Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

THE INHERITANCE NOVEL: THE POWER OF STRICT SETTLEMENT
LANGUAGE IN CLARISSA, EVELINA AND
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
BY
Linda Kane Scott
B.A. Davis and Elkins College, 1970
M.A. University of Maine, 1992
A THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the
Advisory Committee:
Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
(Individualized in English)
The Graduate School
The University of Maine
August, 2003
Deborah Rogers, Professors of English, Advisor
Naomi Jacobs, Professor of English
Ken Norris, Professor of English
Nancy MacKnight, Associate Professor of English
Nancv Weitz, Assistant Professor of English

The Inheritance Novel: The Power of Strict Settlement
Language in Clarissa, Evelina and
Pride and Prejudice
By Linda Kane Scott
Thesis Advisor: Dr. Deborah Rogers
An Abstract of the Thesis Presented
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
(Individualized in English)
August, 2003
This study will be the first to look at the effect
of the strict settlement on the language, plots and
characters of three eighteenth-century novels. So
pervasive to specific novels is the language of
inheritance in the eighteenth century that some novels
should be considered what I call "inheritance novels."
Clarissa, Evelina and Pride and Prejudice all display a
uniqueness in the way they deal with inheritance laws.
The eighteenth century married an empowered gentry
characterized by an insatiable appetite for land to a
newly adapted legal force armed with a tightly-structured
inheritance policy based on primogeniture and strict new
standards for marriageable women. This unique
combination of legal and social policies bumped up
against another eighteenth-century innovation-the novel.

Three points are fundamental in identifying
inheritance novels: First, the authors have personal
experience with and/or are familiar with the language and
practice of strict settlement and marriage practices.
Second, the plots are heavily influenced by strict
settlement practice. Third, the characters are
manipulated through the language of inheritance or are
able to use inheritance language in such a way as to
silence or endanger other characters.
Inheritance novels ultimately prove a character's
worthiness to inherit. The three novels used in the body
of this study all show the three characteristics of
inheritance novels, though inheritance in each differs in
its characteristics and its outcomes.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Deborah Rogers is my supervisor, my friend, and the
reason I am where I am today. I want to be like her when
I grow up. I am thankful to her, not only for guiding me
through my degree, but for being the superb teacher and
mentor she is. Because of her, I am well educated and
well prepared for the classroom.
After Deborah, my husband George and my sons,
Christian and Oliver, put up with my physical presence
and mental absences for five long years and never
complained. They, too, supported me and encouraged me.
The fruition of this dissertation involved many, but
Naomi Jacobs worked incredibly hard to make my thesis
presentable, Nancy MacKnight worked hard to help me rise
to this occasion. Nancy Weitz just knows how to make me
write the right things and put my thinking on paper. Her
encouragement has been priceless. Ken Norris is my
American literature mentor, showing me the connections
across the oceans during the eighteenth century and then
teaching me to learn with my soul as well as my head.
Judy Eyerer was an incredible technical editor. Evelyn
Scheck, Lynette Eckersley, Me1 Johnson, Nancy Marks, and
Clare Grindal all contributed their time and

intelligence. I must also thank Linne Mooney for
encouraging my program and always being my best supporter
and Pat Burnes for always being willing to help, a steady
friend and spiritual writing guide. Josephine Donovan
has been a close mentor and friend, the ultimate teacher
of feminist theory. Burt Hatlen and Virginia Nees-Hatlen
proved to me everyday why UMO is such a gold mine of
talent and grace. Marilyn Emerick kept me honest.
I would be remiss if I did not mention Ulrich Wicks,
one of the finest professors and friends I have had in my
life. I wish that he could be here to see this
dissertation, but I know he has been with me during the
writing.
I find it nearly impossible to express my gratitude
to the University of Maine for allowing me to pursue this
degree. The Graduate School and the College of Arts and
Sciences have enthusiastically supported me. My deepest
and sincerest gratitude, however, is to the Department of
English. Their patient optimism and support has meant
everything to the success of this dissertation.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................... ii
Chapter One ...................... 1
Willful Intent: . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Inheritance Novel .............. -1
Learning the Language of Inheritance ....... 4
Raising a Family . ................ 16
Inheriting Land and Language . ......... -19
Affirmations and Applications .......... 23
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -38
ChapterTwo . .................... 40
Unhappy Transactions . ............. 40
Introduction . ................. -40
Richardson and the Language of Settlement .... 44
Constructing Clarissa . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Willing the Harlowe Family . .......... -64
Lovelace and His Legacy . ............ 76
The Howe and the Harlowe Women ......... 84
Clarissa as Inheritor . ............. 92
Conclusion . .................. 96
-1

Chapter Three .................... 103
Advising Ms . Anville .............. 103
Introduction .................. 103
Mentoring Ms . Burney .............. 113
Guarding Evelina ................ 116
Solutions from Mrs . Selwyn ........... 142
The Inheritance of Evelina ........... 149
Chapter Four ..................... 156
Property Rites ................. 156
Introduction .................. 156
Personal Prejudice ............... 160
Daughters and Discourse ............. 166
The Wrong Man in the Right Place ........ 181
Mr . Wickham's World ............... 190
Conclusion ................... 201
Chapter Five .................... 207
The Inheritance Novel ............. 207
Conclusions about Clarissa. Evelina and Pride
and Prejudice ............... 218
WORKS CITED ..................... 229
BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR ............... 237

Chapter One
Willful Intent: The Power of Strict Settlement in the
Eighteen-Century Novel
The Inheritance Novel
Land, wealth, politics and marriage make up the
complicated and powerful structure of inheritance in the
eighteenth century. Though we tend to think of
inheritance in terms of death, in the eighteenth century,
inheritance was connected to birth, marriage and coming
of age. Strict settlement and inheritance practice came
to their height in the eighteenth century, but would
prove powerful enough to stay alive until the early
1920s.
Inheritance practice in the eighteenth century was
one of the controlling forces of the culture of the upper
classes. Its attendant power was readily recognizable in
and useful to the plots of several early novels, and,
therefore, I believe those novels should be called

"inheritance novels." Three factors combine to inform
what the "inheritance novel." First, inheritance
practice was a powerful cultural force significantly
affected language and contributing to the communication
of public and private individuals. The authors of
inheritance novels were familiar with strict settlement
practice, understood its language and often had personal
experience related to inheritance practice. Second, in
inheritance novels, characters adopt inheritance language
for personal use and often that language disrupts
effective communication or silences the efforts of
characters to communicate. Lastly, characters adopt
inheritance language for personal use and often that
language disrupts effective communication or silences the
efforts of characters to communicate.
Of the group of novels characterized by factors of
inheritance, this study will closely examine three:
Samuel Richardson's Clarissa, Frances Burney's Evelina,
and Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. In each of these
novels, a family memberf s will or settlement directly
affects the female protagonist. Wills and settlements
also direct the motivations and actions of ancillary
characters, creating tension for the heroine.
Inheritance concerns disrupt effective communication for

her, or they silence characters around her who could save
her great pain and misery, and even, sometimes, forestall
her death.
Each chapter of this study begins with the
examination of the author's relationship to inheritance
law. Those authors had strong opinions about, or direct
experience with, inheritance practices and strict
settlement, specifically. Richardson, as a master
printer, published the Journals of the House of Commons,
and his intimate relationship with many members of the
House gave him access to the discussions and debates
surrounding many of the laws introduced and enacted
regarding inheritance practices while he was the
publisher. Burney and her family experienced the power
of strict settlement in making marriages and taking away
legacies. Burney' s stepsister and stepmother were
involved in secret marriages rivaling any plot of
Burney's novels. The family situation of Jane Austen is
well documented. She spent all of her life on the edge
of respectability, watching the benefits her brothers
derived from inheritance practice and preferment and
feeling personally the pinch of strict settlement gone
awry. Each discussion makes it clear that the author
incorporated the language and habits of inheritance

specifically to drive the plot. First, however, the
modern reader must be acquainted with the practice and
language of inheritance and strict settlement.
Learning the Language of Inheritance
England in the seventeenth century saw the rise of
the novel, the burgeoning wealth of the merchant class
and the beginning of strong, powerful political parties
vying for control during the formation of a new, modern
culture. The English Civil War influenced the direction
and thinking of the succeeding culture. Among rapidly
changing events and ideas, inheritance practice
dramatically turned in favor of strict settlement (which
is explained below), in part, due to the rising wealth of
the merchant class and the power of the newly formed
political parties. The novel, another new and dramatic
change in communication, would be one of the eighteenth
century's cultural developments affected by inheritance
practice, its language and the changes it brought to
society.
What follows is a brief explanation of the influence
of inheritance practice, which is necessary to understand
its influence on the language of the novel. Recent

studies focusing on the economy or the law of the
eighteenth century have produced fine critical analyses
of economic and legal events during the period. The
purpose of this study is not to adopt such economic or
legal detail, but to show the confluence of these ideas
and their effects on the eighteenth-century novel. This
study does depend, however, on several recent studies to
provide foundation for its objectives. For the purposes
of this study, an explanation of primogeniture and strict
settlement is necessary.
Primogeniture dominated English inheritance practice
from the time of the Norman Conquest until early in the
twentieth century. Its usage varied widely through the
ages, but, by the eighteenth century, primogeniture had
generally come to mean that the eldest male child of a
family would inherit all realty within that family.
Realty included all land, or real property. Personalty
included money, chattel, stocks and bonds, the ephemeral
wealth of an estate. Under primogeniture, a common law
practice, a female could inherit an estate if there was
no male heir. If this should occur, a family estate
would pass to another family through a daughterf s
marriage. Further, if there was no male heir, or if a

father wished, he could allows equal portions to all his
children. Such an action would divide an estate until,
within a few generations, through constant division, the
original estate would disappear completely. 1
All this was cause of concern at the beginning of
the century, but inheritance practice in general only
became of prime concern when land began to mean power in
earnest. Until the eighteenth century, most land in
England rested in the hands of the very few aristocratic
families. Because of their continuing money problems,
nobility during the eighteenth century were generally
land poor. Their cash flow problems stemmed, in part,
from the Civil War, and some noble families found their
land confiscated after the war. Before the rise of the
merchant classes, money, for any class, had little
material potency other than enabling them the acquisition
of land, where real power lay. As English business grew
and expanded during the eighteenth century, extensive
merchant holdings provided money to the British
government and to private industrial development,
bringing value to actual money, giving it a new
importance.
1 Eileen Spring's Law, Land and Family provides an excellent chapter
on the historical ramifications of primogeniture before the
eighteenth century.

Most money was in the hands of merchants and
professionals. New ports, new frontiers, new ventures,
all provided English businessmen with immense opportunity
to make money. Money was venture capital, investment,
power, but it was not a bottom line on a bank account.
It was not cash in the pocket. Pocket money, spending
money was not yet en vogue, as shops and shopping were
still in their infancy. Money made men rich; but, for
purposes other than business, money held little reward.
Money was, however, the first step to real power, for it
could buy land. 2
One of the Civil War's outcomes was the formation of
the Tory and Whig parties, which would change the
structure of the House of Commons, endowing it with its
recognizably modern features. Sitting for election to
the House of Commons in the eighteenth century meant that
a man must be a landowner or have a title. Eventually,
having both was the best solution. The king often
conferred titles in order to influence crucial votes,
2 Two legal authorities are vital to the foundation of this study.
Eileen Spring has written widely and wisely about the effects of
strict settlement in families from the 1500s to the 1800s, and John
Habbakuk has done the same, though well before Spring. Of the
literary critics who are now making inroads into the influence of
economics and law on eighteenth-century literature, Sandra Sherman,
April London, Nancy Armstrong and Susan Greenfield are important for
highlighting economic influences and gender issues in the early
novel.

usually on fiscal matters, but these titles were non-
hereditary. Families would have to raise substantial
sums and garner much property to be considered to keep
the title once the original endowment passed away.
Merchant families wanted land and titles. They
wanted to live according to their means. Aristocracy, on
the other hand, wanted money in order to keep their
ancestral estates. While the situation seems ideal for
both, both sides came to the realization that
intermarriage and interclass socializing, exchange of
property, and intermingling of noble and common lineage
were inevitable, yet fraught with unimaginable class-
incurred tensions, creating a stranglehold on legal
marriage and inheritance contracts as they then existed.
Primogeniture could no longer accommodate the needs
of the upper classes for several reasons. First, through
the authority of common law, a vast estate, having no
male heir, could legally be put into the hands of a
daughter, thus into the hands of her husband's family,
eradicating not only the family estate, but also, and
more importantly, the family name. Second, vast estates
could be broken into smaller and smaller parcels through
equal distribution to all heirs, male and female. In
order to keep an estate and enlarge it, allowing a family

the ability to gain title or a seat in the House, landed
families had to devise a stronger and narrower practice
of inheritance that would not come under the jurisdiction
of common law and that could stand on its own regulation.
Strict settlement, or the practice of attaching a
rigid, unchangeable succession of male heirs to an
estate, was designed exclusively to keep large estates in
the hands of male inheritors and free from the
jurisdiction of common law. A strict settlement was not
a will. Strict settlement was a practice separate from
other inheritance practices. Thus, the eldest male and
estate owner could not only rely on strict settlement to
formulate the passing of the family estate, but he could
also write personal wills in order to provide for
specific family members, willing away specific
personalty, or "ephemeral" property as he wished. Thus,
while a will could be contested through the common law
courts, the transition of land through strict settlement
could not.
John Habbakuk tells us that the legal act of
according inherited property to an eldest son, or in the
absence of a son, to the next legal living male member of
a family was the basis for strict settlement and prior to
its inception, the intrinsic foundation of primogeniture

(2) . Eileen Spring discusses primogeniture with a focus
on its effects on heiresses. She observes that
"landowner" is a word that in the eighteenth century did
not include a widow or daughter, as females were never to
be part of the discussion of language of inheritance. At
a husband's death, a wife, under the auspices of common
law, however, became a powerful entity. She often had
the power to take over a family business and control its
money, stocks and bonds-personalty-lef t behind by the
deceased. The lot of a widow underscores the difference
in power between settlement laws and common law, the
regulation of realty, or an estate, and the distribution
of personalty (Law, 8-12) .
Strict settlement's rigid succession of male heirs
was guaranteed through a list of successors who would
inherit should an eldest son not be alive or born at the
time of a father's death. The list often included
cousins, uncles, and nephews, or sometimes even included
males from a wife's family, such as her brother or uncle.
The guarantee of male succession of property was coupled
with a provision for wives and children through
settlement portions, leaving money and settlements, or
jointures, for their future support, alleviating the
legal and sibling squabbles so prevalent in previous

centuries. Wills, still used and still subject to common
law ruling, continued to give wives some power, at least
with personalty, or real money, in their possession.
Jointure replaced dowry as the most common form of
3
marriage settlement. Dowers had come to run as much as
one-third of an estate, an immense amount of money or
land, or both. Jointures were parcels of land from an
estate set aside for the exclusive ownership of use of a
husband and wife, with the wife inheriting the land
should her husband predecease her. Jointures were
usually less than one third of an estate, but they were
stable and provided good income. Strict settlement was
implemented in the eighteenth century to preclude the
loss of family property and loss of title through female
inheritors. It took away the chance that children would
be given portions of an estate, allowing the estate to
lose its mass or be sold off, and thus, lose its wealth,
its power.
How strict settlement worked within a family was
nearly as important as the settlement itself. When a
young man came to majority or marriage, he and his father
Spring's introduction in Law, Land and Family to the convolutions
of inheritance practice just prior to and during the eighteenth
century is extensive and provides a coherent, straightforward
discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of all inheritance
practices during the period and the reasoning for their influx and
demise.

