- So, in Jane Austen's "Persuasion,"
the main character is called Anne Elliot
and she just loves her ancestral home at Kellynch.
She wishes that she could just live there forever.
But at the end of the book,
she marries this guy named Captain Wentworth.
And here, is where an interesting question comes up.
Does Captain Wentworth buy Kellynch for his wife?
Did he give Anne her ancestral home
as their wedding present?
That is an interesting question
that has been raised by the movie version of Persuasion
put out in 2007.
And it's one of the most Googled questions
about Captain Wentworth
of whether he bought Kellynch or not.
So today, we're going to be answering this question
and we're going to be delving into important concepts
behind inheritance in the Regency era
to understand exactly why Captain Wentworth
bought Kellynch or didn't buy Kellynch.
Yeah.
Anyway, my name is Ellie Dashwood
and this is my channel
where we talk about classic literature and history.
If you like hide either of those things, please subscribe.
So does Captain Wentworth actually buy Kellynch
at the end of "Persuasion?"
The answer is no, he does not.
That is not in the book.
But more importantly, legally,
he could not have bought Kellynch.
And also, traditionally, it would have been unlikely for him
to have been able to anyway.
But, why?
Well, the answer to that has to do with how land and wealth
and estates were passed down through families in this era.
It all goes back to this concept of primogeniture,
and this concept actually underlies
a lot of Jane Austen's books.
In fact, it explains
why Captain Wentworth can't buy Kellynch,
why Mr. Collins is going to inherit Longbourn
in "Pride and Prejudice," and also why the Dashwood sisters
in "Sense and Sensibility," get left out in the cold
when their uncle dies
in chapter one of "Sense and Sensibility."
So in this video, we're going to be going
into the concept of primogeniture
or that big why behind the way families behaved.
And in a different video, I'm going to go into entails
and pretty much the legal how they made it happened.
So today, we're going into why.
In a different video, we'll go into how.
But let's answer this question
of why estates were left the way they were.
Okay, so what is primogeniture?
Basically, it's this concept
that the bulk of a family's wealth, land, and estates
should be kept together.
So it should not be subdivided up
and it should also pass to one person.
And that's how it won't be sub divided.
If only one person inherits it,
it's not being subdivided among like five kids.
And then the next one person inherits it,
and then the next one person inherits it.
And usually, that one person was male,
basically the oldest son of a family.
So here we have that concept of the oldest son
inheriting almost everything.
And then, his son would inherit, and his son would inherit.
The oldest son died without children,
the next oldest son would get it.
If that guy died, the next oldest son would get it.
If they have no more brothers,
their cousins gonna get it.
If he dies, his cousin's gonna get it.
Basically, it's going to go down the male line.
So while obviously, the bulk of the family's wealth
is being passed down this way,
of course, the daughters and the younger sons
would be given a portion of the family's fortune.
But it would be relatively small compared to the major bulk
that's gonna go to the oldest son there.
So for example,
when we're talking about daughter's portions or fortunes,
usually it's that dowery that we've talked about before
in videos, like why are the Bennet sisters so poor.
So basically, while the sisters
do get a small little amount of money,
and obviously, the younger brothers
also usually got a small amount of money
that would help them get started in something
like the military or the church as a career,
that oldest son was going to inherit
the bulk of the estates and the money.
That's the basic concept of primogeniture.
Anyway, we see a perfect example of this happening
in Jane Austen's "Mansfield Park," where the oldest son
is set to inherit to the estate and all that money
that goes with it.
Meanwhile, the younger son of Edmond
has been helped by his family financially
to go into the church.
Meanwhile, the sisters have their own small portions
or dowries that helps them, hopefully, catch husbands.
And we see the same thing happening in "Northanger Abbey,"
where Captain Tilney is set to inherit Northanger Abby.
Meanwhile, his younger brother, Henry
has been helped to go into the church.
So in both of these families,
we see this concept of primogeniture working.
Now, let's talk about exactly why families would do this.
Because, at first, it seems very unfair
to our modern sensibilities, right?
Why does one kid get the majority of the money
where all the other kids
get like not that much comparatively.
And this doesn't seem fair.
So basically, primogeniture was a strategic social wealth
and political move by families,
and here's why they would do it.
So first up, power.
Like I talk about my video on what is the aristocracy,
land ownership equals power,
as in political power.
Male landowners were the only ones
who could vote during this time.
They were also the only ones who could be elected
to the House of Commons.
And this is exactly why families
did not want their land assets to be broken up equally
among their children.
Because after a few generations,
instead of them owning a lot of land,
their kids would only own some land
or their grandkids would only own a little bit of land.
Their great-grandkids would like barely have anything.
They'd be probably selling it off
and losing the land altogether.
But by having this land ownership maintained,
the family maintained some political power.
And in fact, as the 1800s went through
different sort of reforms.
One of the things non-landowning classes
constantly tried to reform was this concept of primogeniture
and the legal hows that go with it.
And by trying to outlaw the legal means of primogeniture,
what reformers were actually doing
was attacking the landed classes' political power.
Because if they could get these families
to have to legally break up their land and estates,
instead of passing them intact along the male line,
they would be breaking up their ability to rule.
So those bills were constantly fought against
by the landed classes, because they recognized
keeping their estates intact
meant keeping their political power intact.
So that is the first reason
that these families wanted to maintain
that concentrated wealth and land in one person's hands.
The second one is wealth.
So we've talked a lot before on this channel
about how land produced money, for example,
in the videos on Mr. Darcy's money,
whether he's so rich or not.
But basically, land equaled money.
It was stable and substantial
compared to other sources of income at the time.
So I think before, we've had in the comments like,
"Oh, what sort of family would you want to be in
during this era?"
And of course, wanting to be in the merchant class
has come up a lot in the comments.
