Chinese fidelity, a miniature delicacy in the painting”. (Wright 1962:19)

30 Miss Bronte confuses the distinction between dispassion and superficiality: The very cool observation calmness with which Jane

Austen writes, leads Charlotte Bronte to believe that Jane Austen is an author of surface only. What she does not see, is that in Jane Austen‟s treatment of her material there is by implication “that stormy sisterhood the passion and good deal more, than an occasional graceful but distant recognition of the feeling” (Wright 1962: 9). Jane Austen concerned with morals, the way how people behave and based on three or four families in a country village.

In the United States Mark Twain (1835-1910) and Ralph Waldo

Emersion (1803-1930) described Jane Austen 's novels as tedious. At the beginning of the Twentieth century D.H .Lawrence (1885-1930) found her novels snobbish among other things.

Among Jane Austen‟s supporters, include George Eliot (1817-80) and her partner the writer G.H Lewes ( 1817-78) who admired Miss

Austen but saw her work as likely to appeal to an intellectual elite within a small circle of cultivated minds.

Richard Simpson argues that Miss Austen‟s novels are set out to teach. He saw Jane Austen as a detached critic of society, using irony as a tool. (Windram 1985:p 81), Henry James (1843-1916) and Rudyard

Kipling (1865-1936) have been admirers of Jane Austen. They saw her as precursor in literary technique especially in “Emma”. D.W Harding, a

31 Twentieth century critic rejected the notion that Jane Austen was a light delicate, humanist and shows instead that her satirical comments are often directed at the reader i.e. the society around her. She was aware of society‟s shortcomings, but out of respect for the virtues of civilized order, her attack are disguised as comic she offers “her reader every excuse for regarding as rather exaggerated figures of fun, people whom she herself detests and fears”. (Wirdnam, 1985: 82).

Trilling even said that "Jane Austen‟s irony is sometimes directed against itself and in favour of hard literalness." (Wirdnam, 1985:83) In her previous novels Jane Austen had shown that wit and vivacity were virtues but in “Mansfield Park” for example these become a form of deceit. “Virtue is to be found in plain speaking or even awkwardness.”

(Wirdnam 1985:83) More recently Miss Austen has been called both a capitalist bourgeois and in a sense a “Marxist”. David Daiches says that

Jane Austen is the only English novelist of stature who was "in a sense a

Marxist before Marx". who exposes the economic basis of social behaviours with an ironic smile". (Watt 1963:11) Julia Kavanagh, a recent critic, noted that "there is almost a tragic strain in Miss Austen‟s comedies" (Dick 2001:100). In 1998 Brain Southan wrote the comprehensive work of Jane Austen: “The critical Heritage” (Dick

2001:101).

32 Julian Wilmot Wynne wrote “Jane Austen and Sigmund Freud”.

(1998) David Lodge who has rejected the new criticism of aesthetic constrain has discovered that Jane Austen‟s novels can be an instrument of ideology, a genre founded on bad faith, on the pretence that bourgeois culture is "natural", using the dominance of the authorial voice." (Dick

2001:102).

There is a tremendous amounts of material written about Jane

Austen and there is still much to be written.

This crystallized picture of Jane Austen‟s writings show that she writes with deep meaning which gifts sufficient intellect and understanding to the whole world.

E.M Forster confessed that Jane Austen was his favorite author. This admiration for Jane Austen is based partly on compatibility of temperament. Both Jane Austen and E.M Forster attempted to reconcile the claims of the head and the heart, and indeed make that conflict a central issue in their novels. Forester‟s in his “Aspects of the Novel” singles out for especial praise the way that the characters in Jane Austen‟s novels are originally related to their environment and to each other; and

33 he uses Jane Austen as a signal example of how to create what he calls

“round” as opposed to “flat” characters, that is characters who are three dimensional enough to develop, or surprise us convincingly: “All her characters” Forster declares, “are round or capable of rotundity” (qtd. in

Watt 1963:9)

In 1949 the economic approach to Jane Austen was examined in the terms of literary criticism by Mark Shchorer in his important essay

“Fiction and the (Matrix of Analogy)” (1949). "Here the values of commerce and property, the counting house and the inherited estate” are traced in Jane Austen‟s characteristic diction and metaphor". (Watt

1963:12).

Q.D Levis's "A theory of Jane Austen's writings" (1941-2), is much nearer to that of a professional writer than of a miraculously gifted amateur" (Guard 1998:25). Andre Gide‟s finely balanced judgment that

Jane Austen exhibits “an exquisite mastery of whatever can be mastered”.

(Watt 1963:14). In her limited world, this makes her ever so true in her writings.

35 The Effect of the Law of Entailment

3.1. Introduction to “Sense and Sensibility”:

There are three inheritance themes in “Sense and Sensibility.” The main theme concerns Mr. Henry Dashwood, his second wife and their three daughters who lived with Mr. Dashwood‟s wealthy Uncle at

Unfortunately for Henry‟s women folks John Dashwood breaks his promise gradually by many cunning tricks of his greedy wife Fanny.