would "resettle" the estate. In other words, they would
both become tenants for life and the true owner would be
the as-yet-unborn male child of the son's marriage.
Father and son were not allowed to sell or trade any of
the land. If there was no male heir, or if the male heir
passed away before his majority or marriage, the estate
would fall to the next closest male heir designate.
Sometimes a male heir could be a brother or even the
brother of a wife, or a male cousin, if he had been
incorporated into the succession of heirs at settlement
or resettlement. The salient point of strict
settlement and inheritance practices associated with it,
particularly for this study, was its design with the
"perfect" family in mind. Men would live to majority, be
good husbands and estate managers, and somehow, would
divine a male heir who would also live to majority. Men
would marry women of quality and virtue who would bring
land and wealth to the family, and they would produce at
least one healthy male heir. Though the vast majority of
estates were inherited through "perfect" families, their
"perfectionff was often more a matter of circumstance and
chance than of thoughtful manipulation. For other
families, however, the outcome was often very different,
for many did not fit the specifications needed to have

the settlement run smoothly while their chances and
circumstances strayed from the profitable, perfect road.
Families, in some cases, were ruined financially,
morally, or socially, and others were raised to great
heights through no merit of their own. The law was
whimsical, profitable for some, disastrous for others,
and the emerging novel often elucidated the drama of
those families' stories.
Strict settlement usually favored resettlement
either at majority or marriage rather than at birth. The
probability of producing a son who would reach majority
was not always a given, however. In the case of Mr.
Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, even majority and marriage
cannot overcome the unknowable. Habbakukrs definition,
simply put, states that strict settlement is a "series of
arrangements made most commonly when the eldest son
[comes] of age or at his marriage," so the estate was
always settled a generation ahead (2). Father and
husband could do nothing with the land once they
resettled the estate and became life tenants on it. In
the simplest case, when resettlement took place at
marriage, the estate was to descend to the eldest son as
tenant in tail, or as tenant with specific restrictions

placed on the estate. Those restrictions usually would
not allow any part of the estate to be sold during his
lifetime. Secondly, the settlement empowered the life
tenant to charge the estate with a jointure, or annual
income, for a wife if she should survive her husband,
with a provision for younger children. Once an eldest
male resettled his estate, his father and he could do
nothing with the estate; it had rigid conditions of
succession called, "in tail," which eventually became
"entail." The line of inheritors was legally bound to
continue to settle or resettle entailed estates. Fee
simple, or "tail," referred to an estate with no
conditions place on the line of succession (Habbakuk 2).
The land was entailed, charged with a strict and
unchangeable line of succession. Originally, Spring
tells us, an entail was a gift of land to a younger child
at majority or marriage (Law, Land and Family 28). A
daughter could receive an entail, as common law was not
originally gender specific. Eventually, in order to keep
estates in the hands of male successors, the effort to
exclude women from inheriting land succeeded. To
preserve large estates through patrilineal means, entails
became perpetual. According to Spring, "The entail had
thus come to embody the concept of land descending

indefinitely by a mode of succession different from that
of the common law" (Law, Land and Family 28). This
translates into keeping an estate in the hands of an
eldest male as long as possible, crippling what little
power a daughter may have had to inherit, effectively
eliminating any surety she may have for her future.
Women did have the right to dower, then eventually
to jointure. Dower is the ancient method of providing
for a wife after the death of her husband. By the turn
of the eighteenth century, dower often amounted to one-
third of an estate (Spring Law, Land and Family 40-41).
It was hers, and in being so, it diminished the mass of
the estate; but as. time passed, a man who wished to marry
and whose estate was held in fee simple, or in fee tail,
found it difficulty to offer a dower, as he often had
every penny tied up in land, and the land was not usually
his to offer. He found, however, that he could offer a
jointure, or a piece of the estate set aside specifically
for his use and his wife's, owning it jointly. The widow
would have sole possession of the jointure should her
husband predecease her. Jointures eventually replaced
dowries because they were cheaper, and because they
allowed for a reasonable amount of revenue to flow
through them (42-43).

Even the simple definitions of inheritance terms and
marriage settlements quickly become more complicated. To
understand eighteenth-century attitudes regarding
marriage and inheritance, one must understand the
relationship between Englishmen and property, real and
personal, and the indisputable English need to perpetuate
a family estate-a dynasty. Louis Namier explains that
"the idea of inalienable property, cherished beyond the
patent value, arises from the land," and that English
businessmen "commuted wealth into property, be it at a
loss of revenue" (18-19). For this reason, land,
economics, and power mingle inextricably. As the
seventeenth century closed, the ties between land, wealth
and political power grew into a powerful cultural
mechanism, unlike any that had come before. The
unbounded economic growth in the eighteenth century made
men rich. Law and legal practices centered on a wealthy,
economically powerfully England.
Raising a Family
The process of becoming powerful in the eighteenth
century was more complicated than amassing a large sum of
money or attaining a title. Although aristocratic

landowners were always in possession of the better
portion of the national wealth-that is, they were is
possession of the majority of landed estates-the
eighteenth century coupled that landed wealth with
political power and put a majority of monied wealth into
the hands of the merchant class. Spring emphasizes that
large estate landowners "owned the greater part of
English land . . . [and] formed the ruling class,
exercising great influence upon law, politics and upon
social manners and ideas" (Law, Land and Family 4-5).
The rise of the merchant and professional classes
made possible the accumulation of land for any and all
who had money or marriage-ability, thus allowing them
access to power. Once the exclusive birthright of the
aristocracy, landed estates now became symbolic goals for
the immensely wealthy merchant gentry.
Making money to buy land was the primary
motivation of the merchant class, but another way to
enter the aristocratic ranks and estates was to marry
into them. If the aristocracy was disconcerted about
their lands being bought up by the gentry, they were more
than alarmed at the prospect of the gentry marrying into
their families. Tension between the two was never far

from the surface and often not very subtly expressed, as
we shall see in the novels that follow.
Unlike most other kingdoms, England is an island
nation; the empire might well be vast, but the motherland
always will be finite. Competition for British soil, as
in most centuries, remained fierce in the eighteenth
century. However, this century brought new meaning to
owning land since political power no longer belonged
exclusively to the aristocracy. Disquieted by the
intrusion of less than noble families, the aristocracy
resisted the assault as best they could. Their
resistance, however, was weak; money seemed endlessly
necessary.
The wealthy, burgeoning merchant class found the
easiest and simplest way to get land was to marry into
it. Merchant sons and daughters became experts in
inheritance practices and settlements, and aristocratic
sons and daughters became objects of marriage. Strict
settlement made sure land stayed in families and
aggrandizement continued through jointures and
settlements, increasing a family's chance to "raise"
itself to a title or to a seat in the House of Commons.

Inheriting Land and Language
Societies readily adopt the language of a dominant
cultural phenomenon. The language of the computer, for
instance, is an incredible part of late twenty-first-
century society. We "interface" with colleagues, and
sometimes we feel ourselves "maxed out" at our jobs,
needing "downtime" to "reboot our systems." Words
originally coined and meant for computers are plucked for
use in our personal lives, signaling a cultural
acceptance of a new language for doing business and
living, while for many, achieving mastery of the language
becomes a means for success. We change meanings and
usages sometimes, and, in the process, we confound the
message and hamper effective communication. Our twenty-
first-century use of "programming" is an excellent
example. Once a term used to describe television
scheduling, it now means the ability to create the
schedule, as well as the shows. We program everything,
including our days and emotions in order to master them
and subsequently master others. In the process, we have
come to understand that television shows can "program"
our children with violence or "program" us to believe
certain views to be politically true and correct. The

mastery and confusion of inheritance language terms in
the eighteenth century were not very different.
The obsession with land and titles incorporated the
language of contracts, settlements and wills into the
language of the public sphere and the family. Publicly,
men like Johnson, Burke, Locke and Hume waded into the
discussions of the rights of the merchant class to marry
into the aristocracy, which they coupled with a new
relationship between wealth and political stability and
future growth. As Spring tells us, landowners and their
families were overtaken by the discussion of estates and
settlements (Law, Land and Family 144-146). Public and
private discussions allowed the language of inheritance
to become powerful and integral.
Money and land were difficult to extricate from
marriage and virtue. Heightened interest in land and
inheritance made for heightened interest in virtuous
standards of a future wife. To ensure proper bloodlines,
conduct books and standards of virtue for unmarried women
abounded, and their language, too, was thrown into the
public mix. One's marriage was more about "raising a
family" in the sense of gaining a title than about having
children. A marriage that was "settled" was more one in
which the contractual agreements of jointure and pin

money were affixed rather than a man and a woman agreeing
to marry. Today, we "settle" a divorce, which is still
the apportionment of money and land.
In order to marry into a parcel of land, one had to
conform to the rules of aristocratic marriage. Marriage
practices involved the virtue and qualifications of
marriageable women. Spring tells us that a womanf s
qualifications were so important, portions, (parcels of
land being tantamount to money), became synonymous with
fortune in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Law,
Land and Family 172-173).
Purity and innocence were female necessities. As
James Thompson points out, "Despite transformation from
status to contract, and shifts from dower to jointure,
the legal system continued to figure the female as a
conduit through which property passes from one male to
another" (156). To become a "conduit," a young woman had
to be "virtuous," a standard set by the male socio-
political body to ensure pure bloodlines and proper
succession in inheritance.
Although women were "conduits" of marriage,
primogeniture and strict settlement were legal acts
protecting the rights of the eldest male child to
inherit. Females were nearly excluded from the brokerage

of their futures, while the development of the language
of settlements, jointures and inheritance flourished and
became commonplace, the "new realistic novel," as
described by Samuel Johnson in the Rambler. Johnson
asserts that the novel creates real-life situations,
keeping "young, ignorant and idle readers" from falling
into traps in real life (176-177). Inheritance novels
produced during this period do just that. They teach
young readers the pitfalls of marriage, settlements, and
inheritance and help save them from disastrous fates.
The language of settlements, jointures and
inheritance became commonplace in upper-class English
society, and the "new realistic novel" used the
experiences of everyday life and its language to "exhibit
life in its true state" (177). Life in its true state
would include discussions of inheritance and examples of
good and bad settlements. Johnson's reflections on the
verisimilitude of characters and experiences in novels
would certainly lead the modern reader to believe that
much of what is played out in the early novel deals with
real life. Johnson inaugurates an argument about fiction
and reality, proposing that a novel "with no historical
veracity" should exhibit the "most perfect idea of
virtue, of virtue not angelical, nor above probability .

. . but the highest and purest that humanity can reach"
to teach us ultimately "what we can hope, and what we can
perform" (178) . The standards of virtue Johnson hints
at are very much at the center of marriage and
inheritance practice. Not all early novels are about
inheritance and children poised to inherit, but situated
among them is a small group of novels deeply influenced
by the real life language and practice of inheritance.
Affirmations and Applications
Perhaps the urge to apply the more intricate legal
aspects of eighteenth-century life to literature began
with Lawrence Stone's 1977 publication of Family, Sex and
Marriage in English 1500-1800. Stone's conjectures
regarding inheritance practices and strict settlement
brought a flurry of criticism from such prominent legal
historians as John Habbakuk and Randolph Trumbach. Among
others, David Sugarman and Eileen Spring soon followed,
finding flaws in not only Stone, but also in his early
critics. Wrangling over legal issues made a distinct
impression on literary scholars, and although a growing
number of literary studies explore the many applications
of inheritance law and practice in the eighteenth century

culture, this is the first study to analyze the effects
of that practice and language on the eighteenth-century
novel.
The predicament of a young woman involved in the
inheritance structure of her family developed early in
eighteenth-century literature and continued to grow as an
important aspect of plot. Thompson suggests, "From
Pamela to Amelia to Evelina to Emma, the question each
narrative explores is what makes the heroine worthy,
suitable, valuable" (22). Nancy Armstrong and Katherine
Soba Green argue strongly for the value of virtue and a
womanf s worthiness to marry or be successful in real life
as virtue strongly centers itself in early novels. This
study argues that marriage, so closely linked with
primogeniture and strict settlement in the eighteenth
century, was a form of inheritance. After all, women who
were "conduits" for land could not be more closely tied
with inheritance.
Eighteenth-century ownership of land was
inextricably tied to economic, political and social
power. The tie, emphasized by Armstrong through the
sexual contract and Green through the marriage contract,
also emphasizes the importance of marriage as an economic
and commercial venture for families of importance.

Merchant and professional families who wished to see
daughters as mistresses of great houses and who wished to
link their family names to those of the aristocracy
through a sonf s marriage to an aristocratic daughter
fought eagerly for prominent positions among the
aristocracy. The force behind strict settlement was
dynastic ambition, or as Habbakuk tells us, "desire to
keep the family estate intact in the hands of the family
for as long as possible . . . or, in short, to establish
a dynasty" (51).
The unparalleled devotion to dynastic ambition by
aristocrats and non-aristocratic businessmen, lawyers and
families contributed to the power of the House of Commons
and the politicization of domestic energies. Legal
practices underpinned this ambition and was therefore
profoundly important to families involved in raising
their positions. However, while families endeavored to
keep and enlarge their estates, society was also
beginning to recognize the importance of individual will.
The confusion that resulted from this competition of
philosophies manifested itself in a confusion of
language. In his Essay Concerninq Human Understandinq,
John Locke, the undisputed conscience of his age, defines
individual will as:

This power which the mind has thus to order the
Considerations of any idea, of the forbearing
to consider it, or to prefer the motion of an
part of the body to its rest, and vice versa,
in any particular instance. (123)
The ideal of collective conscience or the collective will
that had dominated political and cultural life for
centuries was giving way to individual conscience and a
need for each man to find his place in the world.
The new emphasis on individuality certainly worked
its way into the political and legal practices of the
day. At its inception, strict settlement was a marriage
practice, the public act of incorporating two families.
Wills, on the other hand, were private contracts,
secretive and individual in nature. A community or an
entire social class was able to speculate about a
marriage settlement, but only a family could justifiably
speculate about the contents of an individual family
member's will. Stone argues that individualism in the
eighteenth century meant a "growing introspection" as
much as a demand for personal autonomy, but both these
ideas had to fit within the limits set for social
cohesion, especially within the family (151).

The importance of a will in terms of inheritance and
the importance of claiming individual will confused the
connotations of both terms. The confusion caused tension
within families, and that tension reflects itself in
several early novels. Clarissa Harlowe, Evelina Anville
and Elizabeth Bennet exemplify the connotative tension
between inheritance and individual will. Clarissa
achieves economic independence through property willed
her by her grandfather and, in doing so, threatens the
male political establishment of her family. Evelina
Anville is "inherited" by Mr. Villars, who, through his
individual will, denies the existence of her true social
position and inheritance. Elizabeth Bennet is the victim
of an entail that saddles her family with the unenviable
task of marrying five daughters into the best possible
positions, knowing all the while that the Bennet name
will disappear. She, however, refuses to make a
convenient match, choosing to make her own marriage,
which, in the long run, is far beyond what she could have
hoped would be arranged by her father and family.
The reasonable expectations of young women were that
they would marry as their parents wished. Christopher
Hill, describing the times of Clarissa Harlowe, points
out that, "So long as parents' main criterion for a

successful marriage was expressed in terms of money,
property and rank, daughters continued to be treated as
valuable commoditiesf1 (69). One would assume that strict
settlement affected the father-son relationship more than
it did other familial ties. Strict settlement, however,
was specific in spelling out the duties of fathers and
sons. Unforeseen circumstances usually affected wives
and daughters, as we shall see in the following chapters.
Female roles usually remained undefined, except
concerning jointure or dower and a woman's role as
"conduit" for land. Men's roles were economic and
political; women's were domestic and silent.
Randolph Trumbach believes that strict settlement's
most important function in the eighteenth century was to
"balance the claims of family continuity and greatness,"
embodied in the person of the eldest son, against a
satisfactory provision for younger children and wives,
mediating the conflicting claims of kindred and
patrilineage (70). Further, John Zomchick asserts that
the law was so deeply engaged with individual and
commercial life of the eighteenth century that it was one
of the few "common points of identification in a
collective that otherwise establishes strong ideological
barriers between public and private life" (2).

