I’ve been re-watching the BBC version, and I have some wonderings:
What would Lady De Berg’s wealth come from? Farming? It’s obvious she does nothing to earn money with her own efforts.
What was Mr. Bennet’s income from? Mrs. Bennet seems to regard the family as country nobility, much to the amusement of the women who are after Mr. Darcy, and Mr. Darcy himself, if he could be amused.
Mr. Bingley has 5,000 pounds a year. From what? How would that be regulated?
One of the witch-women snears something about “He was probably an admirable tradesman before his knighthood.” Why would tradesmen be looked down upon so much? As far as I can tell, Mr. Darcy is not nobility. No one addresses him as anything but “Mister”. What would have changed upon gaining a knighthood? Would a man’s income come from something else afterward?
Lady Catherine is the daughter of a peer and so would probably have some inherited wealth. The book also mentions that her husband Sir (Lewis?) de Burgh was wealthy.
Trade involved working for a living and earning money, which was not the gentlemanly way to do it. Real gentlemen (and -women) inherited their money, which came from their land. Lady deBurgh and especially Mr. Darcy would both have been large landowners, and their income would derive from their rents and investments. Mr. Bingley, for example, probably earns that 5000 a year from the interest on his fortune–his money is invested (in businesses or land) and returns, say, 4% per year.
So when they are speaking of money, they say either that so-and-so has X pounds per year (which is either returns on investments or an allowance from someone else’s fortune), or that s/he has Y pounds period, which means a sum of cash given by a parent or other relative (Catherine in Northanger Abbey gets 3000 pounds upon her marriage–not great but not bad at all either).
Actually getting down and dirty and working for the money was considered common and grubby. So while Lizzy’s uncle is in trade (because her mother was not a gentlewoman born, really), her father is a gentleman, albeit not a very wealthy one, and his estate is entailed (thus the marriage problem–no dowries or inheritances). He is not in trade. Lizzy, as she points out to Lady deBurgh, is thus a gentleman’s daughter, and may consider herself to be Mr. Darcy’s equal, since he is wealthy but not actually noble–indeed he is probably wealthier than many an earl. Lady deBurgh considers this to be impertinent, because she measures Lizzy by income (small) and by her embarrassing family.
Mrs. Bennet is amusing to the wicked sisters because she is vulgar, loud, tactless, and too obviously out for husbands for her daughters. She is also self-important, but would never consider herself to be anything more than a gentlewoman; observe how she speaks about the rich and the noble.
I’ve always felt kind of sorry for Mrs. Bennet, even while being extremely annoyed by her. Her husband is probably at least 15 years older than she is, according to the customs of the day, and here she is with 5 daughters and no income other than her husband’s, which is entailed and upon his death will go to that pompous little twit whose name I can’t remember, leaving her and her girls destitute. Makes it easy to see why she was so barracuda-like in her quest for husbands for her daughters. Doesn’t make her any less annoying, though.
There is speculation that Mr. Darcy may also be “invested” in business in town - not running it day to day. He spends a lot of time “in town” in off seasons for a gentleman of the period. In paying off Wickham he seems to extend even himself, which implies he may have a larger income than supposed by his estate at all. And Miss Bingley points out he writes letters “of business.” But sending him to London may a simple literary device when Austen needs him “away,” love may cause him to extend himself (and Wickham may have been bought for less than Mr. Bennett supposes), and the business may simply be with the steward (the guy who actually runs the estate while Mr. Darcy spends the fall hunting at Netherfield).
Some gentlemen still frowned on idleness - you see that in Sense and Sensibility where Edward is not cut out to be idle, and his mother and he cannot agree on an appropriate profession.
For reference, Mr. Bennet’s income is supposed to be L2,000, Bingley’s L5,000 and Darcy’s L10,000. A skilled agricultural worker in 1810 made around L42 a year, a clergyman L283, and a lawyer L447. Mrs. Austen, Cassandra and Jane lived off about L400 after her father’s death - 200 their own fortune, 200 provided by her brothers.
Money a gentleman earns comes from two sources, interest (conservatively invested in that period it yeilded 4%, inflation wasn’t a factor pre-industrial age) and the production of the estate. The landowner owned the land, the farmers farmed the land in a semi-feudal relationship similar to sharecropping. Mr. Bennet’s horses are used in the farm - though pretty obviously not by him. Most of Mr. Bennet’s income is from the farm, Mr. Bingley’s is through interest since he does not own an estate. Darcy likely has both sources of income.