They move into Norland without warning as soon as the funeral has finished and from that moment Mrs. John Dashwood becomes the ruling mistress of Norland. Fanny manages to convince her husband John that his father‟s request has nothing to do with financial help. She

36 persuades him to find them a small house and send them occasional gifts of game or fish from his estate.

Ferrars changes her inheritance to her younger conceited son Robert

Ferrars. Anne Steel whose engagement to Edward dashes the hopes of

Elinor, finally elopes with the now wealthy Robert.

The third theme is the inheritance of John Willoughby. He is loved by

Allenham court who summons him now and then. Willoughby‟s extravagant life style has left him in financial difficulties and he is supposed to marry a Miss Grey who has ₤ 5,000 of her own in the hope of restoring his fortunes.

The fourth theme is Colonel Brandon‟s inheritance. After the death of his eldest brother Colonel Brandon inherited the estate of

Delaford. He is an honest friend and devoted to Marianne and later on he marries her after her disappointment over Willoughdy. Coloned Brandon

37 kindly offers a modest part of his estate the vicarage of Delaford to help

Edward Ferrars to get married, while Edward‟s own mother deprives him from his inheritance.

3.2. Exiled Away “Sense and Sensibility”, the first of Jane Austen‟s works to be published, is not easily labeled as either an ironic comedy of manners or a morality tale. It is first and foremost a political novel. "The family, its relationship to the ownership and inheritance of land and status, are examined here"

(Austen 1993:5). The role of women within the family and the power relationship between women themselves, as well as between women and men are all to be found amongst its themes.

The place and order of things is established from the first sentence, the family of Dashwood has long been settled in Sussex” The Dashwoods a group of women (mother and three daughters), are of course anything but settled, no Settlement of any great substance having been provided for them. They (mother and three daughters)must go leaving Norland Park and Sussex for Barton Cottage in a county so far distance from Sussex as

Devonshire. The “Furrowed brow” is the law of property prior to the reforming land Acts of the early twentieth century, was clearly grasped by Jane Austen, she illustrated it with implicit criticism, "a system of entailment that threw women upon the mercy of their male relatives, directly in the line of entailment. In a few brief lines, the many kinds of

38 unjust and perversity of this system of inheritance are revealed" (Austen

1993:5). The property relationship is clearly mapped out.

It is evident that the the Dashwood family had a wonderful life in

Sussex with the old uncle of their father. They happened to be there to compensate for the loss of the uncle‟s sister who used to look after him.

Their estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of their property, where for many generations they had lived in so respectable a manner as to engage the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance. The late owner of this estate was a single man, who lived to a very advanced age, and who for many years of his life had a constant companion and housekeeper in his sister, But her death which happened ten years before his own, produced a great alteration in his home, for to supply her loss, he invited and received in to his house the family of his nephew, Mr. Henry Dashwood, "the legal inheritor of the

Norland estate, and the person to whom he intended to bequeath it"

(Austen 1993:9).

39 moreover his wealth would increase when he succeeds to Norland Park that is by being the only male son of Mr. Henry. His half sisters would be out of inheritance because they are females. In reality the Norland estate was more important to the daughters than to the son but by such rigid entailment laws there was no chance for them.

After having led a splendid life at Norland Park, unfortunately

“The old Gentleman died, his will was read, and like almost every other will gave as much disappointment as pleasure. He was neither so unjust nor so ungrateful as to leave his estate from his nephew; but he left it to him on such terms as destroyed half the value of the bequest. Mr.

When the danger was known his son was sent for. On his death bed Mr.

40 "His son was sent for as soon as his danger was known, and to him

Mr. Dashwood recommended, with all the strength an urgency which illness could command, the interest of his mother in –law and sisters"

(Austen 1963:10). Mr. John Dashwood had not the strong feeling of the rest of the family; but he was affected by a recommendation of such a nature at such a time and he promised to do every thing in his power to make them comfortable. His father has rendered easy by such an assurance.

"No sooner was his father‟s funeral over than Mrs. John

Dashwood, without sending any notice of her intentions to her mother-in- law, arrived with her child and their attendants. No one could dispute her

41 right to come; the house was her husband‟s from the moment of his father‟s decease" (Austen 1993:10).

Mrs. Dashwood and her three daughters were provoked by the ungracious arrival of Mrs. John Dashwood Fanny, in fact Mrs. Dashwood was disgusted that she wanted to leave the house, her previous much loved home. Being persuaded by Elinor the eldest daughter Mrs.

Dashwood stayed and so as to avoid a breach with the girls' brother as

Elinor requested.

Mr. John Dashwood meant to keep his promise to his father but how will he perform it?

Mr. John Dashwood proposed to give a generous three thousand pound to his sisters, which would be more much less than his father intended with cunning arguments and apparent deference to her spouse,

42 father was light headed at the time of the request; any annuity to Mrs.

Dashwood might tie up money for many years, his father never intended help to include money, his step mother (mother- in –law) and sisters will live so modestly that they will in any case have more money than they can spend; Mrs. Dashwood will not need any gift of furniture for her house when she moves, since she already has enough.

Mr. Dashwood says to his wife "It was my father‟s last request to me „That I should assist his widow and three daughters' (Austen

Mr. John Dashwood thinks something must be done for his ladies since he has given the promise to his father on his deathbed.

