😂😂😂 That’s so cool that you’re a law student!!!

@@EllieDashwood I'm another of your lawyer fans & I think you did a great job--accurate as well as interesting! When everyone was starting to watch Downtown Abbey with even the cast wondering what this "entail" thing was, I told people to just ask any law student who was at least a few weeks into their first property law classes. Law students would love to explain that concept to them & show off what they had learned already. I love that law school had the side benefit of helping me better understand Downtown Abbey, Jane Austen, & so much more!

@@lawyergrits Ok. Now you can explain Jarndyce and Jarndyce.

Haha she's great!

@@charlesgantz5865 oh goodness, yes, please do explain Jarndyce v. Jarndyce! LOL

I think given the time period it was customary to go after the eldest daughter. Which is what Mr.Collins originally did by wanting to pursue Jane at first. Mrs.Bennett tells him to instead go after Elizabeth as Jane was most likely going to be engaged. Aside from that, I don't think he noticed Mary. She isn't noted for being as beautiful as Jane or Elizabeth. After Elizabeth rejected him I think his pride was stung to a point where he wouldn't have wanted to settle for any of the sisters. Also, Charlotte was more astute than Mary so she snagged him pretty quickly, not really giving Mary a chance to try and pursue him. That's just my thoughts though I always thought Mary and Mr.Collins would have made a good match for each other

While I wonder why they didn't end up together, I'm not completely sure if Mary and Mr. Collins would have been a good match for each other. It's possible that they would just reinforce their bad traits. And then if they had children whose temperaments were more like Elizabeth's or Jane's, that wouldn't be a very comfortable household.

@@MulanBelle I think they suited each other because they were both invested in religion and reading. Neither of them had like super bad traits, they were just really bad with social ques which isn't really drastic. They would have always lived within their means. Charlotte in a way encouraged his obsession with Lady Catherine simply to benefit herself by avoiding him. Mary would have at least genuinely enjoyed his company and would have found him a worthwhile companion. As for children, it doesn't really matter as they'll eventually leave the house and get married. Even if they're more sensible, they'll make their own way in society as Jane and Elizabeth did despite their mother being as she was.

Pride.

@@elizabethmorales7271 so yes, they had similar interests, and yes, Mary might in time, with more maturity and life experience, have made a good wife for a minister- for a _good_ one. Mr. Collins should never, but NEVER, entered the ministry (for plenty of reasons). Together, the two of them would have become truly insufferable, dripping with "threadbare morality", commonplace catchphrases, and being very narrow-minded. I took it for granted that Jane Austen must have been an atheist, a "priest eater" or something very near that, from the way she described him. Then I came across the book, "Praying With Jane" and was very much surprised indeed.

Yep. Mr Bennet was irresponsible. He sat back and laughed at his wife and other people in society, but he was worse than them! He married for looks, not personality, and overspent for his entire adult life as you said! Even he acknowledged that he screwed up his daughters' inheritances.

However if this was the case why wouldn’t Mr. Collins’ name be Bennett? He’s probably the son of a daughter.

@@lolaphilologist It's possible he or his father acquired the different last name in a similar way that Jane's brother Edward Austen Knight did, too. I wish the book had explained that.

I've done those same calculations before, lol, PLUS how much Mrs. Bennet's $5,000 dowry could have grown over 23 years if they hadn't spent the 4% or 5% it paid every year. AND AND AND the estate could have earned more than $2,000 a year if Mr. Bennet had gotten off his duff and hired a good estate agent to improve things. He may have loved Lizzy, but he did not act responsibly. But, as my husband always says, it's just a story/movie/book, Dear.

I have a feeling Elizabeth's grandfather knew exactly how irresponsible his eldest son was and that is probably the reason for the entail in the first place. Mrs. Bennet acts as if without it they would be able to provide a future for their daughters but knowing how irresponsible both of them are with money, I highly doubt there would have been much left by the time their daughters inherited.

Yikes, that's pretty regressive when you've been outpaced by the English Royal family!