Zomchick connects the importance of law and its
language to literature, claiming eighteenth-century
novelists could "no more imagine character without law
than they can imagine a society without conflicts" (2).
Accordingly, James Thompson points out that novels
function with their own "thematization of value, not
dissimilar to the questions of value that occupy
political economists" (21) . One can go further, however,
and claim that inheritance law and its language combine
with literature in the eighteenth century, allowing
novels to adopt the language of inheritance law and use
its power to fuel plots of several novels. This study
provides a new instrument through which to view
literature in the eighteenth century and beyond, one
opened by Zomchick and Thompson and brought clearly into
the light through this study.
Within the three novels discussed in this study,
strict settlement on the surface, does not adversely
affect males. Mr. Bennet of Pride and Prejudice is our
exception. Once a deviation from the norm occurs,
however, the results overtly settle on females, providing
a context for action in the story. This is even true in
the case of Mr. Bennet, for he followed standard

procedure and could not foresee the birth of five
daughters and no sons. The settlement affects the entire
family. John Frow effectively summarizes results of
such forces stating:
[Slocial structure can be thought in terms of a
play of constraints, determinations, and
restrictions exercised upon each other by a
range of semiotic practices and institutions as
the complex convergence of forces at one time.
(60).
The convergence of strict settlement with primogeniture
during a century that saw merchant-class families able to
use it as a social and political tool helped to produce a
body of literature highlighting its "complex forces."
Clarissa, Evelina and Pride and Prejudice provide
different views of how inheritance disrupts families and
women and how it plays upon the characters within the
novels to displace or disturb the heroines. Language the
characters use often forces the heroine to misread others
or make dangerous decisions. Language sometimes forces
characters to reach outside cultural norms for solutions.
Richardsonf s Clarissa is a matchless example of
inheritance language. A novel of family deceit and
outrageous male behavior, the characters, action and plot

are motivated by strict settlement. Richardson provides
his readers with a view of the seamy side of eighteenth-
century settlements on wives, daughters and aunts by
eldest sons driven by dynastic ambition.
He emphasizes the dangers wealthy single men pose
toward marriageable young ladies while prowling for a
wife among them. James Harlowe, Jr., usurps his fatherf s
authority over Clarissa, forcing her to comply with his
personal wishes. Authority over daughters, including
their marriage settlements, had been the jurisdiction of
fathers until the mid-eighteenth century (Green 3).
Daughters were precious commodities, "conduits" for
their fathers and subject to their scrutiny and
discipline. In Clarissa, however, this is not true.
Clarissa Harlowe inherits a dairy from her
grandfather. This loving gesture, a secret until his
death, sets in motion a series of devastating events.
Clarissa, with her inheritance, is now able to make her
own decisions about marriage. She is also able to live
beyond the jurisdiction of her family. This would be
intolerable for a family determined to acquire enough
money and property to be conferred a title and a seat in
Parliament. Sadly, their interests lie in her property
and in her as property, not in her personally, which, in

the end, is partly responsible for her death. A small
group of men drives the plot of Clarissa. Fueled with
hatred for women and a deep suspicion of the rising
merchant class, minor aristocrat Robert Lovelace is
determined to keep the privileges of the nobility out of
non-aristocratic hands. In doing so, he avenges past
slights received from James Harlowe, Jr. He also makes
as many women as possible pay for the jilting he received
at the hands of a woman who married above him. He is
most dangerous, however, because his power and
independence, derived through his inheritance of a vast
estate at an early age, make him invulnerable to
authority and discipline. His uncle's title, however, is
not hereditary. In order to be eligible for it, Lovelace
must amass as much wealth and property as possible.
Lovelace's nemesis, James Harlowe, Jr., also is
driven by the power invested in land. He angrily tries
to rectify his grandfather's will. The tension created
by the needs of both young men disrupts and distorts
their impetus and ability to communicate effectively and
honestly with Clarissa and the rest of the Harlowes.
Most importantly, their own language forces silence on
others normally in authority. Clarissa's father and
mother should have been able to decide about Clarissa's

inheritance rather than James, Jr., and Lord M. should
have had more control over Robert Lovelace. All are
manipulated; their language is confounded by strict
settlement power.
Virtue, the personal standard set for young
unmarried women, had special meaning for heroines.
Virtue meant avoidance of fault, putting the heroine in a
passive position and making virtue a suffering, or making
her suffer the faults of others (Alliston 83). How true
for poor Clarissa. Her death heightens the importance of
her own will, steeped in legal language and certainly
the centerpiece of the novel's denouement. Even in
death, Clarissa cannot escape the language of inheritance
as she wills away those few things she has left in the
world. The irony of having Clarissals story framed by
written wills and driven by her independent will is
extraordinary.
Evelina, on the other hand, is based on a "non-
existent" will, as there is a "non-existent" marriage.
Public sentiment and common law can do nothing for our
heroine without a written document. In order for Evelina
Anville to recapture her real name and her status as a
worthy inheritor, she must produce or have produced for
her a document proving her identity.

For all the recent criticism dealing with the
importance of names and naming in Burney's novel, Sir
Louis Namier reminds us that although a name is a
"weighty symbol," it is "liable to variations; descent
traced in the male line only" (19). Namier declares the
estate becomes the family identification, implying that
the length and greatness of a family, as a name often
changes. Primogeniture and entails help psychologically
to preserve the family and its position through
successive generations, thereby fixing a conscious
identification through succession rather than name (20).
This is the competitive nature of inheritance
language in Evelina. Though Evelina may well be
searching for her identity and her name, she must
ultimately find her father and prove her lineage in
relation to his estate. Further, Evelina is not the only
character influenced by inheritance. The veracity and
sincerity of Mr. Villars are affected, as well. He, of
all people, should be versed in titles and inheritance.
Through the movement of the plot and the effective
silencing of Mr. Villars, Evelina is able to realize her
identity through her marriage to Lord Orville. His
decision to have her as his wife before he knows her
identity asserts the relative unimportance of her name

and the underlying power of her inherited birthright and
breeding.
Mrs. Selwyn joins Villars in being instrumental to
the inheritance machine of Evelina. Villars suffers
under the settlement reserved for second sons, but the
legacy left her through her husband's jointure and will
empowers Mrs. Selwyn. Sir John Belmont finds his real
daughter and restores Evelina to her rightful place as
heiress. Burney's implication is that rights of
succession will continue no matter what the hidden name,
as long as the true inheritor is not prevented from
acting.
Writing at the beginning of the nineteenth century,
Jane Austen balances earlier efforts at exposing
injustices of inheritance with the struggles of Mr. and
Mrs. Bennet to marry off their five daughters in face of
an entail on the Bennet estate. Not only is Austen aware
of the problems inherent in strict settlement, but she
also uses her literary skill to harness the power of its
inheritance language, allowing it to be the driving force
in Pride and Prejudice. Austen was caught in a real-life
web of inheritance settlements. After the death of her
father, she and her mother and sisters were dependent on
their brothers and close male relatives for their

welfare. Although several of her brothers went on to
become titled and inheritors of large estates, Austen
was aware of the mercenary nature of inheritance, placing
females of her family in so vulnerable a position once
their male provider (her father) passed away (Perry 47).
Austen does not give us an heiress, unlike
Richardson and Burney. She gives us, instead, a bevy of
daughters incapable of inheriting an estate, strapped by
a lack of good portions to enhance their chances for good
marriages. Eileen Spring explains the Bennet legal
situation:
The entail that Mr Bennet never ceased to rail
bitterly against was a strict settlement. By
the date of Jane Austenfs story, had it been a
simple entail, Mr. Bennet could have ended it
at any time. That he could not do so is the
starting point for the story. (33)
Austen also incorporates into her novel the varying
positions of members of the middle class. Mr. Wickham,
Mr. Collins and the Lucases all depend on inheritance and
marriage settlements to enhance their lives. The
Bingleys, on the other hand, are nouveau riche, with each
of them displaying a range of attitudes toward the power
of their wealth. Mr. Bingley takes his cue from Darcy,

displaying all the good things wealth can bring. Miss
Bingley, however, wishes to cement her own position in
the upper classes by marrying Darcy, a move that would
make her future more secure and less dependent on her
brother. Her brother's wealth brings him to a great
estate in Meryton and gives her the power of a large
portion, making her attractive as a marriage prospect for
the nobility. Without a substantial portion, Miss
Bingley' s future would have been tenuous, equal to that
of any of the Bennet girls.
Mr. Collins need not do anything, for his penchant
for being in the right place at the right time will bring
him wealth, an excellent living, and Longbourn. Austen
gives us the laughable prospect of a plodding,
unattractive, dull and unlikable minor cleric rising to
the top of society. Noble bloodlines run cold at the
thought of Mr. Collins moving among them.
Richardson, Burney and Austen present readers with
anomalies of inheritance law, an occurrence seemingly
overlooked by the legal community and unspoken of in the
daily language of marriage and inheritance. Clarissa,
Evelina and Elizabeth represent young women exhibiting
the newly fashionable independent will of the eighteenth
century. The curious combination of a subversive legal

language and a feminine independence provides the "young,
ignorant and the idle" with a reasonable idea of the
expectations and pitfalls that can occur when life does
not follow a "perfect model." Inheritance language in
eighteenth-century novels was at odds with social and
cultural expectations. The tension it caused helped to
redefine the vocabulary of the age. It highlighted the
precariousness of life for females in rich and landed
families. It modeled expectations and solutions for
events arising in the daily disruptions of family life.
Richardson provides a novel about the consequences of
greed and inheritance. Burney gives a story of deception
and of personal, as well as social greed. Austen,
employing the unforeseeable and unexpected, incorporates
both.
Conclusion
Strict settlement and primogeniture were the forces
behind the search for land and title in the eighteenth
century. The language and practices of inheritance and
marriage settlements found their way into newly emerging
novels. The power of inheritance is sometimes the
central force behind the plots of early novels and

exhibits itself in several ways. Subverted language and
the rigid effects of strict settlement subject female
protagonists to a loss of meaningful or truthful
communication with proper guardians and mentors.
Characters find their voices stifled by the language of
those empowered by inheritance or overwhelmed by the
prospect of it. Their plots, founded on various aspects
of inheritance, are driven by its consequences.
Clarissa, Evelina and Pride and Prejudice fully represent
a new genre, the inheritance novel.

Chapter Two
Unhappy Transactions: Richardson's Clarissa and
Strict Settlement
Introduction
Samuel Richardson's Clarissa is the quintessential
inheritance novel of the eighteenth century. The growing
body of criticism directed toward this novel's emphasis
on land and family highlights the foibles and often-
inhumane outcomes of strict settlement and inheritance
dominating Richardson's lifetime and revealing anew the
true tragedy beneath the demise of Clarissa Harlowe. The
power of inheritance, signaled through the power of its
language, is overwhelming in Clarissa, and the plot
thrives on these very factors.
Clarissa exemplifies the three factors that
characterize an inheritance novel. Richardson is
directly involved with the language and, often, the
practice of strict settlement through his own experiences

and work. He exhibits exquisite control of the language
within the novel and shows a profound knowledge not only
of the broad interpretations of inheritance practice, but
also of the contrary nuances often accompanying day-to-
day inconsistencies in families that would pose potential
problems for smooth inheritance.
The majority of characters in Clarissa are in
control of the language of inheritance. Many of them are
capable of manipulating the strict settlement system and
its partner, marriage settlement. Clarissa must use or
manipulate the language of inheritance, which she does
very well from the beginning, in order to attempt to gain
of power over her future. Other characters, like her
brother and Lovelace, are already in control of the
language; they use the laws of strict settlement and
marriage practice to silence Clarissa her parents and
others who could support her, even save her from harm.
Clarissa also centers on its heroine's ability to
"inherit," a term that becomes, within the context of
each separate inheritance plot, a subversive and slippery
term not only for her, but also for those who work for
and against her.
Discussing the inheritance law in the eighteenth
century literature must begin with a discussion of

Clarissa. Richardson's masterpiece recounts a litany of
realistic implications and consequences gleaned from the
proliferation of land-based estate settlements. Clarissa
also realistically characterized English belief that
primogeniture, the rule of assigning land to the eldest
male child in a family in some form was more judicious
for estate planning than wills. The effect of the law on
society and literature came late to critical attention.
The late twentieth century has seen only a very few
studies whose foci are on law and literature.
Of these few, John Zomchick has written extensively
regarding civil law and its prominence in eighteenth-
century society. Zomchick uses portions of Clarissa to
exemplify eighteenth-century society's ability to
interpret and apply legal codes and laws, while also
understanding their social implications. He cites
specifically Clarissa's arrest and night in custody,
using that incident to note how Mrs. Sinclair and her
girls use the law against Clarissa in order to malign her
further. Zomchick also clarifies the psychological
effect of this language on Clarissa and its effect on the
reader. He does not venture, however, into her
inheritance problems, as those laws are different from
civil codes. Family and the law in eighteenth-century

fiction is an excellent jumping off place to begin a
study of the effect of law on society, and hence, its
literature.
April London and Joan Schwarz are two other notable
authors who explore Clarissa in the context of females
and property law and females and rape law, respectively.
London specifically deals with civil law and economics
and their application to women of property in the
eighteenth century, while Schwarz applies contemporary
rape laws to the case of Clarissa Harlowe. London' s
premise surmises that, "relations of property to
personality are as fundamental in Clarissa as they were
to the culture in which the novel was written" (15).
Schwarz, on the other hand, asserts that "Richardson
portrayed the power relations immanent in the novel's
social spheref' while at the same time, portraying their
effects on "Clarissa's social sphere" (3) . In other
words, for both London and Schwarz, Richardson provides a
true picture of upper class landed society during his
lifetime. The same holds for Zomchick, though his study
encompasses only civil law. His history of the rise of
these practices, however, does not directly concern
inheritance practice, property, or settlement law.

Since Zomchickfs study, Eileen Spring has produced
an impressive body of work clarifying strict settlement,
beginning an intelligible and sensible discussion of its
influence on the early novel. However, Spring's
references to Clarissa are fleeting and given as examples
of, rather than explanations for, their influence on
eighteenth-century literature. Still, my study strives
to fill the silence surrounding the early novel and the
influence inheritance law that has been left largely
untouched even in the growing body of criticism that
deals with eighteenth-century law.
Richardson and the Language of Settlement
Strict settlement was rigid in its application and
certainly not subject to interpretation, like civil laws
and wills. While Clarissa Harlowe struggles with the
predicament of her settlement, she quickly comes to
realize the civil implications of her plight, revealing
that she understands much about civil law: "I have
sometimes wished . . that I had never been
distinguished by my grandpapa as I was: which has
estranged me . . . " (L2 41). Clarissa knows her
grandfather's bequest to her is under civil jurisdiction

and not part of the resettlement of his estate. She
knows that in this realm she is vulnerable to litigation
and lawsuits by her family, a compelling reason for her
willingness to hand the dairy house to her father. Her
first letter relates to Anna Howe that when Lovelace
first came to Harlowe Place, she was "busied in the
accounts relating to" the dairy house which are "once a
year left to my inspection" (L2 41-42). Thereafter,
Clarissa shows a remarkable grasp of the nuances of
settlement law, as well, that are applied to her family
and to her own future. She sharply assesses Solmes and
his fortune:
The upstart man, I repeat, for he was not born
to the immense riches he is possessed of;
riches left by one niggard to another, in
injury to the next heir, because that other is
a niggard. (L13 81)
Clarissa's knowledge of the law, both civil and
inheritance, will culminate in the intricate legal text
of her final will and testament.
Richardson assumes not only that his heroine is
knowledgeable regarding the law, but also that his
reading population, especially his female audience,
grasps the law and the often-unkind results of

settlement, a predicament Clarissa soon finds out for
herself. Joan Schwarz argues forcefully regarding
Richardsonf s own knowledge of the law and his assumption
of the legal intelligence of his reading audience. She
cites numerous legal scholars to establish her audience
awareness of the law, and though one notes there are no
particular citations regarding her assertion that
Richardson knew the law, Schwarz's presents a powerful
case regarding his audience's understanding of
eighteenth-century law. Certainly, that audience
knowledge is vital to his plot. However, a twentieth-
century audience needs some reasonable explanation and
interpretation of those laws in order to appreciate the
novel in Richardson's original intent.
Richardson, like others cognizant of the power of
legal practices, was able to use the emergent novel genre
as a platform for critiquing strict settlement practice.
Richardsonf s didactic leanings were also at work, and he
would have been eager to reveal the downside of such a
rigid practice, using his work as a guidepost for
marriageable youth, warning them to be careful how they
plan for their futures.
Richardson's first title for Clarissa was The Lady's
Leqacy: or, the whole gay and serious compass of the