But Fanny is still fighting greedily for her boy Harry, again she intrudes,

„Well then, let something be done for them; but that something need not be three thousand pounds, consider. She added „That when the money is once parted with, it never can return. Your sisters will marry, and it will be gone for ever, if indeed it could ever be restored to our poor little boy…. " (Austen 1993:12).

43 Influenced by his wife‟s argument Mr. John Dashwood replies

Their house keeping will be nothing at all………‟ (Austen 1993:14).

Mr. John Dashwood completely agrees to her greedy opinion trying to relieve himself, he replies “Upon my word” said Mr. Dashwood

„I believe you are perfectly alright. My father could mean nothing more by his request to me than what you say….‟ (Austen 1993:14).

Fanny shows the ugliest part of her selfishness and greed by putting her eyes on Mrs. Dashwood s' silver plates which she had all her

44 life at Norland Park. “Certainly”, returned Mrs. John Dashwood „But however one must be considered. When your father and mother moved to

Norland…………all the china plate and linen was saved and now is left to your mother. Her house will therefore be almost completely fitted as soon as she takes it' (Austen 1993:14) In fact Mr. John Dashwood gradually excuses himself from his promise to his father. He reaches the degree that he would take what privately belonged to his mother in law and his sisters.

He finally resolved, that it would be absolutely unnecessary, to do more for the widow and her daughters than such kind of neighborly acts as his own wife pointed out.

By Fate, Fanny‟s brother Edward Farrar‟s and Elinor, the eldest

Dashwood daughter become attached to each other during the Dashwoods stay of six months at Norland Park. But generally Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters are unhappy in their old home, which is now taken over by the terrible Fanny.

A timely invitation from Sir John Middleton, Mrs. Henry

Cottage, but are also sad because of their former grand days and memories.

45 Elinor believes that Edward and she are in love with each other in spite of Edward‟s low spirits. She is deeply hurt when she learns from the cruel Lucy Steel that she and Edward have been secretly engaged for four years. Silly Anne Steele, Lucy‟s sister on seeing her sister to be favorite with Edward‟s mother and the Middleton‟s reveals Lucy‟s engagement with Edward. The snobbish Ferrar‟s throw the penniless Steels out of their house. Fanny claims to be ill from the shock, and Mrs. Farrars says she will cut off Edward‟s inheritance unless he cancels his engagement.

Edward determines to honour his engagement and Mrs. Ferrar‟s makes her younger and favorite son Robert to be her heir. In fact Robert is very shallow.

So the Mr Farrars seen by Thomas the servant was infact Robert and not

Edward. For once Elinor loses her control of her emotions, she runs out of the room crying out her heart in tears of joy.

Lucy Steele has an eye for her financial advantage and turns out to be a manipulative and successful social climber, when she seizes her chance to trap Robert Ferrars the wealthier brother.

46 Edward, ordained as a clergyman, is offered a living by Colonel

Brandon their faithful friend and with some mean- spirited financial assistance from Mrs. Ferrars, his mother, is able to marry Elinor and they move into the parsonage at Delaford.

Eventually Marianne, Elinor‟s younger sister, recovers over her misery over Willoughby‟s betrayal as a lover and marries Colonel Braden the patient suitor. Their mother and youngest sister Margaret are very contented to see them happily married. Elinor is happy in her harmonious marriage and helps Edward and encourages him to make reconciliation with his mother.

Jane Austen rounds up the story by rewarding the Dashwood patient and virtous ladies by giving them a happy ending after suffering greatly from being disinherited and exiled from their much loved old

Norland Park.

47 3.3. Introduction to "Pride and Prejudice":

The main inheritance theme in "Pride and Prejudice" is the

Bennet‟s entailed property.

"As for the Longbourn family themselves, Mr. and Mrs Bennent have been married for twenty three years…… Eldest daughter Jane,

…Elizabeth …Mary.. Kitty… and Lydia. Mrs. Bennet has passed the menopause, so there is now no hope that there will ever be a son to inherit

Longbourn and keep the estate safe for the Bennets under the terms of the entail…it was a legal arrangement whereby the property could descend only to a male heir. If there was no direct male heir, as in the Bennet‟s case, then the next nearest male collateral descendant of the owner who had originally created the entail would inherit"

₤4,000 and ₤5,000 a year" (Le Fayer 2003:186). He has inherited all this of after his father's death.

The third inheritance theme concers “Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy‟s property, Turns out to be an even greater matrimonial prize than Mr.

Bingley . Mr. Darcy comes from Derbyshire, where his ancestral estate of

Pemberly is said to be worth ₤10,000 a year………., he inherited his

48 great estate five years ago when his father died”. (Le Fayer 2003:188) At the end of the novel he marries Elizabeth the pretty and intelligent daughter of the Bennets.

3.4. A Truth Universally acknowledged

These are the very thoughts of Mrs Bennet who is strongly keen to get each one of her daughters married to a man of fortune. She knows when their father dies the inheritance law of entailment will not have mercy on them, she and her daughters will lose house, home and income land to the nearest male relative. These apprehensions of Mrs. Bennet are sarcastically raised by Jane Austen in the very opening words of the novel.