Why not go to the local orphanage and adopt a son after it was clear no natural son would be born?😊

@@dolphmanitythe law mentioned heirs male born of the body, legitimately. Adopted sons won’t count, not even in the Regency Era because the lawyer can double check with their neighbours to see Mrs Bennet is really pregnant. The kid needs to be biological and legitimate to inherit the estate.

@@dolphmanity What? It's not regency era anymore, you shouldn't just adopt kids for inheritance protection or whatever. Adoption is a serious thing. it's a great thing but not if you treat that potential child instrumentally, as a mean to an end.

I didn’t realize the landed gentry and royals were lazy AND considered it low class if they ever WORKED a day in their lives until DOWNTON ABBY!

She herself was put on that situation, if I remember well from her autobiography.

I just think that knowing how fast Mr Bennett blows through money, he was VERY susceptible to the "Cut off your allowance." threat.

She also married up into a landed gentry. She may not have had any idea on entail because law was a man’s job and her father was a lawyer

Why not go to the local orphanage and adopt a son after it was clear no natural son would be born?

@dolphmanity, it could be in the entail that the decendant be a biological child.

@@pajkt6283 There were no DNA tests back then. Austen's own brother, Edward Austen, was adopted at age 12 by a wealthy childless couple. He changed his name to Edward Knight and inherited the Knight estate. The Bennet's should've done the same thing and broke the entail with the adopted son to provide for the Bennet women.

Wow! That is so interesting! I definitely think I’d want my step kids just to buy the life estate interest so that they wouldn’t just be sitting there waiting for me to die. 🤔😂

@@EllieDashwood ...or plotting my accidental demise...

@@debbiericker8223 Makes for a cool mystery :) book though.

My dad was left a house by his great aunt, but if he wanted to keep it at the end of 5 (or maybe 10?) years he had to make a $100,000 donation to the local school system, which she had worked for.

@@someonerandom256 That's very interesting! Hopefully the house was worth more than $100K and the conditions were structured in such a way that the donation would be tax deductible.

Aw! Thank you! I’m so glad you enjoyed it. 😃☺️✨

​@@EllieDashwoodWhy not go to the local orphanage and adopt a son after it was clear no natural son would be born?

@@dolphmanity Adoption was not legal in England until 1927 or 1928. And it doesn't make a difference when it comes to titles and entails.

That entail goes with the title, created by the reigning monarch!

Aw! Thank you!!! 😃

@@EllieDashwood I was imagining it was a dress - is it? Reminds me of a dress Winona Ryder wore in Reality Bites! So pretty! :)

Her pendant is nice too.

She has amazing taste!

@@claireconolly8355 That's what I noticed

That’s so cool that you practiced law! And it’s true humans manage to make everything super complicated. 😳

Lord Peter Wimsey’s estates were entailed as of 1942.

Aw, thank you so much for your support! 😃☺️ The growth really is so much. I’m always amazed, wondering where all these people are coming from. 😂

😂😂😂

And she is described as having a "mean" intellect, meaning she's a bit dim. 😂

"I am interested in what you are saying and would like to subscribe to your newsletter." But in all seriousness, please tell us more about this!

I live in Maryland. I always wondered about certain areas in Baltimore county where the land was owned by families that go back many generations. In the 80s the land was being sold off bit by bit for roads and communities. And is still happening. I wonder.

@@akapam57 The land that I speak of was in Montgomery County, near the Howard County border, out in the farm country.

That’s a very good question and the answer is that Mrs Bennet and the girls would have technically been provided for had Mr Bennet died young, but it would have not been enough to let them live up to the standards they were used too. Issues of that nature were legally settled between a bride and groom’s family before they were married, sort of like a prenup. But it had to do with more with cash and investments that existed outside of the entail (like the dowry that Mrs Bennet brought into the marriage). I do plan on making a video about this too!

