Musings-on-Jane-Austen

I write about Jane Austen because I love her works, but also because I write JAFF (Jane Austen Fan Fiction). I also really enjoy Anne Brontë, especially The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, George Eliot, and Elizabeth Gaskell, specifically Wives & Daughters.

I have two self-published novels, Prideful & Persuaded: A Jane Austen Crossover Romance and Unfairly Caught: A Mansfield Park Variation. You can find my free stories and other stuff here. I also write on AHA and AO3 under this same username. If you want a comprehensive list of every named character in Jane Austen’s six novels: here. (for Regency names in real life here), Mansfield Park probably isn't about slavery and Regency-ish household budgets

My Northanger Abbey readthrough can be found here My Lady Susan readthrough can be found here Link to my AITA Jane Austen posts Link to find all my Jane Austen Charted posts Link to find all my Why You Should Read This Jane Austen Novel posts Objective (lol) hotness ratings for Jane Austen's heroes, heroines, and dubious men

Some of my favourite posts: Estimated Sexual Abilities of Austen Men First Kiss for each Austen Heroine Couple Who would each Jane Austen Heroine stab? The sluttiest thing a (Jane Austen) man can say Each Jane Austen Hero Writes a “Wentworth Letter” Fighting ability of Austen Men

If you want to learn more about my other life in science, check out this post.

My Asian drama sideblog Fake Married my Dead Fiance is here (this does not work on phones? just search fake-married-my-dead-fiance)

Lady Denham had been a rich Miss Brereton, born to wealth but not to education. Her first husband had been a Mr. Hollis, a man of considerable property in the country, of which a large share of the parish of Sanditon, with manor and mansion house, made a part. He had been an elderly man when she married him, her own age about thirty. Her motives for such a match could be little understood at the distance of forty years, but she had so well nursed and pleased Mr. Hollis that at his death he left her everything—all his estates, and all at her disposal. After a widowhood of some years, she had been induced to marry again. The late Sir Harry Denham, of Denham Park in the neighbourhood of Sanditon, had succeeded in removing her and her large income to his own domains, but he could not succeed in the views of permanently enriching his family which were attributed to him. She had been too wary to put anything out of her own power and when, on Sir Harry's decease, she returned again to her own house at Sanditon, she was said to have made this boast to a friend: "that though she had got nothing but her title from the family, still she had given nothing for it."

How was this possible since women were not a separate person before the law? It was done through trusts:

family lawyers set up what was called "separate property" and/or a "separate estate" for brides, especially if they were heiresses. This was basically a trust overseen by the Chancery Court which gave the women access to all her property and money upon application to a trustee, but kept it out of control so her husband couldn't "kiss or kick it" out of her, nor his creditors take it to pay his bills.

What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew, Daniel Pool

Now was this common? This I don't know, and I doubt it was super common, but if a woman was extraordinarily wealthy, she could get lawyers just as good as her husband's and make it happen. I think it's telling that Lady Denham is older and very well off, she has the money and the knowledge to keep her wealth protected.

This is also probably exactly what Darcy set up for Lydia, with the £1000 settled on her. That is her protected dowry and jointure, kept in trust so Wickham can't burn through it:

You know pretty well, I suppose, what has been done for the young people. His debts are to be paid, amounting, I believe, to considerably more than a thousand pounds, another thousand in addition to her own settled upon her, and his commission purchased. - Pride & Prejudice

I like to think that Sophia Grey from Sense & Sensibility kept a lot of her fortune in separate property and she uses that to keep Willoughby in line. The way the narrator talks about his wife "not always being out of humour" makes me think she was holding something over him, and we know she was filthy rich. I also feel like Mrs. Ferrars might have had a lot of separate property, since she is the one controlling all the wealth after her husband dies, instead of it going to her eldest son.

I don't know the gems of this era, I read the gems of at least 100 years ago! And fan translated Chinese webnovels (I just finished one that was SO GOOD!). Long Live Evil, I am told, was heavily inspired by Chinese dramas and novels, that's part of the reason I read it.

I don't read that many contemporary books except for random ones my friend thinks I'll like and things I read with my book club. I enjoyed Dear Debbie by Freida McFadden. I really liked This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin (and the rest of the trilogy). The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins, including the prequels.