49 "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife". (Austen

1993:219).

Then she answers eagerly.

"Oh! Single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!" (Austen 1993:219).

Mrs. Bennet is pressurizing her husband to go and call on the new neighbor Mr. Bingley in order to open doors for her daughters to be seen socially, she says:

“When a woman has five grown up daughters, she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty.” (Austen 1993:219).

50 The business of Mrs. Bennet‟s life is to get her daughters married. After that she thinks, she will be relieved.

"If I can but see one of my daughters happily settled at Netherfield”. Said

Mrs. Bennet to her husband, "and all the others equally well married, I shall have nothing more to wish for" (Austen 1993:222).

Sometime later Mr. Bennet and his family are all gathered together at breakfast, they have a debate about who might come that day, Mr. Bennet has asked his wife if she had ordered a good dinner then after amusing himself he explained:

Mrs. Bennet is really shocked and she answers:

Mr. Collins was not a sensitive man, self conceited with a weak mind. As revealed in this part of his letter.

51 "Having now a good house and very sufficient income, he intended to marry; and in seeking reconciliation with the Longbourn family he had a wife in view, as he means to choose one of the daughters, if he found them as handsome and amiable as they were represented by common report. This was his plans of amends-of atorement- for inheriting their father‟s estate; and he thought it an excellent one, full of eligibility and suitableness and excessively generous and disinterested on his own part”

(Austen 1993:257).

And now nothing remains for me but to assure you in the most animated language of the violence of my affection. To fortune I am perfectly indifferent, and shall make no demand of that nature on your father, since

52 I am well aware that it could not be complied with; and that one thousand pounds in the 4 percents. Which will not be yours till after your mother‟s decease" (Austen 1993:277-278)

It was absolutely necessary for Elizabeth to interrupt him:

Elizabeth finds it exceedingly puzzling to convince Mr. Collins of her refusal. He continues saying:

"You must give me leave to flatter myself, my dear cousin that your

refusal of my addresses is merely words of course. My reasons for

believing it are briefly these:- It does not appear to me that my hand is

unworthy of your acceptance, or that the establishment I can offer

would be any other than highly desirable. My situation in life, my

connection with the family de Bourgh, and my relationship to your

own, are circumstances highly in my favour; and you should take it

into further consideration that in spite of your manifold attractions, it

is by no means certain that another offer of marriage may ever be

made to you. Your portion is unhappily so small that it will in all

likelihood undo the effects of your loveliness and amiable

53 qualifications. As I must therefore conclude that you are not serious in your rejection of me, I shall choose to attribute it to your wish increasing my love by suspense, according to the usual practice of elegant females" (Austen 1993:279).

Jane Austen‟s criticism of the preference of males to females in her society continues on and on. In chapter fifty on the first page, of

"Pride and Prejudice", the need of a son for the Bennet‟s family is important because he will be a protector of their economical situation.

Unfortunately for them their dream of having a son is not fulfilled and instead the family has five daughters.

(Austen 1993:386).

Darcy may be guessed. Mrs. Bingley is her daughter Jane who married the young gentleman from the north. He inherited his big fortune from his father who gained it by trade. Mrs. Darcy is Mrs Bennet‟s very clever daughter Elizabeth she is married to Mr. Darcy of Derbyshire

54 with a noble mien and of great fortune which he inherited from his father.

This great happiness ought to make Mrs. Bennet sensible, lovable and well- informed woman for the rest of her life; though perhaps it was lucky for her husband, who might not have tasted domestic felicity in such a strange way that she was occasionally nervous and continuously silly.

"Jane Austen not only carried her characters in her mind‟s eye,

but took enduring interest in their later lives, she told her family

that Kitty Bennet was happily married to a clergyman near

Pemberly, while Mary obtained nothing lighter than one of her

Uncle Phillip‟s clerks and was happy to be a star in the society of

Meryton. Jane Austen did not enlarge upon the summing-up with

which she finished the story in the last chapter, and which still

leaves scope for the reader to wonder whether Miss Bingly

succeeded in finding a husband for herself, whether Georgiana the

shy Darcy girl married? How the Collinses dared to return to

Hunsford and face their share of Lady Catherine‟s wrath and even

to hope that Mrs Bennet‟s nerves might possibly overcome her,

leaving Mr Bennet free to marry a more suitable second wife and

produce a son who would oust Mr. Collins from the entailed

inheritance of Longbourn". (Le Faye 2003: 202-203).

55 This hopeful suggested continuation makes it a possibility for

Mr. Bennet to have an heir male who will push Mr. Collins out of

the inheritance. In a reversed plot of inheritance in “Sense and

Sensibility”, the male is a half brother of three sisters inherits their

father‟s property and being pushed by his greedy wife he pushes

his three half sisters and their mother out of their fine home to a

small country cottage far away given to them by a cousin.

Jane Austen‟s concept of realising the preference of males to

females is emphasized in her great themes of inheritance and this is

obvious in "Sense and Sensibility."

3.5. Introduction to “Persuasion”:-

The main inheritance theme in “Persuasion” concerns young Mr.

56 for Sir Walter who would deprive young William Eliot from the Eliot‟s inheritance.