It wasn't so much that women were of inconseqence, as that their role in society back then didn't require them to provide for others. They COULD - witness Willoughby's aunt who provides for him until finding out about his affair. But then she disinherits him, and he can't marry with no money. There wasn't the same stigma against a penniless woman as a penniless male - men could not EXPECT wealthy women to look after them even if they were family; women COULD expect their male relations to look after them. Obviously this system had exceptions and limitations, many of which are explored in Pride and Prejuduce, but overall a father would feel he should leave his estate to a male rather than a female heir, because the male heir would be socially obligated (even though not exactly legally required) to look after the female relations, whereas a female heiress would have no obligation to look after her penniless male relatives. And while some men might marry a penniless woman, hardly any women would marry a penniless man!

Aw!!! Thanks so much for making time for my video! 😃 ☺️✨

That’s such a good point! It’s interesting how what the “sensible” thing to do is changes over the generations. 🤔

The problem with letting daughter's inherit is that women didn't keep property after marriage except for their Dowry until 1870 with the Married Women's Property Act. So if the 5 daughter's inherited Longbourn then Wickham would own a fifth of the estate once Mr Bennet died.

If I was able to entail an estate, I think I would, knowing now how it works, but I would entail it to the first born child no matter what gender they were. That would save the estate from being broken up (as it would have been if the Bennet girls had inherited), and also give the estate the protection that an entail granted, while making sure my family was provided for

With the daughter inheriting thing - I assume that's why Lady Catherine was so eager to have Anne marry Mr Darcy, because she knew he would provide for Anne well, but also it would keep the De Bourgh estate within the family when Darcy "inherited" it as Anne's husband. I'm also sure Lady Catherine would have made Mr Darcy sign a massive pre-nup (or the Regency equivalent) making sure Anne got to keep most of the estate for herself and the money from it until her death. Except LC made a few mistakes - she neglected to ask Mr Darcy whether he actually WANTED to marry her daughter in the first place, and she didn't have a plan B in case Darcy fell in love with another young lady with incredibly fine eyes 😂 I wonder if she'll now try to get Colonel Fitzwilliam to marry Anne. Sure he's only a younger son, but he's still family to them (I think) and he seems like a nice guy

​@@kiarona. I don't think she would have wanted Anne to marry a man without his own fortune. The commonly heard interpretation that 'a woman's fortune became her husband's' isn't TECHNICALLY correct, but it often ended up that way in practice. Let me explain. In Christian doctrine, a husband and wife are 'one flesh', one legal entity in the church courts of the time. So TECHNICALLY the British Christian marriage contract was a 'what's mine is yours; what's yours is mine' agreement. Example: upon her marriage Elizabeth is mistress of Pemberly; she can give orders to the servants, spend the household budget on food and redo the decorations and generally treat it as her own property because it legally is. Darcy wouldn't have had to put her name on the title deed; she's his wife and his house belongs to her too. Simple, right? The genuinely Christian clergymen probably never thought of how avaricious men would take advantage of this system, and the hypocritical greedy ones wouldn't have cared. But while most couples handled the mutual exchange of each others' fortunes fairly reasonably, and as Ellie's videos have mentioned you could preserve certain sums to your own individual needs practically in law as well, the simple fact was that back then pretty much only men were trained in the law. They were the ones doing business, especially in the upper classes (it would have been more obvious just how much a baker's wife contributed to and thus was entitled to her share in the family business's proceeds!) So eventually people started to realize that even if on paper the husband's property 'belonged' to the wife (Mrs Bennett is certainly aware that Lougbourne is HERS!), as much as hers to him, it was a lot easier for a man to get control and abuse his wife rather than share, than it would be for wives (though there were also cases of greedy wives wasting both their own and their husband's fortunes, and there wasn't much a husband could do to recoup such losses as she was technically spending her own money with his consent!) So over the next hundred or so years property laws and marriage laws changed a great deal to safeguard these cases. But back to Jane Austen's own time, Lady Catherine isn't likely to want her daughter to marry Colonel Fitzwilliam with no money of his own to become hers, while her entire fortune will become his. Would Colonel Firzwilliam have abused his matrimonial good fortune? Highly unlikely, but to Lady Catherine it would have been the principle and the social appearance of her daughter 'favoring' a penniless even though well-born and family connected man. She talks more about Elizabeth's 'position' than fortune, as talking about money TOO much was seen a vulgar, but definitely part of her problem with Elizabeth too was that she was getting everything from Darcy in the marriage 'bargain' and giving nothing back. Obviously Darcy and Elizabeth cared more about relationship equality than financial equality because they weren't as shallow, but I think Lady Catherine would have insisted her own daughter marry someone her 'equal' in fortune as in station, or at least so much greater station it was a 'fair exchange' for her fortune. It really was a balancing act!