Human Heart laid open, for the Service of Both Sexes
(Correspondence 77 ) . Richardson's deliberate use of
"legacy," a decidedly legal term, and his stated wish
that this novel be for the guidance and "service of Both
Sexes" attests to his concerns about primogeniture and
strict settlement practice. Richardson aims to outline
the often-deleterious effects of inheritance practice for
the edification of, as Samuel Johnson calls them in
Rambler No. 4, "the young, the idle and the ignorant."
Richardson masterfully challenges the worthiness of
strict settlement, demonstrating the application of the
law in a myriad of family situations. Though strict
settlement was implemented in order to stabilize the
future of wealthy families and protect the land they
accumulated through inheritance and marriage, many
outcomes were not so successful. Certainly, Richardson
was not the first to question the ramifications of legal
decision-making, but his fictional assertions are
underpinned by a body of non-fictional works he produced
during his lifetime that deal with just such issues.
While the law does not heed situations less than perfect,
being created to prevail over all with the unseeing,
unblinking eye of equality, Richardson and his literary
contemporaries saw the effects of the law on everyday

life and conjectured within the pages of their novels
what could further happen. The use of legal language by
the Harlowe men, Lovelace and others, and by Clarissa and
her friends, is a strong indicator of Richardson's
decision to base Clarissa's story on the aberrant nature
of eighteenth-century inheritance law.
Although strict settlement law itself was clear in
the eighteenth-century, its effect on a family could be
confusing, as it was for the Harlowes, and especially for
Clarissa. Because Clarissa is confused by the initial
outcome of her grandfatherr s will, her language marks her
confusion. Richardson does not allow enough clarity of
language in any of his characters to make sound
judgments, even when life itself depends on it.
Richardson' s observations of society and its
personalities provide the modern-day reader with a wealth
of detail about how people really lived and how they
adjusted to the blinking settlement laws that shaped
their lives.
Early in his career, Richardson became the printer
for the Journal of the House of Commons. Starting in the
1730s, Richardson published "bills, orders, and
occasional reports for the House of Commons," a business

that, according to Eaves and Kimpel, grew substantially
during the next twenty years (55-56). The House of
Commons knew Richardson's business, and his intimate
relationship with the Speaker contributed, as well, to
his being chosen to perform the task of printing the
Journals. Specifically, the General Index to the
Sessional Papers Printed for the House of Lords shows
that Richardson was the printer for the entire entry of
bills dealing with clandestine marriages. The
clandestine marriage bills, which eventually would be
made law, dated from their inception in 1739 to their
repeal in 1765 (112). Richardson would have been
responsible for all of the printings except the repeal,
which passed four years after his death.
Among other bills dealing with inheritance and
family settlements introduced in the House of Commons and
printed by Richardson in the Journals are the "Devices of
Estates Bill" in 1751, the "Attestation of Wills Bill,"
in 1751, and the "Forfeited Estates in Scotland Bill,"
also introduced in 1751. These bills, with the exception
of the bills dealing with clandestine marriage, were
published after Clarissa, but their presence in such
close proximity to its publication indicates a regular
presence of debate and reporting that would have been

included in the compilation of the Journal. - The
Catalogue of Papers Printed by the Order of the House of
Commons for the years encompassing Richardson's printing
includes bills dealing with estate laws, inheritance
laws, and marriage laws. Thus, Richardsonf s close
association with the House of Commons and its Speaker,
along with his familiarity with law and legal language,
situate him comfortably in the heart of eighteenth-
century inheritance practice and marriage settlement.
William Sale explores other publications that
Richardson was involved with, and the list is long and
4
varied regarding the subject of the law. One pamphlet,
according to Sale, published anonymously in 1753,
includes Richardsonf s own sentiment that "all men are
beasts of prey" (Master Printer 203). Sale also mentions
Richardsonf s association with both Tory and Whig
periodical publications, which enhanced his ambivalence
toward his own class, an ambivalence that had its
ultimate expression, according to Sale, in the tension-
filled relationship between Clarissa and Robert Lovelace
Richardson was responsible for the printing and publications of
many private books and pamphlets dealing with marriage, estates and
inheritance practice. Sale details the nature and titles of these
books in Samuel Richardson: Master Printer. The lengthy list of
these titles only adds to the conviction that Richardson was well
versed in the language, structure, and application of inheritance
law.

(Master Printer 35) . Richardson's participation in
printing both sides of political issues of his day
affected his personal reflections on society, according
to Sale. If this is true, then one can reasonably
extrapolate that his printing of the Journals with their
inclusions of inheritance laws also affected his personal
reflections regarding those matters.
Richardson was aware of the effect of inheritance
practices in daily life. He was sensitive to the
opinions of women of his own class and of the nobility.
He would have been concerned and involved with the lives
of his daughters and with the young women who
corresponded with him. He solicited their advice
regarding his writing. Eaves and Kimpel point out that
Richardson "practiced the art of making his events
convincing in terms of the fiction itself, though he also
adhered to the more conventional doctrine of realism,
portraying only events which could easily have occurred
in everyday life" (238). Ultimately, one cannot print
such a body of legal texts, especially important
documents that needed careful attention to detail like
the Journals, without becoming intimately involved with
the subject matter.

The eighteenth-century reading public was the same
middle and upper class that would have been involved with
estates and settlements and the burgeoning wealth of the
merchant class. Further proof of the public nature of
the problems of inheritance and class and the strains
placed on the virtue of young women is provided in
Richardson's early publications of Familiar Letters, at
least three of which are developed later in Clarissa
(Eaves and Kimpel 98).
Richardson began on the lower fringe of the middle
class and rose to the top of it. He knew the gentry and
the restrictions placed between classes. He was a
typical member of the hardworking middle class, and in
being so, his ideas and beliefs are representative of the
public body of discourse in the eighteenth century,
including those of virtue and inheritance law (Eaves and
Kimpel passim). From law to politics to love, family and
moral precepts, Richardsonf s position in his culture
made him privy to the arguments, resolutions, and popular
thinking that dominated public discussion and political
debate, all of which culminate in his masterpiece,
Clarissa.
Thus, the chaos in the Harlowe family caused by
Grandfather Harlowe's "uncomfortable" will, along with

James, Jr . ' s empowerment through his inheritance,
represent Richardson's conclusions about the reality of
inheritance practice. Exemplifying Johnson's claim in
Rambler No. 4 that novels tell stories about what is real
or realistic and are about "real" people, Clarissa is
able to provide lessons about expectations and events
that "one can reasonably expect to happen in these
circumstancesff (Thompson 11) .
Constructing Clarissa
Inheritance novels generate characters and plots
rich in the language of inheritance practice and marriage
settlements. Inheritance language finds its way into the
language of characters and, in turn, characters often
become so glib with it they are able to manipulate the
language to their own ends. Crucial to the plot of
Clarissa, Clarissa's legal acumen intrudes into the first
lines of the novel. Both she and her confidante, Anna
Howe, speak easily and knowledgeably about the will's
content and the events subsequent to Grandfather
Harlowe's directives. The will opens the novel and sets
events in motion that will eventually lead Clarissa to
tragedy. At the end of her story, Richardson closes with

Clarissa's own will, framing the plot with legal and
civil documents. Both wills are subjective texts,
privately written and subject to interpretation by a
court. Unlike strict settlement, whose rules are public
and binding once set in motion, individuals, through a
last will and testament, were able to exercise personal
prerogatives in secret regarding, among many things, who
should inherit what of their estates. While the body of
the novel deals with strict settlement and the impersonal
transition of property through a strictly regulated set
of rules, individuality and personal preference frame the
novel. Richardson makes clear a distinction between the
two. In the process, then, "will" becomes one of the
novel's pivotal, slippery words, for its multiplicity of
meanings superimpose themselves in nearly every instance
of their use, confusing the reader and resisting any one
interpretations. Further, words such as "mother, "
"father, If and "friend" take on extra meanings. Clarissa
confuses Lovelace as she lies dying, telling him she will
be reconciled with her "father." Lovelace concludes she
is speaking of her real father, while she really is
speaking of her Father in Heaven. "Mother" also becomes
resistant to one definition, for Clarissa's real mother
is silenced, as is her surrogate mother, Mrs. Norton.

The bawdy Mrs. Sinclair is a housemother to her girls and
Clarissa, while Clarissa herself is a mother to those
involved in her Poor Fund. Toni Bowers elaborates this
point, asserting that "nearly all the adults in the novel
are, in some sense, Clarissa's parents, and one of the
heroine's main problems is that she has altogether too
many parental figures to answer to" (213). Her brother
becomes her father, while Lovelace plays to her need for
a guardian and savior, the heroic male who ironically
presages Christ as her ultimate guardian and savior.
Once the novel presents Grandfather Harlowe's will,
the letters that follow between Anna Howe and Clarissa
catalogue the inheritances of Clarissa and her brother
and sister, all the while detailing the decline of the
Harlowe family happiness as each member reacts to the
conditions set out through Grandfather Harlowe's last
wishes. James, Jr., moves to control Clarissa and her
legacy through his plot to have her marry Solmes. He
sees the marriage as an ironclad way to accumulate the
land and wealth he needs to acquire his title. Clarissa
shares her shrewd assessment of the family's dealing with
Solmes: " . . . now a possibility is discovered (which
such a grasping mind as my brother's can easily turn into
a probability) that my grandfather's estate will revert

to [the Solmes marriage settlement] . . ." (L13 81).
Richardson paints the Harlowes as a typical eighteenth-
century merchant family, acquisitive and expanding,
transitioning from merchant class to landed gentry,
aspiring to minor aristocracy. He explains, through
Clarissa's letters, the practice of giving portions, or
money, instead of dowers to young women of marriageable
age, thus cutting down the amount of land from the
paternal estate that would be given into a marriage
settlement.
Dowers usually incorporated any land not entailed,
and even some that was. Portions were money paid in lieu
of dowered land. Richardson also subtly introduces
jointure, the giving of a parcel of land, usually through
the husband's estate, that becomes the property of the
husband and wife jointly, and which will become the sole
property of the survivor of the marriage and not subject
to the laws of strict settlement. Unlike her brother,
who conjectures about the "possibilities" and
"probabilities" of arrangements to be made, Clarissa
implies that he is erroneously hoping for something that
she will not allow to occur.
Superficially, Grandfather Harlower s will, a private
and individual civil document, appears to have allowed

personal sentiment to overtake more modern restrictions
strict settlement would have placed on his property. He
chose the old practice of writing a personal will in
order to have his specific wishes carried out. Had he
allowed strict settlement to deal with his entire estate,
then his estate would have gone to his eldest son, while
money, personalty, or property not part of the estate,
including stocks, bonds and chattel, would have gone to
younger sons and daughters. The appearance of
sentimentality, however, is just that. Modern readers
must understand that toward the end of the seventeenth
century many wealthy merchants began to settle their
estates in the same manner as the aristocracy, because
money, whenever gained through business, could easily be
lost. Substantial and unforeseen changes made a civil
will granting money to heirs of little or no value should
market shifts take a downward turn. At the very least,
civil wills were undependable, since litigation could
easily overturn personal wishes in a civil court. Strict
settlement was not subject to litigation. Its rigid
succession was unblinking; it deals with land, a
commodity rarely unstable, no matter what occurred in the
marketplace (Thirsk 183) .

Grandfather Harlowe was one of many wealthy
merchants who settled his estate in the manner of wills
and estate planning that overlapped strict settlement's
implementation. Therefore, Grandfather Harlowe leaves
the rules of strict settlement to the young and wills his
estate as he sees fit, including willing his dairy house
to Clarissa, his favorite grandchild. Victor Lam
observes, "giving wealth as a token of affection,
Grandfather Harlowe undermines the hierarchical ground
upon which Harlowe Place stands" (6). While his
assertion is true, Lam unfortunately goes on to also
observe :
[Grandfather Harlowe' s] incoherent will
instructs his sons to obey patriarchal
convention by obeying his father's will, at the
same time that he violates the rules for
inheritance of property with the set purpose of
turning his wealth into a token of love.
Grandfather Harlow employs the language of
compulsion when he commands his sons not to
"impugn or contest" his Will. (7)
Lam's assertions are erroneous regarding Grandfather
Harlowe' s will and its purpose. As Eileen Spring points
out, the founders of families naturally made settlements

y will, and "few self-made men [were] ready to give up
their power over their property while they lived" (Law,
Land and Family 129). The will itself enumerates the
business of the family. They were involved in "East
India traffic," and "successful voyages," with
"unexpected benefits from . . . new-found mines," and
most importantly, Grandfather Harlowe points out that the
men have "marriage portions of their own" (L4 53).
Little or no real estate seems to have been involved in
the initial making of this family, at least on the
Harlowe side. Therefore, Lamf s assertion that
Grandfather Harlowe's will was "incoherent" and "violates
the rules for inheritance of property" cannot be
justified in light of the legal possibilities of the day;
many wealthy merchants settled their estates in much the
same way. The majority of the estate fell to the hands
of James Harlowe, Jr., through the act of strict
settlement. Grandfather Harlowe knew the men in his
family well enough to know they would contest any
individual will that gave away land that could feasibly
be used to "raise the family." Spring goes on to explain
that, historically, primogeniture meant to have the
eldest male child inherit land if there was an eldest
male child. However, in the case of a family only having

a daughter or daughters, or in the case of other children
surviving beyond the eldest male, then estates often
could be settled with much bequeathed for daughters and
younger children, including realty that was not in tail
(an estate that was not "in tail" had no restrictions on
who could inherit it). The implementation of the laws
of primogeniture and strict settlement did not have to
involve a civil will (Law, Land and Family 17-22).
For centuries, civil wills had not been fashionable
among the landed classes, but as middle and upper class
families began to accumulate money as well as land, wills
became important once again, since inheritance laws for
land did not include provision for personalty (money) in
their jurisdiction unless the money in question was for
marriage settlement and portions.
The re-emergence of the civil will in the eighteenth
century gave to landed gentry and aristocracy an
advantage to leave what they liked to whom they liked as
long as the terms did not interfere with the settlement
of the landed estate (Spring Law, Land and Family 12-15,
129). The newness of Harlowe Place and the rapidly
changing customs for settlement allowed Grandfather
Harlowe to do as he wished. Willing The Grove did not

interfere with his main estate settlement and therefore,
though it was "unconformable," or not in line with
eighteenth-century penchant for strict settlement for
realty, Grandfather Harlowe' s will was legal and binding.
His sons and grandson, however, were modern eighteenth-
century men. They, therefore, opposed the elder
Harlowe' s refusal to entirely give up past practices.
Private wills meant private betrayal in the form of
"surprise" giving, and, in the Harlowes' case, the chance
of public embarrassment. As Anna Howe reminds Clarissa,
"People, I have heard you say, who affect secrets always
excite curiosity" (L10 70) .
Clarissa has chosen to live a single life before the
novel begins (L438 1268). Her grandfatherf s bequest
would give her enough income to remain single. However,
as Miguel Suarez observes, "[a]utonomous adulthood, the
freedom to choose and act in a unfettered way, is a
masculine entitlement only" (80). Clarissa writes her
uncle John that by her offering to "engage not to marry
at all," she is disgraced, sequestered from company and
banished from her mother and father (L32.l 149) . In the
same letter, Clarissa gives a chilling account of
marriage: "To be given up to a strange man; to be
engrafted into a strange family; to give up her very

name, as a mark of her becoming his absolute and
dependent property . . ." (L32.1 148) . According to
Suarez, Clarissa' s understanding of marriage as "no
domain for female autonomy" is disturbingly correct (80).
Katherine Green asserts that, ideally, a woman inhabited
a dependent space within a male territory so that she
never became a litigant or head of household (3).
Inheriting the dairy house made her both, and that was
unacceptable to her brother. Clarissa tried valiantly to
uphold the male patriarchal custom by giving her father
control of her property, and later, by refusing Anna
Howe's urgings to sue Lovelace and her parents. However,
in the end, Clarissa's independent will and her
inheritance so disrupted the language of inheritance in
her family that her only legitimate act of independent
will is her last will and testament.
The dairy house thus becomes the center of
contention within the family, allowing paper wills to
dictate emotional wills. The Harlowe family' s unity,
and, it follows, their language in dealing with one
another alter after the reading of Grandfather Harlowe's
will. In this moment, the Harlowe men perceive Clarissa
as a powerful and dangerous adversary. She tells Anna, '
. . . I, who never designed to take advantage of the

independency bequeathed to me, am to be as dependent upon
my papa's will as a daughter ought to be who knows not
what is good for herself. This is the language of the
family now" (L13 80).
Implicit in her inheritance is Clarissa's ability to
make her own marriage without the advice of her father,
brother or uncles, a dangerous concept for the
patriarchal structure of eighteenth-century families.
Spring reminds us that the development of strict
settlement in the eighteenth century culminated with a
legal history determined to limit narrowly the ability of
women to inherit property (Law, Land and Family 144-147) .
The privileged position of male patriarchal discourse
that would dominate decisions regarding Clarissa's future
is confused, frustrated, and ultimately muffled by
Clarissa's new ability to dominate her future through her
empowered position as an independent heiress.
Grandfather Harlowefs civil will gives power to
Clarissa's indomitable and irregular individual will.
The danger for Clarissa as independent mistress is
intrinsic as we11 as extrinsic. Her newfound freedom
makes her vulnerable to the advice and urgings of Robert
Lovelace, since her financial power disrupts the family
power structure, silencing her parents, angering her

other and uncles, and keeping her from those very
advisers who could set her free. As Donnalee Frega so
aptly puts it:
. we realize that it is Clarissa's
"character" [that] has led her entire family
and Clarissa herself, to expect the compliance
they suggest. They are honestly puzzled when
their kinswoman rebels, apparently for the
first time. It is the tendency to confront
Clarissa as an object, a body that can be
manipulated in spite of free will, rather than
as a self-directed identity, which blinds the
family to their child's real distress and the
child herself to her own potential for self-
realization. (15)
Frega leads us to understand Clarissa's rationalizations
why she cannot keep the dairy house and why she cannot
oppose her family or Lovelace in court.
Willing the Harlowe Family
Clarissa's ability to use the language of
inheritance and her understanding of its implications for
her life also drive the Harlowe men, Lovelace, and even