Luckily for Anne, she comes to know young Eliot‟s real vicious character through her sincere school friend Mrs. Smith. Thus she rejects his proposals, knowing his real aims.

Musgrove is engaged to Charles Hayter so both families suppose such arranged marriage will be advantageous.

57 3.6. A triumphant wealthy captain now

The opening page of chapter one in "Persuasion" begins with the following words.

"Sir Walter Eliot, of Kellynch Hall in Somersetshire was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage….."

(Austen 1993:1115) This indicates that he only cared for the title and property. He was very obsessed and proud of his family history.

Sir Walter owned Kellynch Hall his large and comfortable mansion.

Because he had no son but only three daughters his property had to be inherited by his male cousin Mr. William Walter Eliot by the law of entailment.

Sir Walter would always open at this page of his favorite volume of

Baronetage far from being neither modest nor humble.

“Walter Eliot, born March 1, 1760 married July 15, 1784 Elizabeth daughter of James Stevenson, Esq., of South Park in the county of

Gloucester; by which lady (who died 1800) he has issue, Elizabeth, born

Jun 1, 1785; Anne born August 9, 1789; a still-born son, November 5,

1789; Mary born November 20, 1791" (Austen 1993:1115).

58 fascinated by her marriage to the heir of the Musgrove family, eldest son

Charles Musgrove.

"Married December 16, 1810, Charles son and heir of Charles

Musgrove‟s, Esq.; of Upper cross, in the county of Somerset." (Austen

1993:1115) It is very likely that Sir Walter would not have married his daughter Mary to the Musgrove‟s had they no property then as they were just farmers.

This heir presumptive, the very William Walter Eliot, Esq., whose rights had been so generously supported by Sir Walter had disappointed

Elizabeth Sir Walter‟s eldest daughter, for her father was seeking him to get to him marry her. This is of course to secure her life style by such arranged marriage.

Jane Austen has very cleverly set a plan for young Mr. Eliot to marry Elizabeth.

In one of their spring excursions to London when Elizabeth was in her first bloom, young Mr. Eliot had been forced into the introduction.

"Mr. Eliot was that time a very young man, just engaged in the study of

59 law, and Elizabeth found him externally agreeable and every plan in his favour was confirmed" (Austen 1993:1117-1118). They invited him to

Eliot ceased.

As for Anne Eliot the second daughter of Sir Walter Eliot was a pretty girl with gentleness, modesty, taste, and feeling when she first met

Captain Wentworth who was staying at that time at Monkfort. He was at that time a remarkably fine young man and promising commander with intelligence and spirit. He and Anne gradually were in deep love.

Unfortunately for them, Sir Walter thought it was a somewhat degrading alliance and Lady Russel a great friend of the Eliot‟s family thought it was a most unfortunate one. Anne was persuaded to believe the engagement was wrong, so she turned him down, and he left the neighbourhood, a disappointed man, but Anne was never able to forget him.

Almost eight years later they meet through his sister the new tenant at Kellynch Hall.With the very natural determination not to reopen the subject of their old affair, he is cool towards Anne.

60 Now having fulfilled all his early promise, he wishes to marry as he says to his sister only half playfully.

Captain Fredrick Wentworth comes to Upper Cross to the

At the Musgrove‟s, Anne meets captain Wentworth when she comes to see her sister Mary who lived with her parents in law. Captain

Wentworth came to go shooting with Charles Musgrove. He is cool with

Musgrove from her back. It was on the excursion to Lyme that he is forced to return all of his attention and affection to his first love when

Louisa who has been seeking his attention behaved so stupidly and Anne

61 so coolly. At Bath very much later, he thinks that he had been unjust to her and in Lyme he had begun to understand himself.

Jane Austen is being very critical here about such arranged marriages made by her society presented in the character of the snobbish

Sir Walter, Lady Russel, the proud Mary and her husband Charles

Musgrove, the heir presumptive of Musgrove‟s. Anne somehow could not refuse Lady Russel‟s advice she saw her advice like that of a parent and

Anne was only a girl of nineteen years old, and had lost her mother.

Then comes the moment after so many years that the heir presumptive young Mr. Eliot wants to make reconciliation with the

Eliots. In Bath they meet and he is a personable widower by then.

"He had explained all the appearance of neglect on his own side, it originated in misapprehension entirely…..upon the hint having spoken disrespectfully…….." (Austen 1993:1188)

Quite astonishingly, Sir Walter, Elizabeth, Lady Russel all

Welcomed him so readily back into their good graces, but Anne in spite of finding him generally agreeable to everyone, she suspects his motives, though, she cannot understand what they can be. Infact Lady Russel encourages Anne Eliot to think of marrying Eliot; she told Anne that she had been praised by the heir presumptive of Kellynch Hall. Lady Russel says to Anne, "I own that to be able to regard you as the future mistress of Kellynch, the future Lady Eliot, to look forward and see you

62 occupying your dear mother‟s place, succeeding to all her rights and all her popularity will be the highest gratification to me" (Austen

Luckily for Anne, she goes to see a school friend Mrs. Smith who has come to Bath for treatment by the warm sulphuric water. From Mrs.