Ah, here I did this once: Book Recommendations

You need to get off Facebook, they have the worst takes 😅 (honestly, it's ridiculous over there)

At length, these unpleasant lectures were interrupted by the arrival of the travellers at Thoulouse; and Emily, who had not been there for many years, and had only a very faint recollection of it, was surprised at the ostentatious style exhibited in her aunt’s house and furniture; the more so, perhaps, because it was so totally different from the modest elegance, to which she had been accustomed.

This makes me think of the comparison between the ostentatious Rosings and more natural Pemberely in Pride & Prejudice: She had never seen a place for which nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste.

.......

“I don’t approve of these solitary walks.”

Such violence of affliction indeed could not be supported for ever; it sunk within a few days into a calmer melancholy; but these employments, to which she daily recurred, her solitary walks and silent meditations, still produced occasional effusions of sorrow as lively as ever. - Sense and Sensibility

Though Emily's aunt is worried about her secretly meeting Valancourt.

.....

her thoughts were with Valancourt, of whom she had heard nothing since her arrival at Thoulouse, and now that she was removed from him, and in uncertainty, she perceived all the interest he held in her heart. Before she saw Valancourt she had never met a mind and taste so accordant with her own, and, though Madame Cheron told her much of the arts of dissimulation, and that the elegance and propriety of thought, which she so much admired in her lover, were assumed for the purpose of pleasing her, she could scarcely doubt their truth. This possibility, however, faint as it was, was sufficient to harass her mind with anxiety, and she found, that few conditions are more painful than that of uncertainty, as to the merit of a beloved object; an uncertainty, which she would not have suffered, had her confidence in her own opinions been greater.

Willoughby! This is so Willoughby!

Emily made another effort to overcome the confusion of her thoughts, and to speak. She feared to trust the preference her heart acknowledged towards Valancourt, and to give him any encouragement for hope, on so short an acquaintance. For though in this narrow period she had observed much that was admirable in his taste and disposition, and though these observations had been sanctioned by the opinion of her father, they were not sufficient testimonies of his general worth to determine her upon a subject so infinitely important to her future happiness as that, which now solicited her attention. Yet, though the thought of dismissing Valancourt was so very painful to her, that she could scarcely endure to pause upon it, the consciousness of this made her fear the partiality of her judgment, and hesitate still more to encourage that suit, for which her own heart too tenderly pleaded. The family of Valancourt, if not his circumstances, had been known to her father, and known to be unexceptionable. Of his circumstances, Valancourt himself hinted as far as delicacy would permit, when he said he had at present little else to offer but a heart, that adored her. He had solicited only for a distant hope, and she could not resolve to forbid, though she scarcely dared to permit it; at length, she acquired courage to say, that she must think herself honoured by the good opinion of any person, whom her father had esteemed.

I think this is what people are talking about when they call early novel heroines Mary Sues. It's like we must go through exactly why it's appropriate for Emily to love Valancourt, so that she can be utterly blameless in this decision. Not a whole lot of passion here.

We don't know if it is entailed or not.

From what I've read, it was more common for large estates like Darcy's to be entailed, this kept wealth in the family and more wealth = more power so they didn't want the estates to be divided.

Rosings, for example, might very well be entailed, because Lady Catherine says:

“Your father’s estate is entailed on Mr. Collins, I think? For your sake,” turning to Charlotte, “I am glad of it; but otherwise I see no occasion for entailing estates from the female line. It was not thought necessary in Sir Lewis de Bourgh’s family. Do you play and sing, Miss Bennet?”

Which means it's probably still entailed, the entail just doesn't exclude women. Longbourn is specifically entailed on the male line, but entails didn't have to be that way. They could make other conditions, much like wills today. That is why that line about heirs male is in there:

Mr. Bennet's property consisted almost entirely in an estate of two thousand a year, which, unfortunately for his daughters, was entailed, in default of heirs male, on a distant relation;

So you could have an entail that was something like, "It goes to the male heir and if no male is found it goes to the first son of a daughter who must take the family name." (Frank Churchill is an example of a man changing his name to inherit, though the estate he inherited probably isn't entailed.)

So excited!