Anna Howe to use inheritance practice and civil action in
order to gain control over her. One must also understand
the power of Grandfather Harlowe's will over the plot of
the novel. His determination to leave the dairy house to
Clarissa is as subversive to the family men as it is
divisive of the family. Beyond what the terms of his
will do to Clarissa, one must look at what the terms do
to the plot and to the other characters they touch.
Grandfather Harlowe knew the terms of his will would
cause a stir. He admitted that his "dispositions" were
not "strictly conformable to the law," but he wished that
his family would not "impugn or contest" his desire to
leave Clarissa the dairy house (L4 54). Grandfather
Harlowe's will exemplifies the investment choices and
estate planning of the first generation of wealthy
eighteenth-century merchants, nearly all of whom were
obsessed with land and title acquisition. With the
marriage of an eldest son, an established landed family
transmitted to him known amounts of inherited property
through strict settlement. The bourgeoisie, however,
were merchants who dealt with hard cash, personalty, so
the full amount of their projected fortunes could not
always be ascertained until the immediate demise of the
father or until the marriage of the eldest son. Because

of this, a father often left most of his estate in his
personal will for adjudication after his death (Habbakuk
5). Merchants and other wealthy individuals often
included stocks and government bonds in their estates
when their personal capital was not completely invested
in land (Chesterman 126). Because Grandfather Harlowe
was vested mostly in realty, contemporary readers would
have realized that the Harlowe family was at least one
generation out of a strictly merchant-class family. They
were ascending rapidly through the ranks of the landed
gentry.
The willing of land, such as the dairy house to
Clarissa, through common law, was liable to litigation
and problems often arose. The right of dower and barring
(getting rid of) dower in favor of jointure was a
particularly thorny issue. By the time Richardson wrote
Clarissa, most young female members of landed, wealthy
families had a jointure, which would then be given
outright to the survivor of the marriage without
stipulation to the estate.
Prospective brides usually brought a portion or a
fortune to marriage. Obviously, the bigger the portion,
the more sought after a young woman would be. Clarissars
portion, her dairy house, would have made her a fine

prospect for bride-seeking men. The dairy house becomes
a disturbing development for the men in her family when
they consider Clarissa's marriage-ability. For though
the dairy house would certainly make her more desirable,
it would also make her independent. Mr Symmes and Mr
Mullins both sought Clarissa's hand. Her brother,
encouraged by their suits, which came before her
inheritance of the dairy house, became more patient with
her even after her inheritance and what he considered her
unruly behavior, knowing there would be more men like
Symmes and Mullins, of the same caliber and higher,
offering suit. He wants to pick a husband for his sister
from among those most profitable for his family and for
his own future aspirations (L4 51). He wants the power
to approve or disapprove her match. He does not want
that power in his sister's hands, or in his father's.
Again, Clarissa confesses to Anna the power shift in her
family, consulting James, Jr., for everything:
'How will my son, how will my nephew, take this
or that measure? What will he say to it? Let
us consult him about it,' are the references
always previous to every resolution taken by
his superiors, whose will ought to be his.
Well may he expect to be treated with his

deference by every other person, when my papa
himself, generally so absolute, constantly pays
it to him. . . . (L5 54)
James, Jr., proposes that Clarissa and Arabella get
hefty portions (allotments of money offered instead of
dower by the family of the prospective bride). Clarissa,
additionally, is offered a large jointure as a temptation
to marry Solmes. Clarissa writes, "Such terms, such
settlements" (L8 61) ! The beauty of portions and
jointures was that they involved money as well as
property not in tail; thus, representative males from
both families could negotiate and agree on amounts rather
than have the future husband's family be at the mercy of
a bride's family to proffer an unknown amount of money or
an extraordinary parcel of land for dower. Solmes
sweetens the deal by making a jointure of his estate,
allowing Clarissa to inherit most of his property at his
death, should he die first. Ironically, had she married
Solmes and then become a widow inheriting his property,
she would have inherited much more than a dairy house.
Her family saw no problem with her inheriting land in
that way; she was just not allowed to inherit land away
from James, or while she was still young and unmarried.

Clarissa's grandfather recounts the wealth of the
Harlowe men in the Preamble of his will. In fact, much
of the Harlowe wealth, it seems, comes from Clarissa's
mother, Mrs. Charlotte Harlowe. According to Janine
Barchas, Charlotte Harlowe's class differentiates her
from the Harlowe men. While their ambitions aim toward
the aristocratic, Mrs. Harlowe stands above them; she is
aristocratic (28). She is the daughter of a viscount;
yet, she will be condemned by Anna Howe for having "long
behaved unworthy of her birth and fine qualities (L27
133) . Marrying James Harlowe, Sr., Charlotte Harlowe
loses her estates, her name, her power and her voice. At
the same time, she remains unacknowledged, even by
Grandfather Harlowe, for her contribution to "raising the
family. "
As more inherited property, more settlements were
made at the marriage of an eldest son, as was done in the
strict settlement of James Harlowe, Sr., resettling the
Harlowe estate in favor of his son and namesake. In
this, Richardson followed the historical model of the
landed gentry as well as the development of strict
settlement throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. His history of the rise of the Harlowe family

fits with legal developments outlined by Eileen Spring
(Law, Land and Family 123-147).
By the time Clarissa Harlowe's history is written,
strict settlement had become such an important watchword
for her family that the terms of her grandfather's old-
fashioned will cause profound changes in their ability to
communicate with each other. Anna Howe opens the novel
by mentioning the "disturbances that have happened in
your family" (L1 39). Clarissa acknowledges these
disruptions, telling Anna, "Our family has indeed been
strangely discomposed . . . [It] has been in tumults,
ever since the unhappy transaction" (L2 41).
So pervasive are the disruptive powers of settlement
language that the family power structure suffers almost
immediately. Clarissa's father, a man immersed in the
language and mechanics of inheritance, signals the first
shift, telling his family he will wait until his son
arrives before giving his opinion regarding Robert
Lovelace's desire to court Clarissa. He is "desirous to
prevent all occasions of disunion and animosity in [my]
family" (L3 45). In reality, the reader finds Mr.
Harlowe will no longer make a family decision without
first consulting his son. Soon, his son makes all family

decisions, decisions which ultimately lead to the demise
of the Harlowe family and estate.
Eaves and Kimpel point out that even a "selfish
brother" and an "envious sister" would not have been able
to accomplish anything had Mr. Harlowe been in control of
his family and defended Clarissa. Mr. Harlowe is the
only character in the novel "entirely inadequate for the
role he has to play, and the fact that he is present
largely in name only leaves a serious gap in the first
two volumes" (Eaves and Kimpel 250-251).
We must judge Mr. Harlowe, however, as a silent
character whose authority is compromised by the
disruptive nature of settlements made on estates. He is
tenant for life until James, Jr., marries and resettles
the Harlowe estate, at which time, James, Jr., will
bequeath the Harlowe estate to his future eldest son, and
like his father, will become tenant for life. Until
James, Jr.'s, own son comes of age and marries, allowing
the estate to come up for resettlement, James, Jr., not
his father, has control of the burgeoning Harlowe
estates. The estate was resettled and put under his
control at his majority and will again be resettled at
his marriage, as we know from the epilogue. The family,
however, should not be under the control of the younger

Harlowe. Mr. Harlowe, Sr., should be in charge of his
family, but Richardson's point would have been well taken
by his contemporaries: The power of land and money goes
well beyond its natural reach and even the eldest male
Harlowe is powerless to stop it.
Strict settlement helped to perpetuate landed
estates by placing an entire estate in the hands of an
eldest son. When he came to marriage or majority, the
eldest son became "owner" of the property. The father of
an eldest son became "tenant for life," below his in
authority to manage the estate, but not limited in his
portion of rents. He and his son would then resettle the
estate on the as-yet-unborn son of the marriage, or
future marriage, of the eldest son. As the next "tenant
for life," the son would only be limited in his power by
not being allowed to sell any or all lands in his
possession that are associated with the estate (Sugarman
37). Because James, Jr., had reached majority before
marriage, the estate was resettled on him, and he is
effectively in charge of Harlowe Place when the novel
begins.
Richardson highlights a major sticking point of
strict settlement, pointedly remarking on more than one
occasion about the elder Harlowe deferring to the opinion

of the young Harlowe in matters concerning family as well
as estates. Clarissa tells Anna Howe that her father
will "determine nothing without his son" (L3 46). She
later tells Anna that James has had a terrible temper
since childhood and her parents deferred to him at an
early age, as he was "an only son who was to build up the
name and augment the honour of it" (L13 80). His youth
is eerily similar to that of Lovelacefs, as are his
abilities as an estate manager. James, Jr., and Lovelace
are excellent estate managers, accruing a great deal of
independent power through their skills and shady social
practices. James Harlowe, Jr., is a product of the
disruptive energy of inheritance as it exercises its
power on family relationships and personal decision-
making. Angus Ross states that Jamesf s amassing of
property for the Harlowe estate is what has driven James,
Sr., unnaturally to resign his power as head of the
family to the rash and thrusting heir ("Introduction" 20-
21). This is in part true, but his inheritance through
strict settlement also serves to endow the younger
Harlowe with many of the patriarchal rights of a father,
and so James, Jr.'s actions are not quite as unnatural as
Ross would like to assume. He is head of the estate and

empowered as such to make all decisions regarding the
running of the manor and the lands.
The unnaturalness of the Harlowe family situation is
not James, Jr.'s possession and control of the family
estate, but his financial need to control his sister, who
should still be under the jurisdiction of his father.
Richardson deliberately makes young Harlowe a fanatical
tyrant. He writes Aaron Hill that he is not sure he made
the family's treatment of Clarissa or the antagonistic
nature of her brother and sister's instigation of the
rest of the family's resentment toward her clear and
apparent enough for his readers (Selected Letters 74).
Richardson did make apparent, however, the possibility of
shifts in power when resettlement of an estate occurs.
James, Jr., becomes what Lawrence Stone calls
"influential kin," one of the " 'friends' . . . who often
assumed the right of the control or veto [in marriage]
and were in a position to enforce their will by granting
or withholding favors, be it money, house, property or
good will . . . " (15) . Desire for property and rank
consumes James, Jr., as it does his father and uncles.
Clarissa writes Anna, "I have more than once mentioned to
you the darling view some of us have long had of raising
a family . . . A view . . . entertained by families which

having great substance, cannot be satisfied without rank
and title" (L13 77).
Solmes is James's perfect choice for Clarissa's
husband because his land adjoins Harlowe Place. James,
Jr., and the rest of the family are exuberant at the
thought. James abides by and believes in the language of
strict settlement, saying that all realty should pass to
the eldest son and portions of the remaining personalty
should go to the other siblings. According to Clarissa,
James, as the eldest son, feels he should inherit all the
realty, grandfathers', father's, unclesr, and all others'
that should fall to him, such as his godmother's estate.
He also manipulates family sentiment in order to inherit
the remainder of the personal estate after the two
sisters are portioned with ten or fifteen thousand
apiece. He is sure all of the land and personalty left
after settling his sisters' portions and his motherrs
jointure will be enough to entitle him to a peerage (L13
77).
David Sugarman underscores the validity of James,
Jr.'s thinking, arguing that strict settlement, adopted
in earnest after the Civil War, developed as a legal
device to preserve and develop great landed estates and
helped to accentuate the centrality of property and the

politics of propertied power well into the nineteenth
century (37-38) . Rita Goldberg notes that those
eighteenth-century families owning the most property were
often the most politically powerful. It is Goldberg's
view that many of these families aspired to that kind of
power (53). Richardson provides the Harlowes as an
example of one of those families.
Lovelace and His Legacy
Richardson complicates further his already
convoluted plot with Robert Lovelace. A master of legal
language, more so him than the Harlowe men, Lovelace is a
consummate inheritor. Unlike the Harlowe men who depend
on a woman's inheritance and title to found their family,
Lovelace depends on his wealth coming directly from minor
aristocracy. His description is couched in terms of
inheritance. He was, "unused it seems from childhood to
check or control-a case too common in considerable
families," who "received from everyone those civilities
which were due to his birth" (L3 46). Later still, he is
described as a "generous landlord" choosing to "limit
himself to an annual sum," declining even equipage and
carriage in order to keep himself out of debt to his

aunts and uncles, and having an estate "never mortgaged,"
living with excellent credit, and 'he was near upon, if
not quite, clear of the world" (L4 50) .
Lovelace exemplifies the young aristocrat disturbed
by the intrusion of the merchant gentry into his realm of
power and authority through the sheer force of their
money. He also exemplifies the destructive forces at
work in primogeniture and strict settlement. When
painting Lovelace so deliberately, Richardson had access
to many of those in such positions. George Brodrick
points out one darker aspect of this type of inheritance,
observing that an unfriendly critic once spoke of
primogeniture as a tendency to "establish in the center
of each family a magnificently fed and coloured drone,
the incarnation of wealth and social dignity, the visible
end of human endeavour, a sort of great Final Cause"
(qtd. in Brodrick 113). Lovelace fits the bill as a
"great Final Cause." Lovelace is the last of his line,
desperate to succeed to his uncle's title in order to
keep up the tradition and heritage of his family. If he
does not marry well, there is a good chance that the
Lovelace family name and estates will pass to the
husbands of his half-sisters.

Lovelace is proud, and Richardson refers repeatedly
to his yearning for superiority (Eaves and Kimpel 267).
Title and inheritance, not money, were the watchwords for
his type of aristocracy. Many of Lovelace's class were
land poor and alarmed that the rising merchant gentry
could not only eat up their estates, but also could sully
the purity of their noble lines by marrying into
aristocratic families. Lovelace is unique to his class
in that he watches his pennies, keeping himself out of
debt. However, he typically envies the unlimited supply
of merchant money while cinching in his own belt.
For all his possessions, Lovelace was in much the
same position as James Harlowe, Jr. Both actively sought
titles they believed they deserved. Lovelace did not
inherit his father's title, nor could he inherit his
uncle's; Lord M. could not bestow it on him, either.
Lovelace would have to earn it through land and money,
and, most likely, marriage. The rules for inheritance
regarding land and money were very different in the
eighteenth century than in any other time, past or
present (Habbakuk 41). The House of Commons was made up
mostly from the landed gentry, prosperous merchants,
businessmen, and professionals. Though the members of
the Commons often held titles, they were inferior

socially to the aristocracy. Some had been titled by the
monarchy in exchange for a vote on a specific bill the
monarchy needed to be passed. Economically, however,
the members of the House of Commons were more powerful
than the House of Lords. About one-fifth of the House of
Commons was related to peerage or was bound closely to it
through ties of marriage (Speck 16).
Lord M. was not hereditary nobility; he was
gentrified nobility, and by the beginning of the
nineteenth century, landed gentry finally had been
excluded from inherited titles completely. The Crown
would confer his title, upon his death, once more.
Lovelace had to inherit his uncle's estate and his half-
sistersf estates and marry well in order to be considered
for Lord M.'s title. The Crown need not confer it to a
male relation, which made Lovelace even more urgently
desperate to receive it. Clarissa relates her uncle
Antony's conversation with Lord M. to Anna:
Lord M. told him what great things he and his
two half-sisters intended to do for him, in
order to qualify him for the title (which would
be extinct at his Lordship's death) and which
they hoped to procure for him, or a still
higher, that of those ladiesf father, which had

een for some time extinct on failure of heirs
male; that this view made his relations so
earnest for his marrying . . . [. 1 (L13 79)
The more land he acquired before the death of his uncle
the better his chances for having either of the titles
conferred. The right wife would make his life and his
quest much easier.
As a young man, Lovelace suffered the effects of
courtship for a title. He relates to Belford that he
"could not bear that a woman, who was the first that had
bound me in silken fetters . . . should prefer a coronet
to me . . ." (L31 144) . He vowed revenge on all women.
Young Lovelace was turned down for a title. Love meant
nothing; title everything. Lovelace's quest for his
title began in his youth, spurred by the heartache of
unrequited love. The language of title, or inheritance,
of marriage and settlements was so pervasive in his youth
that it tainted for life his view of virtue and womanhood
and dramatically illustrates the affective power it held
in the eighteenth century. Lovelace was not scorned for
another; he was scorned for a title.
When Robert Lovelace is introduced to the Harlowe
family, the language Richardson uses has a distinctive
legal tone. Clarissafs uncle tells us of Lovelacefs