Smith, Anne learns a lot about the true character of young Mr. Eliot.

63 Mr Eliot had ruined Mrs Smith and her husband greatly. He married an inferior woman just for the sake of making fortune through the quickest process of marriage, thus to free himself from Sir Walter‟s and

Elizabeth‟s designing of the matching between the heir of Kellynch and the young lady (Elizabeth Eliot) Mr. Eliot actually is a big hypocrite he is not affectionate to Misses Eliots but infact “He has come to Bath to keep

Sir Walter from marrying Mrs. Clay, and thus from the possibility of producing a male heir to Kellynch. Young Mr. Eliot succeeds in that endeavor – by enticing Mrs. Clay to London, out of harm‟s way” (Wright

1962:172). Anne is now free to reject young Mr. Eliot.

"I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one, you need not covet it) is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone."

(Wright 1962:168).

This very warm statement arouses Captain Wentworth‟s enthusiasm and he soon proposes to Anne. They rejoice and are reconciled not only with each other but the whole family is overjoyed.

Jane Austen cleverly ends up with Captain Wentworth a triumphant wealthy man now accepted by the family; he has fulfilled

64 every promise with his optimistic temperament declared nine years before. Anne is now a mature woman of seven and twenty.

66 The Effect of the Law of Primogeniture

4.1 Introduction to "Mansfield Park":

In Mansfield Park the major theme of inheritance with focus on the law of primogeniture, is when Mr. Tom Bertram the eldest son and successor of the entire property of Mansfield Park gets seriously ill. The worldly Mary Crawford thinks little of the role of a poor clergyman‟s wife. When Tom the eldest son is near to death, she expresses her own callous thoughts in a letter to Fanny, the poor and humble heroine.

Edmund‟ would not do more good with all the Bertram property, than any possible “Sir”.." (Austen 1906: 332-333)

Thus Mary Crawford wishes secretly for the death of Tom so that

Edmund can inherit the entire Bertram property and she will be raised by marriage to him to the Baronetcy.

Another theme of inheritance in "Mansfield Park" is when Mrs. Norris maneuvers Maria Bertram into an engagement with the stupid Mr. James

Rushworth because he is a man of property which he has inherited in the near by estate of Sotherton court and worth ₤12,000 a year income.

67 Another minor theme of inheritance reflected through an arranged marriage is when Sir Thomas Bertram tries to convince Fanny to marry

Mr. Henry Crawford also because he is a wealthy man. Sir Thomas assures Fanny that she will live a settled and honourable life since Henry has great wealth as he has inherited his father‟s estate at Everingham in

Norfolk.

Jane Austen very ironically pictures these arranged marriages which are mainly the consequences of inherited properties and fortunes. The authoress through her fiction portraits the economical conditions of the gentry of Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and their effects on her society. These inheritance themes are conveyed so well by

Jane Austen as to give tension to her suspenseful and interesting complex plots.

68 4.2. Eldest son gets lion's share

Mansfield Park is the home of Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram and their children. "Maria Ward has become Lady Bertram through her marriage to Sir Thomas Bertram a wealthy Baronet who also owned great estates in Antigua" (now a days the West Indies). (Wirdnam 1985:7)

She has improved her financial position greatly. Her only qualities are nothing but physical beauty. Their marriage was based on property and position rather than love. Her sister Mrs. Norris who happened to be living with them had had the benefit of Sir Bertram to have her husband as Reverend Norris the rector of Mansfield although she did not have strong feeling for her husband. With herself importance and energy, she almost had complete authority of Mansfield Park while Lady Bertram was just indolent. Their third sister Mrs. Price had made a marriage to a penniless young naval officer by allowing her feelings to over power her judgments and she ended up with too little money and too many children.

All these unequal marriages brought disastrous consequences. Jane

Austen criticized such marriages by putting them in contrast. She fully believed in equality in the relationship between a man and women.

Mrs. Norris decided that the Bertram ought to help the poorer

Prices by bringing one of their children, Fanny to Mansfield Park to be educated with their girls, assuring Sir Thomas that Fanny would not be a

69 romantic threat to his sons. There is a sign here that Fanny is forbidden to marry the sons of the highly placed Baronet since she is considered the poor relative. These are Mrs. Norris‟s reassurance "My dear Sir

Thomas….but breed her up with them from this time suppose her even to have the beauty of an angel, and she will never be more to either than a sister". (Austen 1963:4).

Fanny a ten year old timid girl arrived at Mansfield Park a great country mansion. She was introduced to the Bertram children, Tom,

Edmund, Maria and Julia. Edmund was kind and sympathetic to her.

Fanny was grateful and she began to develop an everlasting love for him.

Edmund intended to be ordained but Tom being the eldest son, owing to the prevailing law of primogeniture is to inherit the Baronetcy and all the landed property of the Bertrams. He was an extravagant playboy:

Since Tom was irresponsible, Dr. Grant an outsider had to be appointed in order to supervise the parish of Mansfield.