My views on Mrs. Bennett have evolved as I grew older. When I first read the book (in the 7th or 8th grade), I thought Mrs. B was just a monster – how could she be so venal? The poor Bennett girls to have to put up with her!
Rereading the book as an adult, I have a more sympathetic view. As a young girl growing up in the late 20th century, it never occurred to me that Mrs. B, upon the death of her husband, would be homeless, with almost nothing to support her daughters on. She couldn’t get a job to support them. She could hope for charity from her brother and brother-in-law, but that would be both embarrassing and precarious. Her best hope, realistically, was to get at least one girl married well enough to help the others. At least she had a plan – what was Mr. Bennett doing to improve their situation?
She was annoying, though, of course – that’s what makes her so much fun to read and watch!
I’ve gotten LESS sympathy for Mrs. Bennet as I’ve gotten older. She has no look ahead depth. She could have practiced economy and managed to set aside enough money to provide for her and her daughters, but chooses not to. She thinks having her girls work in the kitchen is beneath them. She hasn’t spent any money at all making sure the girls were raised to get the husbands she thinks they are entitled to - they haven’t had a governess so have few of the accomplishments that marked a well rounded woman - Kitty and Lydia in particular have none - at least Mary and Elizabeth play the piano, and Mary, Elizabeth and Jane appear to be well read. The youngest two, in particular, when they should have been the MOST aware of the need for economy, spend their time buying hats they don’t even like. There was enough money in Mr. Bennett’s estate that the girls should have been left destitute had they saved. Mrs. Bennett does have the insight to recognize this on some level - when she talks about Charlotte’s housekeeping and the Collinses not needing to worry about outspending their income.
Also L5000 pounds that their mother had was L200 a year. Had they simply saved the interest from THAT by the time the book happens they’d have had almost L12,000 - L480 a year - not enough for six women to live without needing economy, but more than the four women in Sense and Sensibility had - or fortunes of L2400 for each of the girls.
The main tradegy of the Bennetts is that they can’t possibly communicate. Mr. Bennett can’t get it through his wife’s head that there is a reason to save - and so has simply given up. She’s convinced that the girls will simply marry well - after all, she married well despite having little going for her but her beauty. Mr. Bennett would rather leave his family relatively destitite than deal with his wife’s lack of understanding and whining - he’s very passive. Her previous plan - that a son would cut off the entail, was also short sighted and selfish - because a son had no obligation to care for his sisters.
I’ve always wondered what life would have been like for the characters had Mrs. Bennett been married to Sir William Lucas and if Mr. Bennett had been married to Lady Lucas. Lady Lucas seems fairly sensible and Sir William as silly and status concious as Mrs. Bennett. I also think Mary and Mr. Collins would have actually been happy together - instead of Charlotte’s case of merely being secure.
Well…yeah. But isn’t the point not that she didn’t have a head for business (I’d say Austen herself wrote the book with an eye to the fact that marriage was a business proposition)…but that she got in the way of her making the reasonable matches
Mr. Darcy hesitated marrying one daughter and advised against marrying another because she was an embarassment. Meanwhile she was fine with her younger daughter going off with a total asshole.
She had some idea of how the the system worked but was too bloody stupid to work it.
I hope this isn’t a hijack, but I think watching the 2005 version of P&P (yes, the one with Kiera Knightly), for all that it cuts a lot to get down to a reasonable theatrical movie run-time, (and lacks Colin Firth) is better than the BBC version at showing Mrs. Bennet sympathetically. She’s still annoying and classless, but you can see where she is coming from.
I kind of suspect that the BBC version isn’t very clear on the nuances of the characters’ financial issues because it was made for a British audience who probably already understood where Mrs. Bennet, (and incidentaly Charlotte Lucas) is coming from.
Well, in fairness to Mrs. Bennett, she wasn’t as smart as you are, Dangerosa. The ability to look ahead is a sign of intelligence. Mr. Bennett was the smarter of the two and I blame him more for not requiring some economies. Like, Mrs. Bennett, he was ‘hoping for a son’ – not the best pre-planning, as you say. For that matter, getting one of the girls well-married wasn’t the most fool-proof option, either – a son-in-law being no more obligated than a brother to care for dependent sisters.
Totally agree. They’d have been a damned tedious couple, but I think they’d have been well-suited. But then, I also think that Elinor (in Sense & Sensibility) should have ended up with Colonal Brandon instead of Edward’s boring ass.