"paternal estate," and relates that Lovelace "was
immediate heir to very splendid fortunes," and if his
inheritance were coupled with what Clarissa could bring
to their marriage, Lovelace would be conferred Lord M.'s
title or higher and "Clarissa might one day be a peeress
of Great Britain" (L13 79).
Lovelace voices the same sentiments to Belford,
telling him that he had made inroads with Clarissa's
uncle, who will be his ambassador to "Queen Annabella
Harlowe, to engage her (for example sake) to her
princessly daughter . . ." (L31 145) . He readily takes
up the language of inheritance and rises to the occasion
of winning over Clarissa as a kind of estate auction
competition between Solmes, son James, and himself: "But
was ever hero in romance . . . called upon to harder
trials! Fortune and family and reversionary grandeur on
my side! Such a wretched fellow my competitor!" (L31
146) . Indeed, James, Jr., tells Clarissa that Lovelace
"says you are his, and shall be his, and he will be the
death of any man who robs him of his PROPERTY" (L52.1
223).
Lovelace's underlying motivation for revenge on the
fair sex is revealed in legal terms when he speaks of
Clarissa: "Until by matrimonial or equal intimacies I

have found her less than an angel, it is impossible to
think of any other" (L31 147). His sexual objective is
couched euphemistically in the high-flown language of
lawyers and businessmen: "Matrimonial or equal
intimaciesr' smacks of the cold, calculating language of a
contract.
Lovelace's goal at the beginning of the novel is to
marry well in order to retain his family title. Because
he concentrates on marriage settlement and the legal
issues of marriage to the right woman, he is able to
override the bad feelings he generates in the Harlowe
family. There is uproar at Harlowe Place when he
arrives, which Aunt Hervey overlooks because he is such a
good estate manager and he is so rich, so handsome and so
charming (L4, 48, 50). Because his wealth and station
whitewash his less than stellar reputation, Lovelace is
able to ingratiate himself everywhere and anywhere,
including Harlowe Place. He sets his sights on Clarissa,
and had James not intervened when he did, Clarissa might
well have become Lady Lovelace with the full blessing of
her family. Even Clarissa understands Lovelace's
formidable powers: "Mr. Lovelace is not a man to be
easily brought to give up his purposerr (L4 51).

Clarissa knows well that Lovelace has outdone her
brother, both socially and legally. Lovelace's family is
already titled and known among the peerage, and Lovelace
won the duel with her brother. Lovelace now has the
legal right to extract apology or other payment from
James for the inconvenience that the duel has caused him.
The duel settled the superficial charges James, Jr.,
accused him of, but the loser still has to pay a debt.
Clarissa will be part of the debt Lovelace wants James to
pay. He tells Belford: " . . . I am playing him off as I
please; cooling, or inflaming, his violent passions, as
may best suit my purposes . . ." (L31 144). Lovelace
uses legal language, including settlement and inheritance
language, better than any male member of the Harlowe
family. He is quicker and shrewder than James, Jr., can
imagine. In the opening letters retelling the duel
between the two, it is obvious that Lovelace is the easy
winner.
The irony of Clarissa's sturdy individual will is
that it leads to her impending social ruin, the loss of
her innocence, and her death before she can share her
virtue and talents with the world (Suarez 79). James
uses the power of his inheritance to silence his father
and mother and to attempt to subdue Clarissa. He does

not yet use physical force, knowing his power lies in his
ability to manipulate his family through his words and
wealth. Lovelace will easily apply the language he knows
well to each member of the Harlowe family. Not only is
James, Sr., vulnerable to his words, but so also, in
turn, are James, Jr., and the two uncles. Clarissa
herself is led through the garden gate by the force of
Lovelace's language, not his physical strength. The
jumble of words opposing and subverting themselves makes
it difficult to discern who or what is the real cause of
Clarissa's death. One can point to Lovelace or James,
Jr., or even to Grandfather Harlowe and his will. One
could even point to Clarissa's own obstinate individual
will. Whatever the true combination may be, inheritance
language and practices weigh heavily in the end.
The Howe and Harlowe Women
While the Harlowe men and Lovelace jockey for
influence over Clarissa, the women of Harlowe Place and
of the Howe household are playing out the effects of
settlement practice in their own ways. Charlotte
Harlowe, Clarissa' s mother, seems the ideal eighteenth-
century mother. As a new wife, she was the "worthy

daughter of both sides of very honourable families," who
brought a "very large portion" to her marriage, and who,
with the unexpected death of several of her relations,
brought her husband even more riches (L4 53). Her
marriage into the Harlowe family presents the "specific
social and economic calculations" that solidified an
alliance and enhanced the economic position of the
Harlowe family (Boxer and Quartaert 36). In other words,
Mrs. Harlowe was instrumental, if not fundamental, in the
first attempts of the Harlowe family to "raise" itself.
Lovelace tells Belford, "Everybody knows Harlowe
Place-for, like Versailles, it is sprung up from a
dunghill within every elderly personf s remembrance" (L34
161). The infancy of Harlowe Place, one can speculate,
is at least a partial result of the portion Charlotte
Harlowe brought to her marriage. Clarissa tells us her
mother brought more than just money to her marriage,
complaining that should her mother but "exert that
authority which the superiority of her fine talents gives
her," things might then be calmer at Harlowe Place (L5
54) . Nevertheless, Mrs. Harlowe' s talents are secondary
to family, as well as patriarchal, will.
Vivien Jones illuminates the precarious nature of
female authority in an eighteenth-century family by

elating the story of the Marchioness Lambert, a
relatively well-known member of the peerage during
Richardson's lifetime. She writes to her daughters after
her particularly messy divorce, telling them, "One should
keep up authority in one's family, but it should be a
mild authority" (Young Ladies Pocket Library 184) .
Indeed, Mrs. Harlowe learns the lesson of "mild
authority" early in her marriage. Anna Howe asks
Clarissa, "What must have been [your mamaf s] treatment,
to be thus subjugated, as I may call it" (L27 132) ? She
goes on, relating Annabella Harlowe's history:
Little did the good Viscount think, when he
married his darling, his only, daughter to so
well-appearing a gentleman, and to her own
liking, too, that she would have been so much
kept down. Another would call your father a
tyrant, if you will not; all the world indeed
would; and if you love your mother, you should
not be very angry at the world for taking that
liberty. (L27 132,133)
Clarissa confesses to Anna that had her mother been of "a
temper that would have borne less, she would have had ten
times less to bear than she had" (L5 54). Paradoxically,
Clarissa also know that had her mother kept up her

"authority," Clarissa herself may not have had to suffer
as she does at the hands of her father and brother. She
tells Anna that her mother "never thought to oppose" her
husband, and though he and the rest of the family value
her, "she has purchased that value by her compliances"
(L13 82). Money, either married or inherited, means
power for men, while money for women, either through
marriage or through portions, means compliance and
subjugation to a "mild authority."
Mrs. Harlowe's realm as a mother is to keep the
house running smoothly, raise and educate her children.
Inheritance language choked the Harlowe household into
silence, and Mrs. Harlowe was among the first to feel its
disruptive power. Richardson hints at the decline in her
"domestic authority" in a letter to Aaron Hill:
Such a character as the Mother's, I have known:
an excellent woman, kept down by the violent
and overbearing temper of a Husband; and even
of a son joining with his Father; and neither
of them having half her own Sense, and no good
qualities at all. By Lovelace's sending his
unopen'd Letter to her, as you put it, and her
privately giving it to her daughter, I saw a

necessity to alter her whole Character from
what I had drawn it . . . .(Correspondence 79)
Mrs. Harlowe is Clarissa's model. She is what good
women become when they obey their patriarchal masters,
suffering under an obedience often not coming easily or
unencumbered. Highlighting her uneasiness, Richardson
casts Mrs. Harlowe as ill during the beginning of the
family upheaval. Charlotte Harlowe is often in tears as
she tries to persuade her daughter to comply with family
wishes that she marry Solmes. Clarissa relates that her
mother opposes sending Clarissa to Scotland to care for
her brother's newly-acquired estate, "because, having
relieved [Mrs. Harlowe], as she is pleased to say, of the
household cares (for which my sister, you know, has no
turn) they must again devolve upon her if I go" (L6 56).
Mrs. Harlowe is a woman of exceptional birth whose
marriage into the Harlowe family has tempered her
resolve. Clarissa sums up her mother's place in the
family in a postscript to Anna, saying, "Sir Oliver's
observation, who knew the world perfectly well, [was]
that fear was a better security than love for a woman's
good behaviour to her husband" (L41 187).
Further, Dr. Gregory and other conduct writers are
adamant that a woman must always retain herself as keeper

of her house, for it is her duty. It is a matter of
honor. Clarissa's mother has obviously come to some
crucial turning point, giving Clarissa the keys to her
house, and, in effect, giving up her power over the
household. Clarissa relates to Anna:
The contentions of these fierce, these
masculine spirits, and the apprehension of
mischiefs that may arise from the increasing
animosity which all here have against Mr.
Lovelace, and his too-well known resentful and
intrepid character, she cannot bear. Then the
foundation laid, as she dreads, for jealousy
and heartburning in her own family, late so
happy and so united, afflict exceedingly a
gentle and sensible mind, which has from the
beginning on all occasions sacrificed its own
inward satisfaction to outward peace. (L5 54)
The last section of the paragraph is most revealing, for
Clarissa urgently wants her mother to exert her
"authority." Unfortunately, James, Sr. s, gout, the
family ambitions, and the constant feuding of James and
Arabella have worn down Mrs. Harlowe. By the time
Clarissa writes her next letter to Anna, the protection
and guidance of her mother's "authority" is gone: "Could

you believe it?-And they are all determined too; my
mamma with the rest!" (L7 58).
While Mrs. Harlowe sinks deeper and deeper into
silence, Mrs. Howe continues to be well able to speak, in
part due to the absence of a dominant male voice in her
household. Although her marriage had been the product of
the same system that married Mrs. Harlowe, Mrs. Howe's
husband died young. She, like Charlotte Harlowe,
suffered from the ill temper of her husband, for Anna
tells Clarissa that Mrs. Howe "was very sensible . . . of
the violence of my poor Papa's temper, that she can so
long remember that, when acts of tenderness and affection
seem quite forgotten" (L132 475). Anna speculates that
her mother exerts a heavy hand with her because she was
under the same heavy hand when her husband was living
(L132 475). Mrs. Howe experienced the trials of
marriage, as did Charlotte Harlowe; but, while Charlotte
must endure them still, Mrs. Howe experiences independent
success after the death of her husband, becoming a
"notable wife," one who could put to use her considerable
talents that were wasted during marriage (L132 475).
Mrs. Howe's jointure was enough after the death of her
husband to allow her to continue to live in her home and

to remain unfettered by another will or the will of
another husband.
Mrs. Howe retains control of her daughter's
correspondence, and she is more than happy to advise and
consent on Clarissa's behavior, as well. Correspondence,
both written and spoken, is a lively, ongoing event in
her house. "My momma charged me, at last, to write that
side over again," relates Anna in a letter to Clarissa,
reporting in detail the running side commentary that goes
along with the mother/daughter exchanges (L27 131). What
a stark difference from the hushed silence of the Harlowe
household, which is shattered only with the ranting of
James, Jr., and Arabella!
When Anna Howe marries the outrageously patient
Hickman, a man seemingly devoid of the petulance and
patriarchal tendencies of the original Mr. Howe,
Lovelace, and the overbearing Harlowe men, Anna does not
give up her independence. Belford relates to Lovelace
that Clarissa's Poor Fund will remain intact thanks to
Anna, since she oversees it while Clarissa is alive and
since then she has made Hickman agree not to ask for any
changes in her habits when they married ("Conclusion"
1492).

The comic relief Richardson brings to Clarissa
through the relationship of Anna Howe and her mother
certainly amused the contemporary reading public.
However, the subtle irony of their situation serves to
enhance the deplorable situation in which Clarissa's
parents have placed her, and in which they themselves
live. While Anna has no father, Clarissa's father has
given over his power and voice to his son, leaving
Clarissa also, in a sense, without a father. While
Anna's mother is constantly butting in, giving advice and
arguing, Clarissa's mother is mute, silenced by the
family "will" to achieve greatness. In a letter to Lady
Bradshaigh, Richardson hopes there were many mothers,
who, faced with trials and hardships, would still do
right by their families, citing that Clarissa, by doing
the duties expected of her as a daughter, brought to
light what a parent's duty ought to be (Correspondence
92-93).
Clarissa as Inheritor
Rita Goldberg sums up Clarissa's position at the
beginning of her story succinctly, relating that in
"marriage cases lineage and wealth are guaranteed by

divine commandment" (100). The Harlowe family commands
Clarissa to give up the dairy house as well as her dream
of remaining single to marry Solmes, thereby making all
the Harlowe males happy. Land is everything to them, the
stepping-stone to family greatness. Marriage is an
economic transaction for the betterment of the family,
not the individual. Unfortunately for Clarissa, marriage
has not yet become a social institution of love and
independent choice.
The inheritance language that paralyzes and confuses
the rest of Clarissa's family, in the hands of James,
Jr., becomes disruptive enough to translate into an
extreme demand from him through her parents: Marry
Solmes or else. Clarissa is forced to take action
against their wishes. Richardson aptly provides Clarissa
with a force of will at a time when general thinking
concluded that the wisdom and guidance of parents would
never command a child to do anything harmful for the
child (Goldberg 101). In exchange, children were to be
obedient to their parents since they were always looking
out for the welfare of their children; the divine right
of the family was to protect the family lineage and
interests and to accrue wealth.

Clarissa Harlowe found that the Bible that ordains
parental control over children also ordains forgiveness
of her tormentors and provides her with a language that
overrides the legal and familial language that hounds her
for the last year of her life. Clarissa wills away her
secular trappings and inherits the Kingdom of God. Not
suited to the bonds of earthly marriage, she becomes a
bride of Christ. The mundane passing on of earthly
wealth and name cannot touch her one true language, a
language that allows her to find her Father in Heaven,
the true father who carries on a dialogue with her, an
inner narrative, and who teaches her the true meaning of
obedience and faith, allowing her to inherit the Kingdom
of Heaven.
The language of inheritance, however, does not end
with the demise of Clarissa Harlowe. Its power rages on
to the conclusion of the novel, involving itself directly
with the fates of all the other characters. Lovelace's
family grieves his death because he was the last male of
the line. With his death, the family dies ("Conclusion"
1489) . James, Jr., defies his father and mother once
again and marries into endless court battles trying to
realize a tenuous claim on his wife's portion of an as-
yet-unsettled estate. His life is consumed and ruined by

inheritance language and practice ("Conclusion 1489).
Arabella, also, marries for a title, and her husband
marries her for her fortune. Her marriage causes a
falling out with her brother, and she finds herself
unhappily alone with a husband who leads a "free" life.
Her title, portion, all, are useless in bringing her
happiness and comfort in marriage (Conclusion 1490).
Arabella's unhappiness and inability to remove herself
from her situation show the reader what very well may
have happened to her mother. Solmes remains Solmes, a
man in continuous wonder that no woman will have him no
matter how vast his wealth and estates ("Conclusion"
1490) .
References to estates, titles, portions and
settlements are so pervasive, even through the conclusion
of the novel, that one cannot possibly mistake the power
of inheritance language as it plays itself out in the
pages of Clarissa. Clarissa Harlowe is the unfortunate
heiress of more than just a dairy house. She is the
embodiment of a legally bound woman, specially selected
to enhance a family estate. She is a woman of beauty,
grace and charm, hunted down in order to expand by one
the patriarchal lineage of England.