The law of primogeniture plays a big role in Mansfield Park as the eldest son by this law is to inherit all his entire father‟s property after his decease; this is interested in Tom the eldest son of the Bertrams. In

70 those days the younger sons being deprived of their father‟s inheritance were sent to seek jobs such as lawyers, naval officers or clergymen or to the colonies, this is embodied in Edmund the younger son of the Betrams who is planning his career as a clergyman.

Sir Thomas and his son Tom had to leave for Antigua to see about their overseas estate leaving behind Mrs. Norris and Edmund in charge of

Mansfield Park, Lady Bertram being indolant and incompetent.

After sometime Tom returned but his father did not. One theme of arranged marriage is shown ironically by Jane Austen through Mrs.

Norris‟s act of maneuvering Maria into an engagement with Mr. James

Rushworth a stupid wealthy neighbor knowing that he has recently inherited the near by estate of Sotherton Court. But Edmund could see a fault in the business. He was saying to himself "If this man had not twelve thousand a year, he would be a very stupid fellow" (Austen

1963:29).

The Grants were visited at the parsonage by Henry and Mary

Grawford Mrs. Grant‟s half brother and sister. Later on Mrs. Grant too like Mrs. Norris was planning an arranged marriage between Mary

Crawford and Tom Bertram. Mary agreed believing that she could marry well: to advantage she was attracted by Tom‟s position as an eldest son into fancying that with him would be a good chance. And being the mistress

71 of Mansfield Park later was not too bad. Mary thought that he was pleasant, agreeable with large acquaintances and a great deal to say.

"The reversion of Mansfield Park, and a baronetcy, did no harm to all this. Miss. Crawford soon felt , that he and his situation might do, she looked about her with due consideration and found almost everything in his favor, a Park, a real Park five miles round, a spacious modern-built house, so well placed…..and of being Sir Thomas hereafter‟s.. She believed she should accept him".(Austen 1963:35-36).

On the other hand Edmund was attracted by Mary‟s beauty and lively personality, not knowing her real character.

Mrs. Norris suggested that all the young people should go to Mr.

Rushworth‟s grand house in Southerton Mr. Rushworth was making some improvement in his house grounds. During this visit lots of strange behaviors were revealed.

The worldly Mary made degrading remarks about clergymen in a talk with Edmund and Fanny who both believed that a clergyman is the agent responsible for the improvement of the society as a whole.

Although Maria was engaged to Mr. Rushworth, she was exchanging many flirtations with Henry Crawford and Mary was trying hard to persuade Edmund from being a clergyman because she was gradually falling in love with him.

Sir Thomas was to return to Mansfield but the news was not happily received by Julia and especially Maria who‟s marriage would

72 then take place. Mary shared their feeling for she did not want Edmund to be ordained. Tom returned from visiting friends but Mary was then certain that she preferred Edmund.

On his return to England Sir Thomas was surprised and impressed by

Fanny‟s improvements of health and beauty and began showing his affection, and she seemed no longer terrified by him.

Fanny‟s affection for her brother William and he then began to feel genuine attraction for her.

Sir Thomas decided to give a ball for the benefit of Fanny and

William her newly arrived midshipman brother at Mansfield Park from a sea voyage. But Sir Thomas‟s real aim of that ball was to get Fanny nearer to Henry Crawford. This is another theme of arranged marriages shown by Jane Austen‟s clear mirror of her genteel society.

"In a few minutes Sir Thomas came to her, and asked if she were engaged and the „yes Sir‟, to Mr. Crawford was exactly what he had intended to hear. Mr. Crawford was not far off; Sir Thomas brought him to her…." (Austen 1963:209)

73 Fanny that Mr. Henry Crawford had formally requested her hand in marriage. Fanny was upset, she conveyed her refusal but was unable to detail her doubts about Henry. Sir Thomas praised Mr. Henry and accused Fanny of ingratitude.

Henry had inherited a state at Everingham in Norfolk since he was a school boy at Westminster.

Jane Austen very ironically pictures Lady Bertram‟s point of view of marriage as she (Lady Bertram) was disappointed by Fanny‟s refusal to the wealthy Mr. Henry Crawford.

"No my dear ….. If you were married to a man of such good estate as Mr. Crawford. You must be aware, Fanny that it is every young woman‟s duty to accept such a very unexceptionable offer as this". (Austen 1963: 252)

But Lady Bertram is blind to the fact that other kinds of improvements can take place through marriage.

Sir Thomas and Edmund agreed that Fanny should make some change and go to visit her parents at Portsmouth. Sir Thomas hoped that

74 an absence from wealth and elegance would incline Fanny to accept

Henry‟s offer.

Later on, Fanny received a sad letter from Lady Bertram informing her that Tom has been taken ill and Edmund had gone to nurse him and bring him home.

A shocking letter came from Mary to Fanny. It conveyed a painful proof of Mary‟s hard heart. Mary explained that Tom‟s health was deteriorating and her letter revealed how eager she was to see Edmund become the eldest son. It is very likely that in the event of Tom‟s death,

Mary will agree to marry Edmund, even though he is a clergyman for then he is to inherit all the Bertram‟s property.