Since we’re on the subject and seem to have people in the know following the thread, let me ask: what did happen to women in this situation who didn’t luck out like the Bennets? My guess is they would become governesses or servants of some sort. Of course in Austen’s world, this was tantamount to ceasing to exist, so we don’t hear about such things. Her world is composed primarily of the rich and noble, with some whispers of fallen women. What about the vast area in between the two?
Your guess is right–Jane Fairfax in Emma must become a governess–so we do get to hear a bit about it, although Jane too “lucks out” in the end and marries a rich guy (but there is a match destined to unhappiness, IMHO). A similar character in Middlemarch by George Eliot becomes a companion to a sick old man.
Sir William Lucas has good business sense, though. If I remember correctly he is a self-made man, and quite possibly has a larger income than the Bennetts. In many ways, he’s a better man than Mr. Bennett.
And I consider it one of the great tragedies of literature that Mr. Collins didn’t notice Mary.
Yes, but my modern sensibilities are just as offended by this behavior now when I see friends charge $300 worth of shoes with no idea how they will pay for it when the bill comes. Or say “I’ll worry about saving for retirement later.” Mrs. Bennett is everything that annoys me in real life…and my literary crush is on Mr. Bennett, (Darcy is such a stiff) so she gets some strikes for making his life miserable (even though he is certainly not without his faults).
Both Emma (the Miss Bates) and Sense and Sensiblity and good illustrations of what happens when the gentry is left without money. For that matter, Persuasion is also - though Sir Walter is not destitute, he can no longer afford to live in his own estate and must rent it out and live more economically in Bath. The Bennett’s would be able to live without charity, though they would move to a small country cottage, probably only have one maid, and not eat much meat. The girls may marry, or they may just remain single, since they would not be able to support families on their income. If they could, they would possibly travel and stay with friends and family, like the Stone sisters do in Sense and Sensibility. In other words, they would need to rely on charity to avoid starvation, but it would not be a pleasant existance. Where chartity to avoid starvation is required (as it appears to be the case with the Miss Bates), gifts of food were passed along from other people in the class.
Cassandra Austen was engaged, but the man she was engaged to died before they could afford to marry. Sense and Sensibility has Lucy and Edward needing to wait before they can marry, since without Edward’s inheritence it will be some time before his career as a clergyman is likely to support a family, Col. Brandon offers him a living (which normally would be sold for a few thousand pounds) which will support a family - a very generous gesture.
Sir William did successfully make the jump from trade to the gentry (the Sir in his title is not heritary and will not pass to his sons), but quitting his line of business (which he was apparently successful at) to spend his time being civil to the world with a large family to support doesn’t show a whole lot of common sense. He has at least two daughters, and they apparently have no money settled on them. And several sons at least. Maintaining a fortune through generations was an issue for people with far more wealth than Sir William.
I’ve always blamed Mrs. Bennett’s behaviour on Mr. Bennett. Certainly he should’ve curtailled both her vulgarity (at least in public) and the younger daughters’ general silliness and attention-seeking. It may be that he shouldn’t have had to, if the female Bennetts were conscious of the image they were so clearly displaying. But since they were oblivious, it was his job as the head of the household to make them conform to society’s norm. It was also his job to make sure the family was on some sort of budget, knowing that the his estate was entailed. He would obviously rather sit in his library with the door closed and hope his problems would miraculously disappear, while his wife did everything to make sure they didn’t disappear. At the time of Pride and Prejudice Kitty was about 15. That’s when they gave up on the idea of having a son. Even if they started their economies then, they would likely have put aside and invested enough money to keep a roof over the female Bennetts’ heads and keep them fed.
Here is some more data (from the Norton edition essays, btw, economics in Austen facinates me):
Aristocratic landowners in Austens time may have had L100,000 to spend - so despite the claim that Darcy is one of the wealthiest men in England, he isn’t. This may be the income of Col. Fitzwilliam’s father. At the low end of the aristocracy, a landowner would make between L5,000 and L10,000 (Darcy and Bingley’s stated incomes).
The gentry (the class of the Mister), had an income that was generally in line with Mr. Bennett’s - for his class and time he was pretty much median. So Darcy and Bingley are indeed “rich” for their class.
Willoughby’s income, in Sense and Sensibility, is supposed to be something less than L1,000.
Austen’s father made L600 a year when he died, a good income for a clergyman.