Hi, and welcome to another episode of Dashie Notes.
Today, we'll be talking about the Bennet sisters and their mother.
How many times do we hear Mrs.
Bennet shrieking, "Mr Bennet!
My poor nerves!"
Whatever happened to her nerves?
Well, probably lots of things, but foremost on her mind is the fact that
she has five single daughters that she needs to marry off before her husband dies
and they all live up living on charity.
But have you ever wondered, why are the Bennett sisters so poor?
What makes them so unmarriable?
And also what does any of this have to do with Mr.
Collins?
Those are great questions and we'll be answering them for
you here today on Dashie Notes.
My name is Ellie Dashwood and this is where we answer your modern day
questions about classic literature.
So, why are the Bennet sisters so poor?
Well put simply because they have incredibly small dowries.
Now you may be familiar with the term dowery from watching episode
one of Dashie Notes, where we went over Regency economics 101.
A dowery is essentially the small fortune that a lady brings
to her husband upon marriage.
And this really affected both her social standing, who she could marry and even
her possibility of life as an old maid.
Now, just to sort of break this down more and help us to better
understand that we'll be going over three main questions today.
First, is where did the money for a dowery come from?
The second, is how does a dowery affect marriage?
And the third, is how does a dowery affect the possibility and then
the livelihood of being an old maid?
First, where does a dowery come from?
Dowries were where essentially the college saving funds a family
had for a girl at the time.
Only instead of saving up for college when she gets older, they're
saving up for her future marriage.
Now they got the money for these funds in three basic ways.
The first is through the mother's dowery.
Now a mother in Regency England had her own dowery all those
years ago when she got married.
And as we learned in episode one of Dashie Notes, more than likely
this money was then put into a bank account where they lived off
then investment over these years.
However, a mother's dowery also served as the basis for
her daughter's future dowries.
After she died, it would be divided up among her daughters and this would help
them start their own small fortunes.
We see an example of this in Pride and Prejudice because that's where Elizabeth
Bennet and her sisters got their dowery.
Mrs.
Bennet brought 5,000 pounds into her marriage.
That 5,000 pounds is now divided among her five daughters.
So each of them has 1000 pounds, but that's an incredibly small dowery.
Two is the family estate.
Now, if the father wanted to add more money to his daughter's dowery,
he could break up his estate such as selling a field or giving a
piece of land to his daughter.
However, this was not a very popular option because not only did it break up
the family legacy, it also interfered with the oldest son's inheritance.
And also in many aspects, it was not even possible because the state was
protected by an entailment, which was what was happening in Pride and Prejudice.
Three, saving.
Now, this was one of the best methods for creating a dowery for your daughter.
And it was most like a college saving fund and that the family put something
aside every year, so that when the daughter came of age, she would have a
small fortune to bring to her marriage.
However, this also took planning, foresight, just like today, with saving.
And we see in several of the novels, this just wasn't possible.
Mr.
Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, regrets that he never thought
ahead to saving for his daughters.
And in Sense and Sensibility, Elinor's Marianne's and Margaret's father had
planned on saving once he inherent Norland Park, but right after he inherited
Noland Park, guess what happened?
He died and never had a chance to save money for them.
Two, how did dowries affect marriage?
Well, it all goes back to money.
Men at this time wanted to marry rich girls, because being
genteel meant not having a job.
And not having a job meant needing to find other ways to get money.
And a great way to do that, if you were a man, would be to marry
a girl with a large fortune.
So that's why the more money a girl had in her fortune, the more likely
she was to get married because it would attract the suitors.
So how much money would be required to attract those dashing suitors?
Well, let's look at a couple of examples from Jane Austen's book.
Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice has one of the smallest dowries at
only 1000 pounds, which was not very much at all during that time period.
And exactly why Mr.
Collins doesn't really believe her when she turns him down.
He's like, "You're poor.
Nobody else is gonna want to marry you."
And she's still like, "Whatever."
On average though in Jane Austen novels, a lot of the girls have
between 3000 and 4,000 pounds.
Which wasn't a lot, but it was decent.
We see that the Dashwood sisters in Sense and Sensibility had that much
as does Anne Elliot in Persuasion and Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey.
Mrs.
Elton in Emma has about 10,000 pounds, which is a good range for a dowery.
Next up, we have Miss.
Crawford who has 20,000 pounds in Mansfield Park, which is
great for attracting a husband.
And of course you have the very rich heiresses of Emma Woodhouse and Georgiana
Darcy who both have 30,000 a piece.
And that's how you attract the Wickhams of the world apparently.
The greatest dowery mentioned in Jane Austen's novels is in Sense
and Sensibility and belongs to Miss Gray, whose 50,000 pounds attract Mr.
Willoughby.
If you want to attract Mr.
Willoughby, that is.
Three, how does a dowery affect being an old maid?
Well, as we've already talked about having a large dowery already
prevents you from being an old maid.
However, not everybody is so lucky.
In modern terms, the idea of women saying single is quite commonplace,
but at the time girls wanted to avoid that like the plague.
Because marriage was the number one way to support yourself.
Otherwise, old maids, who were often very poor, ended up living
off the charity of their relatives.
Which is exactly what would have happened to the Bennet sisters had
Darcy and Bingley not showed up.
However, if you were lucky enough to be an old maid with a large fortune,
you could deposit that in the bank like we learned about an episode one of
Dashie Notes and live off the interest.
In fact, Emma Woodhouse, in Emma, says that she plans on being an old
maid because she has such a large fortune, she knows that she will
be rich no matter what she does.
In conclusion, why are the Bennett sisters so poor?
And the answer is they have very small fortunes, at only
a thousand pounds a piece.
They do not have much to attract a husband with nor support themselves
if they become an old maid.
However, Bingley and Darcy don't care about that and fall in love
with Elizabeth and Jane anyway.
It's definitely going to help their mother's nerves.
My name is Ellie Dashwood.
This has been another episode of Dashie Notes.
I hope you enjoyed having a modern day question about classic literature be
answered, please subscribe to my channel for more videos and have an awesome day.