"And now, do not trouble yourself to be ashamed of either my feeling or your own. Believe me, they are not only natural, they are philanthropic and virtuous. I put it to your conscience, whether "Sir

75 Edmund” would not do more good with all the Bertram property, than any possible Sir". (Austen 1963:332-333)

The theme of inheritance here is very dominant and especially the law of primogeniture is conveyed by Jane Austen through Tom the eldest son. But Mary‟s selfishness and worldly character is clarified by the talent of Jane Austen‟s irony in picturing Mary‟s callous thought of

Edmund becoming an eldest son after the possible death of Tom, and then he would be able to inherit all the Bertram‟s property.

Fanny thoughts of Edmund were completely different from those of

Mary‟s and she was absolutely shocked by Mary‟s letter for she (Fanny) loved Edmund only for himself.

In another shocking letter from Mary to Fanny, she learned that

Henry was connected with some scandalous event at the Rushworth‟s in

London.

Then Fanny was further aware of the scandal by a letter from Edmund telling her that Maria had eloped with Henry and Julia with Tom‟s friend

Mr. Yates.

76 Edmund and Fanny helped to nurse Tom and to comfort Lady

Bertram. Edmund told Fanny his account of his last meeting with Mary.

He has been shocked by her reaction to the scandal for she (Mary) believed that Maria‟s reputation might be rescued by an eventual marriage with Henry. She has spoken lightly of Maria‟s disgrace.

Edmund was finally awakened and could then see Mary‟s true nature.

Luckily for Fanny, Edmund began to realize that he had always loved

Fanny.

78 Conclusion

Jane Austen as a social critic made her implied criticism of the unjust laws of inheritance particularly the law of entailment and of primogeniture. These laws have affected the plots of Jane Austen‟s novels. She was very aware of these unjust laws which lead to unhappy consequences of arranged marriages. Jane Austen mocked these arranged marriages with great irony for she believed that marriage should be based on love rather than fortune. So she set a pattern for the romantic novel still popular today.

Mothers who had no sons as male heirs to protect them and their daughters after a father‟s death, were very anxious to see their daughters get married to men of fortune. These gentlemen of fortunes were the focus of the genteel society ladies because they usually are expected to inherit title and property from their families from father to son through generations back to their ancestors, due to the prevailing laws of inheritance.

The effect of the law of entailment is portrayed by Jane Austen in

"Sense and Sensibility" through the unsympathetic characters of Fanny and her husband Mr. John Dashwood. They ousted the widowed Mrs.

Dashwood and her three daughters away from Norland Park their beloved and ancestral home. Mr. John Dashwood being the son and male heir to

Norland Park estate and Antigua estates by the law of entailment had no

79 mercy on his step mother and three half sisters and they were exiled far away to a small cottage offered to them by a kind cousin. There are other unsympathetic characters who played great role over arranged marriages such as Mrs. Ferrars in “Sense and Sensibility". In "Pride and

Prejudice", Mrs. Bennet was not wise in the way she was hunting husbands for her daughters.

The Rev Mr. Collins in “Pride and Prejudice” is to inherit the

Bennets as Mr. Bennet had no direct male heir, for he had five daughters and no son.

Mrs. Bennet got very hysterical on hearing her husband say that Rev

Collins who is his cousin and male heir would turn Mrs. Bennet and her daughters all out of their home when Mr. Bennet died. Mrs. Bennet was crudely hunting husbands for her daughters. Jane Austen opened the novel "Pride and Prejudice" with the famous sarcastic sentence" it‟s a truth Universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of good fortune, must be in want of a wife" In "Persuasion" young Mr. William

Eliot another ugly character of Jane Austen, is the heir presumptive to the Eliot Property of Kellynch Hall. This is because unfortunately for Sir

Walter‟s family, he had no direct male heir, but three daughters In

"Persuasion" young Mr. William Eliot was trying to maneuver Mrs. Clay out of the way of Sir Walter so that there would not be a possibility of them getting married and producing a son to inherit Kellynch Hall. In

80 "Mansfield Park" Tom Bertram was to inherit the entire estate of

Mansfield Park as the eldest son due to the prevailing law of primogeniture which gave the right of inheritance to the eldest son and deprived younger sons such as Edmund Bertram who is to take another career was to be ordained as a clergyman.

The injustice and capriciousness of the laws at such a time which put women in such dependant situation have gradually changed during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and many reforms owe much to the writing of novelists, famous critics, essayist, philosophers, play wrights and politicians who have helped to bring better justice for women in society. Jane Austen is to be considered as one of these advocates of justice, to have influenced through her fiction. In fact there has been many improvements of women's rights concerning property in England.

The law of the Married Woman‟s Property Act In 1882 is a crucial example but politically and economically women in England were still subject to inequality and injustice. In 1926 the Settled Land Act reorganized the entailment. Until after the First World War they did not get enfranchised and it was until after the Second World War that the principle of equal pay for equal work was introduced by the Butler

Education Act.

The female western reader of today might find it difficult to comprehend the subtleties and suppressed passivity of Jane Austen's

81 heroines who can never take the initiative in choosing their marriage partners. They have to wait submissively always for the man to take the initiative in a proposal. The match makers in these novels are often shown as clumsy, unfeeling and entirely guided by consideration of worldly wealth, snobbish regard for status by birth which governs who inherits who and consequently, who marries who.

82 References