@@cmm5542 there were even special ways for women to inherit to protect the property and the woman. A woman inherits an estate, with the provision that her husband is allowed to use the income, but the estate itself will go to her children. If she has no children, her husband will not inherit the property, but it will revert to his wifes family. The husband had only access to the income during his wifes lifetime and eventually until her child reaches majority.

@@andreabartels3176 Yes, I remember reading about that as well.

Yay! I’m so glad it’s helpful! 😃

😂😂😂😂😂

I can just see Mr. Collins conducting the augury now, looking to Lady Catherine for approval.

It's possible that Mr Collins started out as a Bennet & changed his surname, or it was changed for him. This was a thing people did back then (& on into the Victorian era, in fact IDK when it stopped being a thing) sometimes to basically cosy up to wealthier relations or even just friends & would then get named in the will. So for example, Name Change Wikipedia entry has this: "From the mediæval age to the 19th century, the era of family dynasties, name changes were frequently demanded of heirs in the last wills and testaments, legacies and bequests, of members of the gentry and nobility who were the last males of their bloodline. Such persons frequently selected a younger nephew or cousin as the heir to their estates, on condition that he should adopt the surname and armorials of the legator in lieu of his patronymic. Thus, the ancient family otherwise destined to extinction would appear to continue as a great dynasty in the making. Such changes were also more rarely demanded by marriage settlements, for example where the father of a sole daughter and heiress demanded that as a condition of his daughter's dowry her husband should adopt his father-in-law's surname and arms. " Maybe Mr Collins' father changed his surname upon marriage?

Sounds rather like Frank Weston--Frank Churchill.

This has always bothered me too. In Persuasion, William Elliot has the same surname as Sir Walter. Same in Downton Abbey which also deals with entails in Season 1. Was it a situation like Frank Churchill from Emma? Raised by another relative and taking a different name? Was it ever explained?

Yay! I’m so glad it helped! 😃

As a widow, Lady Catherine had more property rights than she did when Sir Lewis was alive, because it was long before the Married Women's Property Act 1870, and her property was effectively owned and controlled by her husband. It's possible that a similar trust arrangement protected her property from this fate, but we don't get any hint of it from Pride and Prejudice. It's also possible that she simply lost her property to Sir Lewis at marriage as a "feme covert", but that she re-acquired it at his death. (There's a decent murder mystery in there somewhere.)

@@AdrianColley That's an excellent point, thank you! :)

Aw! Thank you! 😃💕

😂 Thank you!

Hi Argentina! 😃👋🏻 Thanks so much for watching! 💕

@@EllieDashwood here from argentina too! Excellent vid

Aw! Thank you! I’m so glad you’re enjoying it! 😃

I’m so glad it helped! Thanks so much watching! 😃

Aw! Thank you!!! I’m so glad you enjoyed it!

Gambling was common vice People would gamble their businesses and homes away on a card game

Childless couples used to adopt sons which is what happened tp one of Jane Austen´s brothers.

We inherited that rule from the English. :)

I was just about to type this same comment. I would love to see a short series on some of Austen’s contemporaries, especially Shelley and I would love to know what she thought of Lord Byron. He was a mess.

There is no entail mentioned so she and her sister would inherit without problems.