Conclusion
A confluence of settlement events disrupts the
Harlowe family, a family that Clarissa describes as happy
before the opening of her grandfather's will. The
controversy hardens the will of James, Jr., to make his
sister conform to the patrilineal and patriarchal power
of the family. Inheritance language disrupts the
communication of the Harlowe family. Clarissa' s
temperament, her penchant for charity and her love of the
simple life are all in direct conflict with strict
settlement practice and patriarchal inheritance power.
The overriding male/political discourse that would
normally determine the direction of her life has been
undermined not only by her wish to live a simple life
alone, forsaking the value of her body, but also by the
power given to her through her grandfather's legacy.
If Clarissa wants to live in the dairy house, she
must not only defy her father, but she must also resist
all social pressure to conform to family wishes. Her
grandfather' s "unconformable will" grants her a legacy,
but public thinking decrees she should have no inherited
right to the house. Her grandfather' s and her own
"unconformity" are pressing against her. Yet, J.P.

Cooper suggests that not all of a landowner's property
was subject to strict settlement, and the tradition of
dealing freely with one's own acquisitions and land
survived in the eighteenth century (228). That the
Harlowe family rejects entirely the idea of leaving any
piece of property out of the hands of James, Jr., is
testament to the over-zealous greed for land and title
Richardson saw so clearly in society around him.
The force of public opinion regarding settlement
overpowers the traditional prerogative of Clarissa's
grandfather to do as he pleases with his property.
Clarissa inherits more than just realty from him. She
receives his penchant for individuality and independent
will. What is more, because written wills were private
documents, her inheritance is a private act, and a
surprise to everyone, including her family. Strict
settlement was a public act, with everyone knowing the
order of inheritance and the land and characters involved
(Spring Law, Land and Family 146). This same private act
visits public humiliation, not only on Clarissa, but also
on the family. One of Anna Howe's first concerns is that
Clarissa and her family are hurt by becoming the "subject
of public talk," for it is "impossible but that whatever
relates to a young lady, whose distinguished merits have

made her the public care, should engage everyone's
attention" (L1 39).
Clarissaf s inheritance restricts any filial
imperative she may feel toward the "raising" of her
family. One cannot discount her power even after she
gives managerial dispensation for the dairy house to her
father. Her brother's intuitive knowledge of her power
contributes to his usurpation of his father's voice and
power over the family. Letter 24 is an excellent example
of how James gains control. In the letter, Clarissa
reproduces for Anna a letter from James. It begins, "By
your papa's and mama's command . . ." and ends ominously
with, "If anything I have written appears severe or
harsh, it is still in your power (but perhaps will not
always be so) to remedy it . . ." (L24.1 120-121) . James
attributes the restrictions spelled out for Clarissa in
this letter to his mother and father, but Clarissa is
quick to answer James, acknowledging his orders, his
power (L 24.2 121) . Three letters later, Anna Howe also
recognizes James's authority: "Your insolent brother,
what has - he to do to control you" (L27 129). When James
Harlowe, Sr., loses his parental voice and his
patriarchal authority to this son, Clarissa must make her
stand. Not only has the man who should have the guidance

of her future been silenced, but so also has her true
inheritance, her merchant upbringing, with its drive and
creativity and puritan work ethic. Miguel Suarez notes,
"The plot of Clarissa essentially consists of a single
iterated action: the heroine says 'nof to those who want
to persuade or compel her to assent" (69).
In many ways, the language of the family and the
language of the law insinuate themselves into each other
rather than against each other so that the meaning of
"will" is continually disrupted and becomes, at best,
ambiguous. Clarissa's inheritance of an independent will
allows her to leave as her legacy her ability to say
"no." For Clarissa, the cultural dynamic that occurs
when the power of inheritance clashes with family
expectations and individual objects profoundly affects
the subjective dynamic that, as Ian Parker states, "tears
at our sense of self as discourses use us" (xiii).
Driven out of her family into the arms of a rake who
installs her in a brothel, then drives her into
seclusion, Clarissa comes to realize that the only
effective way to communicate with her family is through
their own language, in a will. Writing her will is an
act she describes as "coolly deliberate" on her part, an
obligation that she for some time has undertaken, so that

had she been "taken off" suddenly, she would never have
been "absolutely destitute of a will" (L507 1412). Her
"will" is italicized, showing a deliberateness on the
part of Richardson and his heroine to acknowledge the
multinomial nature of the world the blurred meanings that
occur when language and culture overlap. Clarissa proves
throughout the novel that she is aware and capable of
using language to her advantage.
Mona Scheuermann points out that Clarissa's use of
legal language is "remarkable" and that perhaps
Richardson just "lost sight of the age and status of his
heroine" (73) . Clarissa' s legal language accounts for
her dealings with the "unconformity" of her grandfather's
will, as well as the influence of strict settlement and
wills on her brother and the rest of the family. The
only language they want to understand is legal. Clarissa
understands them, for she makes her father executor of
her will rather than her brother and/or sister, knowing
that should they survive James Harlowe, Sr., then all
will devolve to them by "virtue of his favour and
indulgence, as the circumstances of things with regard to
marriage settlements of otherwise may require" (L507
1413-1414). She knows also her Uncle John had been upset
that she was willed the family portraits by Grandfather

Harlowe. Clarissa smoothes his resentment by willing the
pictures to him (L507 1414).
Scheuermann also observes that Clarissa' s wealth is
considerable, and as a single woman she has control of
her own property, adding up to a great deal indeed, but
still not giving her power or independence. The stigma
is social: "Clarissa could enter litigation and be free,
but good girls die first" (77-78). Richardson implies,
deliberately or not, that the effect of the
"unconformable will" upon Clarissa and her family is a
disruption of her life and their lives; however, the
disruption also enables Clarissa to use her knowledge of
inheritance language to perfect a "conformable will" at
the end of her life, something that her family is never
able to do.
Thus, Grandfather Harlowefs paper will becomes the
obstacle to her brother's individual and socially
endorsed will to obtain a title. In pushing Clarissa to
give up her dairy house, James, Jr., runs against
Clarissafs individual will and her ability to say no. As
Suarez so aptly observes, "Clarissafs 'Nof is an attempt
to assert her own autonomy, to secure her right to a will
of her own" (69).

Clarissars physical imprisonment in Harlowe Place,
at Mrs. Sinclairrs household, and ultimately, at her
apartments with Mrs. Smith is a metaphor for the legal
prison she is confined to after her grandfather wills her
the dairy house. Her will takes on layers of meaning,
from the dairy house will, to her individual will, to her
growing will to defy her brother, to her final will to
die and will away her earthly goods. The meaning becomes
confounded, and each meaning blends and takes on the
identity of the others as Clarissa flees through the
garden gate toward her tragic end.

Chapter Three
Advising Ms. Anville: The Language of Mentors and
Guardians in Burney's Evelina
Introduction
Frances Burneyf s preface to Evelina announces her
intention "[to] draw characters from nature, though not
from life, and to mark the manners of the times . . . I/
(7). Her words echo Johnson's definition of the "new
realistic novel." Johnsonf s definition and his praise of
Burneyf s first novel bring newly diverse perspectives to
a story often regarded as a novel of manners.
Evelina, however, is more than a novel of manners;
it is also an inheritance novel. Evelina depends on
inheritance language and settlement. Marriage practice
and inheritance settlements cluttered Burney's own life,
as well as those of her family. Inheritance language
figures prominently in the ability of Burney's characters

to function; and the heroine, Evelina Anville, is judged
throughout the novel by her ability to inherit.
Inheritance language and settlement practice work
differently, and in a more sinister way, in Evelina than
in Clarissa. In Clarissa, the reader easily discerns the
"good guys" and the "bad guys." The same is not true in
Evelina. The controlling factors of Evelina' s
inheritance-her "mysterious birth, " her reticent
guardian, and her own seeming arnbivalence-inask the
motivations and actions of supposed "good guys," while
concealing the efforts of characters who seem perverse or
unconventional. Characters in novels such as Evelina
cannot be gauged as good or bad by what they say. While
the characters in Clarissa use inheritance language with
proficiency, they disguise their motives and objectives.
The characters in Evelina, on the other hand, do
intentionally distort the terms of inheritance in order
to disguise their motives and mask their true characters.
While Richardson's experience with the legal side of
strict settlement is apparent in his charactersf use of
its language, Burney's own involvement is much more
personal, thus manifesting itself more subtly within her
work . Burneyfs diaries and letters are full of
situations and outcomes stemming from inheritance and its

effect on women. Burney writes about the effect of
strict settlement more from personal revelation than from
a strictly legal point of view. Judith Lowder Newton
posits that Burney's close association with the great,
her "association with courtly fiction," and her
"idealization of genteel women" allow her to accept the
"rule of landed men" and make genteel women's plight seem
more "endurable" (34) . However, Newton does not
elaborate on Burney's display of genteel women as
merchandise in the marriage market. Her consistent
portrayal of Evelina as an "un-moneyed" object of men of
the merchant as well as of the upper classes is
foundational to any desire Burney may have had to
acquiesce to the merchant and upper class patriarchal
need to commodify women. Burney's desire is to prove
Evelina' s ultimate right to inherit, no matter what her
superficial circumstance. The extrinsic quality upper
class eighteenth-century society looks for in women of
marriageable position may be "endurable," but Burney
proves through Evelina that the individual quality of a
woman is ultimately the mark by which society should
judge her.
Burney's reluctance to claim authorship of Evelina
is indicative of the dominance of patriarchal thinking in

the eighteenth century. Virtuous daughters did not claim
authorship, a form of authority, in a male realm.
Virtuous daughters submitted to male authority, giving
even their names and their identity over to the name and
the identity of their husbands. Daughters submitted to
male authority by trading one patrilineal name for
another. Even by using her father's surname, Frances
Burney would be treading over the line of authority had
she published without her father's permission. Susan
Greenfield illustrates Burney's ambivalence over
authorship through Burney' s hesitation to let her father,
Charles Burney, know that she had published Evelina.
Greenfield tells us that Burney's dedication suggests,
"that at the time of Evelinaf s publication, namelessness
also had personal significanceff (304).
Burney, mother and guardian of her earlier youthful
creation, burned the History of Caroline Evelyn, spurred
by the disparaging remarks of her stepmother. According
to Margaret Anne Doody, Burney believed the idea of
eighteenth-century society, including her father and the
second Mrs. Burney, that female writing was "shameful, "
something to be "overcome or subdued"; it was "wrong"
(Introduction viii) . Her "shameful" scribbling was not
"overcome" or "subdued, " however, and she produced

Evelina Anville, as much Burney's child as Caroline
Evelyn's. Indeed, in Frances Burney: The Life in the
Works, Doody states that '[Iln 1814 Frances can remind
her father that such shame was absurd, and that her
productions were ultimately validated . . . when 'the
mother of Evelina' and Evelina's mother-novel were placed
on a pyre . . ." (37). With the birth of Evelina, Burney
passed the legacy of the Evelyn family inheritance to Mr.
Villars and Mrs. Selwyn, narrative guardians of Miss
Anville.
In both Burney and Evelina's lives, inheritance
practice and its associated language weave in and out of
their respective relationships. Burney witnessed
problematic elopements, including her father's; endured
inheritance problems with her stepmother; and was herself
the object of the courtship of an eligible young man. The
complications and family upheavals caused by such events
as these helped to develop in Burney a sense of
ambivalence concerning her position in society. Evelyn
Farr tells us that Burney used Maria Allenf s, her half-
sisterf sf secret marriage as an example and did 'commit
the particulars to paper . . . in Evelina, where all the
heroinef s difficulties arise from her father's
repudiation of a secret marriage to her mother on the

Continent," though Maria's own life, unfortunately, did
not have such a fitting romantic ending (16). Evelina
witnessed inheritance problems in her own family,
especially through her grandmother, and she developed a
sense of her own ambivalence regarding Mr. Villars, who
seems overly reluctant to prove her identity and recoup
her true inheritance.
Evelina' s ambivalence and Villars' reluctance are
heightened by the silence surrounding the characters of
Evelina. Unlike the unceasing vitriol spewed throughout
the letters of Clarissa, Evelina gives us uneasy
silences. Villars fails to speak out regarding Evelina's
identity or her motherf s or her grandfatherf s. He fails
to tell his side of the family history. He fails to warn
Evelina of impending danger, and fails to keep her safe.
The text, significantly, tells the story of his silence.
Once Villars establishes his position with Lady Howard
and Evelina, very few of the letters thereafter are his.
On the other hand, others whom Evelina meets also keep
their silence regarding their motives, their own
legacies, and their desires to further their legacies.
While much is silence, Burney's eighteenth-century
readers would have understood the unstated. However,
even such astute modern critics as Ian Watt perpetuate a

silence about Evelina and Burney that has continued until
just recently.
Watt mentions Frances Burney five times in The Rise
of the Novel. He sandwiches her between Defoe and
Sterne. Yet, Evelina is not mentioned at all. None of
Burney's works is discussed. However, when Watt
discusses Burney in relation to Austen, he admits Austen
finished the work that Burney began (298). In his last
chapter, Watt suggests that both Burney and Austen are
key to the legacy of female authorship. Watt admits that
Burney was "no inconsiderable figure in bringing together
the divergent directions which the geniuses of Richardson
and Fielding has imposed upon the novel" (296).
Nevertheless, Evelina, as wildly popular as Pamela and
Robinson Crusoe, remains unexamined in The Rise of the
Novel. Indeed, even Virginia Woolf declared that,
"Austen should have laid a wreath upon the grave of Fanny
Burney . . ." (72).
Marjorie Dobbin, however, effectively fills in some
of the lingering silence surrounding Burneyr s works.
Dobbin posits that eighteenth-century novels written by
women were instruments of social criticism, and women's
situations at the time were a good choice for such
criticism (43) . Certainly, Evelina raises many questions

egarding women's places in society. Burney also
questions artificial standards set for women by a rigid
patriarchal system of marriage and inheritance.
In the same vein, John Richetti asserts that novels
tend to resist what their representations uncover about
social relations. He claims the sentimental novel of the
mid- to late-eighteenth century marks "an extensive
revulsion with the moral compromises enforced in such
negotiations for identity" (117) . Richetti continues,
confirming Johnsonf s idea of a "new realistic novel," in
that the characters of eighteenth-century novels become
"exceptions to the prevailing social rules" (116).
Authors mold their plots from real life, but novelistic
situations represent events less than ideal, ones that
make good lessons for Johnsonf s 'young, idle and
ignorant."
Richetti suggests that these novels deal with a
tension created between the "private self and its
communal surroundings, mutually defining and qualifying
relationships that dramatize an inevitable
interdependence between private self and public society"
(116). The tension between public sphere and private
individuals was certainly a palpable part of eighteenth-
century society. Burneyfs world was full of this kind of

tension, and she reflects it in her novels. More
specifically, she calls attention to it in her preface to
Evelina when she reflects on her personal and public
\\namelessness," her reluctance to share her private work
with the public.
Unlike Richardson, who worked hard to make all his
writing didactic, a goal shared by Johnson, Frances
Burneyf s wish for her first published novel is more
difficult to define. Caroline Evelyn's fiery demise could
not keep her creator from narrating the education of
Caroline's daughter in the eighteenth-century marriage
market.
Campbell cites the similarity between Burney's
father, her literary fathers, and Mr. Villars, all of
whom subscribe to "the code of feminine propriety," which
clashes with Burney's stated need to present her
patriarchal mentors, as well as society, with a
"competitive project" (322) . Thus, Burney' s project is
filled with overtones of dominant male language, and her
own ambivalent views affect her ability to perform as the
guardian of her creation, Evelina, making Burney's
didactic wish for her novel much more subtle than
Richardson's.

Kristina Straub, Julia Epstein and Patricia Meyer
Spacks all claim Evelina as a novel of dichotomies,
pitting city against country, public against private, and
most importantly, author against character. While all
three appreciate Evelina's status as a young woman of
quality grievously deprived of her rightful position as
heir to Sir John Belmont, none addresses directly the
important roles inheritance and strict settlement play in
constructing the primary plot of the novel and its
character, or how inheritance practice forces her into an
mis-identified position. What is more, not only she, but
all the other characters as well, are in such mis-
identified positions throughout the novel, and critics
have not touched on how their mis-identifications play on
Evelina's ability to become herself, with her own
identity, and with her true inheritance. None of the
three, Straub, Epstein or Spacks, explores the importance
the language of inheritance plays in the actions of
characters and plot direction. This study is the first
to look specifically at inheritance language and the
power it wields in Burneyrs novel.