But here's an important thing to remember,
if you do wanna be in the merchant class
in the Regency era,
which was incredibly, incredibly unstable.
So for example, four out of five manufacturers
in Manchester during this era, failed.
Four out of five, that's like 80% failure rate.
And this was an era
where you could get thrown in jail for debt.
Meanwhile, merchants like Mr. Gardiner
in "Pride and Prejudice,"
usually had to run their businesses
based off of incredibly shaky credit systems
that led to a lot of economic instability.
Had a high suicide rate because things were that stressful
and unstable for them.
Meanwhile, in the landed gentry, they owned land.
Even if a crop failed for one year, two years, three years,
they knew it was going to eventually come back.
Land was stable.
It was substantial,
and it was seen as the gold standard of wealth.
So this is another reason that those families
wanted to keep a hold of their land,
and they wanted to keep it intact as much as possible.
The third factor is, of course, social standing.
Land owners were very high on the social scale.
And of course, the more land you owned the better.
Because again, it gave you more political power.
It gave you more money.
It gave you more social standing.
So, wanting to maintain this land intact
was maintaining your family's social standing.
So, and while we're talking about social standing,
like I talk about my video of,
"Is your culture like the Regency era?"
We learned that the Regency is a collective group culture
where they do value the group over the individual.
And I think this is a perfect example of how that works.
So with their group culture, what they're doing
is that they're valuing the entire family
as a group social standing versus the individual members.
So with this group thinking about the family,
basically, even though the wealth is concentrated
in the oldest son's hands,
his increased social standing because of that
brings up the entire family group.
So the entire family group's social standing and connections
is improved by maintaining that oldest son.
And it really was the oldest son's responsibility
to help his younger siblings.
If they were sisters, make good matches.
And also to help his brothers advance in their careers.
So it's important to remember that even though legally,
a lot of the wealth was supposed to go to the oldest son,
he was supposed to use that within this group thinking
to help all of his family and siblings.
So that is the basic concept of primogeniture.
And we do see it consistently happening
throughout Jean Austen's books.
But of course, I feel like we tend to notice
primogeniture the most in Jane Austen's books
when we have a family
where something's going a little bit wrong with it.
For example, the fact that Mr. Bennet
in "Pride and Prejudice," has no sons,
or Sir Walter in "Persuasion," has no sons.
So the family was still very attached
to this idea of primogeniture.
And they wanted to maintain the family's status and honor
as a group, even if that meant passing the wealth
along to a more distant relative.
For example, Mr. Collins,
or Anne Elliot's cousin, Mr. Elliot in "Persuasion."
And we see this from this quote in "Persuasion,"
which I think is very interesting
where Sir Walter's thinking about the fact
that even if he could sell Kellynch to somebody else,
he wouldn't.
It says, "He had condescended to mortgage
as far as he had the power,
but he would never condescend to sell.
No; he would never disgrace his name so far.
The Kellynch estate should be transmitted whole
and entire, as he had received it."
So here we see, Sir Walter thinking about the fact
that even if he had the power to sell Kellynch,
he wouldn't have.
Because his and his whole family's honor
is riding on the fact that he needs to transmit
this bulk of wealth and land to the next family head,
which was going to be Mr. Elliot.
And, of course, there are legal protections in play too,
and happening in "Persuasion,"
which I'm gonna talk about in that other video
on the how this actually legally worked.
But basically, even if those legal protections
were not there, Sir Walter would have still adhered
to the rules of primogeniture
and we shall have the same thing happening
in "Pride and Prejudice."
The legal how has been put in place
to make the rules of primogeniture happen,
and make Mr. Collins inherit.
Which I just wanna have a quick answer
to a question you guys have been asking, which is
"If Mr. Collins is the next
in the male Bennet family line,
why isn't his last name Bennet? Why is it Collins?"
Now, the book doesn't actually tell us the answer to this,
but men did change their last names in Jane Austen's era.
I do talk about this a little bit more
in my video on why Mr. Darcy isn't a Lord.
But basically, men were willing
to change their family's last name
in order to inherit money from someone,
or if they were going to marry an heiress
and it was a stipulation of her inheritance.
And so men did change their last names.
So more than likely
either Mr. Bennet or Mr. Collins, at some point,
to inherit some money had their last name changed.
Either themselves or one of their ancestors.
And that's how they can be at the same male line,
but have different last names.
Summing all of those up,
in the Regency era owning a lot of land and estates
was important socially, politically, and money-wise.
And they wanted to maintain
the entire group family's social standing,
by keeping all of it intact by passing it down
to one person in the male line.
And that was the concept of primogeniture
and why Captain Wentworth can't buy a Kellynch,
because Mr. Elliot is gonna inherit it,
and why Mr. Collins is inheriting Longbourn.
Yeah.
Anyway, again, I'm going to be making a video
on how legally this actually came about.
Because while primogeniture is a great idea to understand,
the families at the time actually used legal methods
to make sure that their descendants
actually followed it.
Because you never know
when a descendant's gonna go suddenly rogue and be like,
"You know what? I'm leaving my land
to this random person over here."
Or for example, like I talk about in my video
on Jane Austin's time at a boarding school,
there was an uncle that left his money to a servant.
I'm saying scandal sometimes went down in the Regency era
if you didn't have
the legal protections of entails and stuff.
So, yeah.
Anyway, let me know in the comments below,
if you live during this era,
would you be okay with primogeniture?
Like if you were a daughter and your older brother
was set to inherit pretty much everything,
would you be okay with that?
Or would you be like, "I want an equal share."
Let me know down below.
My name is Ellie Dashwood and this is my channel,
where we talk about history and literature.
If you like either of those things, please subscribe.
And keep being awesome, 'cause you're awesome.
Bye.
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