The Emma thompson 1995 version of S & S really handled Mr. Palmer well–gruff and rude at first, but supportive and helpful during the crisis. Immensely helped by the casting of Hugh Laurie, of course.
Generally speaking, in the common law, a person may have adopted heirs and may designate as many beneficiaries as one wants in his will.
The problem in this case was that Bennet inherited the estate subject to certain conditions. In other words, he was not the full owner of the property the way you and I are full owners of our own property. This set of conditions (called “the entail”) prohibited inheritance through females.
You can bet that if adoption would have solved the problem then Bennet would have done it. The only logical inference is that the entail limited inheritance to natural (i.e., non-adopted) male heirs.
I just rented the 2005 P&P and though I thought several things were done quite well, on the whole I wasn’t all that impressed. While they did a good job of compressing it down to movie-length, it couldn’t help but suffer greatly. The dialogue, where it wasn’t lifted from the book, was jarringly modern (“Don’t you dare judge me!” from Charlotte!?). And it bugged me that they just had to ramp up the scene at Pemberley to the point that Lizzy doesn’t just run into Darcy outside–that’s not embarrassing enough–she has to be caught spying on his sister!
So I guess I’m a confirmed BBC-lover. Oh, hey, has anyone seen the Regency pattern Simplicity picked up? It’s originally from Sense & Sensibility, a very nice company and be sure to look at the spencer, but here’s
the Simplicity version, complete with KK lookalike. (I’m thinking of getting the Romantic dress from S&S and making the jumper…)
StGermain, not if the deed contained a fee tail (the deed usually contains words like “to X and the children of his/her body”-in this case it was male children. If the parents produce no issue because the line terminates then you go back up the ancestral chain till you find a proper descendant of a former owner. The point was to keep land within the family for long periods of time.
The fee tail was statutorily eliminated in the US and the last I heard only Massachusetts still had it, which I vaguely remember as a footnote to the section. It always struck me as being a future interest class severelly bounded by blood relationship but we never really had to learn much about it…since I didn’t go to school in MA.
Years ago, I saw a serious academic treatment on Darcy’s wealth. Factoring in many variables and making certain assumptions, the author argued that Darcy was worth the equivalent of about U.S. 2006 $ 100 million to $200 million.
I scoffed at the projection, but the sophistication of the quantitative analysis and methodology was most impressive.
Another view:
“A man’s income, by contrast, was always reported as a number of pounds (£) “per year,” such as Mr. Bingley’s “four or five thousand a year.” About £100 a year was the barest minimum income on which a small household could be kept, retaining only one maid – a servant being necessary to maintain any claim of respectability. On £300 a year, a small family could retain two servants and live somewhat more comfortably, but still could not afford a carriage, which could only be supported on an income of at least £700 a year. Mr. Bennet draws about £2000 a year, which would be sufficient to keep the appearance of comfort and respectability; but he bears the financial burden of providing dowries for five daughters. However, his estate is “entailed” upon his death away from the family to be given to a distant branch of the family in lieu of a male Bennet heir. But an income of more than £4000 a year, like Bingley’s, could well-provide for both country and town homes, with all of the modern comforts and latest fashions. Indeed, Mr. Darcy’s £10,000 a year has been calculated in recent decades to be worth between $300,000 and $800,000 [annually] in U.S. dollars; while another estimate, comparing Mr. Darcy’s income against the Regency average, gives him the real annual purchasing power of a modern multimillionaire.”