Mentoring Ms. Burney
Frances Burney was raised on the edge of the upper
classes. Charles Burneyrs position put her in contact
with the aristocratic and the bohemian, the rich and the
poor. Her own position as Second Keeper of the Robes for
Queen Charlotte served to solidify her position as a
woman of quality, but it did little to resolve her
financial future (Doody Introduction xvi). "Quality"
women, such as those Doody classes with Frances Burney,
had a chance to marry young and well if they could bring
a portion to their marriage. This was not the case with
the Burney sisters.
Further, Frances Burney and her sisters had first-
hand knowledge of the pitfalls of upper-class marriage.
They knew their stepmother brought a goodly portion to
her marriage with Charles Burney. She was a wealthy
widow in love with him. Though she boasted of her wealth
and position, the largest portion of Mrs. Burney's
settlement from her first marriage was in trust reserved
for her children, enough money to make Maria, her
daughter, an heiress. Mrs. Allen inherited forty
thousand pounds, but lost it in bad investments before

she married Charles Burney. The reputation of her money,
however, remained with her. She and her sons managed
the children's trust, and when she could get her hands on
some of the money, she quickly squandered it, showing,
along with her secret marriage to Charles Burney, her
impulsive nature that she trait shared with her children.
Maria would also impulsively run away and marry secretly.
Indeed, her step-sister Frances called Maria's love
affair a "novel" (Kilpatrick 26-27,33,34) .
Burney would certainly have come away from such
experiences with a decidedly negative view of marriage
portions. She also would have cause to suspect the
underlying reasoning families used to make "successful"
marriage matches. During her youth, Burney would
encounter many family situations that would have
necessitated her thinking long and hard about the
language and power of quality.
Burney was unable to resolve emotional upheavals in
her own life regarding marriage, class and profession.
Most critics agree that Burney's works portray much of
her personal anguish regarding women, society and
marriage practice. Julia Epstein insists these upheavals
translated into anger, defiance, and a "self-conscious

authorship" in her work (Voices 163). Backing up her
point, Epstein quotes Mr. Delville in Cecilia:
And let me counsel you to remember that a lady,
whether so called from birth or only from
fortune, should never degrade herself by being
put on a level with writers, and such sort of
people. (186)
Epstein wishes to emphasize Mr. Delvillefs repudiation of
writers and "such sort of people." My study emphasizes
Mr. Delvillefs definition of a lady. He gives two
options-birth and fortune-neither of which Burney could
lay claim to, but both of which were the hidden legacies
of Evelina Anville. His words highlight the insidious
nature of inheritance language, for all hinged upon
birth, title, or fortune.
A marriage portion (associated with birth and
wealth) or an inheritance (associated with title and
wealth) ultimately dictated, and also limited, a woman's
place in society. Burney plays out, as Epstein calls it,
her "conflicted sense of self" in the pages of her
novels, and especially in Evelina, where author and
character are both in search of their rightful places
(Voices 174) .

The language of inheritance is duplicitous within
Evelina. It is used both for and against the successful
arrival of Evelina to her rightful place within society.
Individual worth was part of Burney's consciousness as
she wrote. The voices of those who surround Evelina are
troubling at best. Those closest to her often seem to be
those who cause her the most harm. Principal among them
is Mr. Villars.
Guarding Evelina
Holy among men is Mr. Villars. He is "virtuous" in
the eyes of Patricia Meyers Spacks, "paternal, " and
"private" for David Oakleaf (177,353,355) . Mr. Villars,
however, is more problematic than good when his personal
relationship with inheritance and its language come under
scrutiny. As Julia Epstein observes in The Iron Pen,
"Villars' character and his motives are perhaps the least
examined in this novel, and critics have ignored him
precisely because they have assumed his benignity" (103).
First, we must consider the problem of his name. If
Evelina Anville is anagrammatic of her true name, as
suggested by Doody, Pawl and others, one can see easily
that Villars is closely suggestive of "villain" or even

"villein." Considering Villars as a villain has merit
when we view his actions regarding his Evelyn family
charges and the fatal ends of the first two and the near
disaster for the third, our heroine. The approximation
of his name to "villein" turns up interesting
associations, as well.
According to the OED, a villein was a peasant who
was subject to his lord and manor (3580). Amy Pawl
speaks of the importance of names in Evelina, claiming,
"Evelina must learn . . . that names are arbitrary and
may be misapplied" (285) . Pawl also argues that because
Evelina was refused her father's name, she became "more
absolutely Villars' possession" (285) . Villars' name,
therefore, is as important as Evelina' s. Mr. Villars is
the servant, a subject of the Evelyn family. He is a
villein assigned to the Evelyn family estate for life.
Evelina, however, by being denied her own name, becomes a
subject of Mr. Villars; as Pawl suggests, she becomes his
"possession," a subject, a servant to Villars, whose
every effort seems concentrated on controlling her every
move.
Mr. Villars, the beloved tutor of John Evelyn and
Caroline Evelyn, assumes charge of the third generation
of Evelyns. One cannot help but notice through his own

accounting of the Evelyn family events that he had the
power to right wrongs that had occurred. His reticence
about his seeming disservice to the Evelyn children's
needs should warn the reader of lapses within his
narrative. Reverend Villars seems to move in a cloak of
well meaning, or perhaps, well-studied, blundering,
kindly charm. However, if we look at him through
eighteenth-century inheritance practice, we can ascertain
several very important characteristics that he himself
fails to tell.
First, Mr. Villars most likely is from a wealthy
family, either upper middle class or minor aristocracy.
His close ties with Lady Howard provide clues to his most
likely being among the privileged. Primogeniture, the
elevation of the first son as the primary inheritor of
estate lands in a family, was certainly in effect during
the youth of Mr. Villars. It was the keystone of strict
settlement, imposing a rigid, unchangeable line of male
heirs to inherit an estate at the death of the owner or
at the resettlement of the estate at the majority or
marriage of the eldest male child, which also was
practiced in his youth.
Because all realty went to the eldest son at
majority or marriage in strict settlement practice and

primogeniture, Mr. Villars was probably the second or
third son of a wealthy merchant family or minor
aristocracy. It would also be reasonable to consider Mr.
Villars as the product of a marriage like that of John
Evelyn or even a second or third marriage, one that would
resemble that of Burney's own father, with Villars
occupying the same sort of position as Burney herself, a
second son or daughter of a wealthy step- parent. The
death of either of his parents and a subsequent
remarriage would have relegated him to the position of
stepchild to at least one of his parents. Had his mother
remarried, he well could have been pushed even farther
down the ladder of inheritance. More chillingly, one
could easily imagine him as the younger brother of a
Robert Lovelace in Clarissa, left parentless early in
life and beholden to a controlling, powerful older
brother.
Mr. Villars would have had a good chance of having a
portion settled on him at the time of his eldest
brother's majority or marriage, or whenever the
settlement became effective. The portion would have
bought him a position in the armed forces or a place at
university to study for a clerical position (Trumbach
97).

Other than his education and a few connections, like
those with Lady Howard, Villars would have little to make
him comfortable in the world. His position in the Evelyn
household would have been important to him, but what he
gains from that position is surrounded with a studied
silence. Villars, as much as Evelina herself, edits what
he tells the reader. In the beginning Villars tells us
only that a "legacy" of a thousand pounds was "left to"
him along with the sole guardianship of his "daughter's
person" by Mr. John Evelyn (14). Most notably, Villars'
lack of detail in retelling the story leads the reader to
speculate whether Lady Howard knows the true details and
they are understood, or whether Lady Howard, too, knows
only so much of the original story of the Evelyn family
as Villars wishes to tell. No matter the truth of the
situation, the reader is still left in the dark regarding
certain details pertaining to the original Evelyn story.
With regard to the legacy from John Evelyn, the lack of
detail, the silence on the part of Villars is an
excellent example of Villars' equivocal treatment of his
present and past charges.
Mr. Villars does not tell us whether the money was
given for him personally or for him to use in caring for
Mr. Evelynf s offspring in order to care for her. There

is a distinction in having a legacy left to one rather
than left for another. Villars writes that he would
educate John Evelyn's daughter, Caroline Evelyn; however,
for her fortune she would be "wholly dependent on her
mother, to whose tenderness [Evelyn] earnestly
recommended her" (14) . Villars explains further that
John Evelyn wanted very much for his daughter to be
complete in her duty to her mother, and that her mother,
Madame Duval, was the one derelict in duty. Villars
leaves much to be explained about his behavior and Madame
Duval's and about Caroline Evelyn's legacy and his own.
In other words, according to Villars, John Evelyn left
Villars one thousand pounds and the upbringing of his
daughter, but he left his daughter nothing but Villars
and the prospect of inheriting from her mother. Villars,
in turn, leaves the reader nothing but his silence.
Villars studied for the church and probably looked
forward to a decent living, but he did not end up in a
parish. Margaret Anne Doody remarks that wealthy
families assigned a tutor as a traveling companion for
their sons when they went on the Grand Tour (454).
Wealthy families would depend on the educated younger
sons of other wealthy families to be tutors to their
children. We can safely assume that Villars is educated

and from the upper classes if he is chosen to guide and
tutor Mr. Evelyn.
Wealthy families also hired tutors to teach their
sons the duties and responsibilities a son owed his
family, his estate, and his society. The tutor often came
from the clergy. Mr. Villars relates that he had "the
honour to accompany Mr. Evelyn . . . when upon his
travels, in the capacity of tutor," so that we could
assume from his own words that he was not the family
tutor (14). The Evelyn family may have hired Mr. Villars
specifically to accompany Mr. Evelyn. His knowledge of
the continent and the manners of European culture would
have provided valuable lessons for Mr. Evelyn.
Possibly, however, he could actually have been the
live-in tutor of Mr. Evelyn. Villars finally tells us
that the education of the "father, daughter, and
granddaughter" all devolved to him, and the first two
caused him great misery (16). Was Villars originally
hired to be John Evelyn's traveling companion and then
made his tutor, was he already the tutor accompanying his
pupil on the Grand Tour? This may seem to be begging the
question; however, had Villars been hired as a traveling
companion, he was sorely inadequate in his duties as he
let his charge go astray. His knowledge of Europe and of

the dangers traveling on the Continent may have been
beyond his educational scope. He, then, was ill prepared
for his job, for he was as innocent of life on the
Continent as was Evelyn. Not telling the Evelyns of his
lack of expertise would have been a conscious omission on
his part.
On the other hand, had he been Evelyn's tutor before
the Grand Tour, then he should have been more prepared
for the trip and its dangers. Unpreparedness would,
then, have been a conscious failing his part. Either
way, Villars had to have made a conscious decision to
leave out information when dealing with the Evelyns and
their son.
The misery the first two Evelyn children caused
Villars was not due so much to the actions of the
children in his care as to his own faulty guidance. As
their tutor and mentor, he was responsible for helping
them make the proper decisions for their futures. We do
not know what he did. His parceling out of information
obscures his own history and muddies the history of the
Evelyn family, relegating the only legacy that Evelina
has as she enters her seventeenth year to what Epstein
identifies as "dialogic silence and white space" (Voices
163).

Susan Greenfield points out that Villars "candidly
tells Evelina the accurate details of her past, but
withholds this information from the public" (307).
Greenfield blames Villars in part for Evelina's
disinheritance, citing that he "effectively secluded and
buried her story," affirming he is the one responsible
for the secrecy surrounding her (307). Greenfield
observes that Villars participates in Evelina's
disinheritance "unwittingly," yet she also asserts that
he deliberately withheld knowledge of her existence from
the reformed Belmont in order for Evelina to "develop
into an ideal domestic woman," believing she must stay
home with him in order to become one (307). Villars
tells Lady Howard, " . . . this deserted child, though
legally [the] heiress of two large fortunes, must owe all
her rational expectations to adoption and friendship"
(20). He does not tell her why. Nor does he tell Lady
Howard or the reader whether Evelina is aware of her
position as heiress, either.
Greenfield seems reticent to grant that Mr. Villars,
through his position as a younger son and servant to
another family, as well as the inheritor of a thousand
pounds, is shrewder than she wishes to credit him.
Evidence supports the idea that Villars intentionally

misuses his position and the directives of his charges,
wishing them to partake in his own narrow thinking rather
than pursue the dictates of their rightful inheritances.
Villars is a servant of the Evelyn family; he does
receive an income for his position, and later, he does
inherit a thousand pounds plus the guardianship of
Caroline Evelyn. Villars' first failure as subject and
servant to John Evelyn is to allow him to marry beneath
his station and then to leave the newly married young man
in Paris while he himself remains in England. Evelyn, on
his deathbed, implores Villars, "My friend! Forget your
resentment, in favour of your humanity!" (14). Villars
tells us that John Evelyn was seduced into marrying and
then felt compelled to flee to France with the future
Madame Duval, 'then a waiting girl at a tavern," in order
to escape gossip (14). Villars does not tell us why he
was resentful, or why he remained in England. Epstein's
dialogic silences are again at work, though one can go
much further. Villars remains silent with John Evelyn,
letting him go to France with his wife. He remains
silent when Evelyn's daughter is left in France to die,
and he remains silent when Evelina becomes deathly ill in
face of the affront she receives from Lord Orville. In
each case, Villars hesitates to act, or even make a

decision, and then leaves his charge to do what each of
them thinks best. Evelinafs health finally becomes so
serious that Villars forces Evelina to go with Mrs.
Selwyn to Bristol Wells. This is the first time in three
generations that he makes a pro-active decision for one
of his charges. However, he still keeps silent regarding
her real identity, and he does nothing to remedy the
social mistake that causes the precipitous decline in her
health.
In the case of John Evelyn, the marriage occurs
immediately upon Evelyn and Villars' return from the
Continent. Whatever good Villars is to have done his
pupil, he obviously fails him, a failure compounded by
not following Evelyn to France. Evelyn's plea for
Villars to let go of his resentment is a good indication
that Villars does not fulfill his duty to his charge, but
rather prefers to remain at home after Evelyn must flee
to France after the marriage in order to escape public
humiliation. Villars, even while Evelyn is dying, fails
to do his duty toward his charge and hangs on to his
resentment and spite, sending an emissary in his stead to
assume charge of Evelyn's young daughter. If Judith
Lowder Newtonf s premise of power in Burneyf s novels is
true, that "[menf s] power . . . almost always takes the

ff
form of force or control in social situations . . . ,
then we can fairly label Villars as a powerless man (11).
Villars fails to raise John Evelyn to the station he
rightly deserves, no matter how Villars protests to Lady
Howard the excellency of the young man, and that he
exhibited "unblemished conduct" (14) . If that were true,
why did Villars harbor such resentment toward Evelyn and
abandon him in his dire hour of need? There are many of
Epstein's "white spaces" here that Villars fails to
explain. How does a young man go from paragon to paradox
so quickly? Similarly, Mr. Villars, as so often pointed
out, fails in his narrative to explain his own conduct.
John Evelyn's father feels it necessary to provide
an education for his eldest son. Though he seems to be
following the advice of Locke on the matter of educating
sons, his choice of tutor is flawed. The theme of a
benevolent and wise father guiding not only the country,
but the home as well is subverted by the choice of the
Reverend Mr. Villars as John Evelyn's tutor. Mr. Villars
is a reverend because he is not the eldest son, and his
portion cannot support anything else. He is not
necessarily in his profession by his own choice. Instead
of gaining wisdom and "excellent character" from the
Reverend Mr. Villars to guide him through his youth into

a position as the head of his family, John Evelyn falls
into dissipation and destruction, far away from the man
hired to provide the education and guidance he needed to
protect him from such things (14).
Additionally, the mistakes Villars makes with Evelyn
are about to be compounded on his daughter, as the
product of John Evelyn's marriage to a barmaid would not
be welcome in the Evelyn household. Caroline Evelyn
comes to Villars through the force of inheritance law.
Though Evelyn begs Villars to lay aside his resentment,
he knows that Villars may be the only one he can turn to
for his daughter's protection. No one wants the barmaid
mother to be in a position to use Caroline's fortune,
neither father nor family. Evelyn, however, has had to
leave England because of public, as well as family,
outcry against his marriage. There is no one left,
really, except for Villars, to care for the child.
Evelyn, also, though he feels Villars' resentment, still
reveres his mentor and trusts his judgment and friendship
to some degree, all of which is acknowledged through his
deathbed plea. Evelyn' s final words, however, do nothing
to establish Villars' appropriateness as his choice,
however. He writes, "0 Villars! Hear pity! And relieve
me!" (14).

Again, there is a part of the narrative that is
suppressed by Villars. He is supposed to go to France to
relieve Evelyn of the child. He sends an emissary
instead. His reticence to leave the Evelyn home or
wherever he may have been is never explained, but it
serves to establish his "hands-off" approach to dealing
with problems, and certainly lends a plausible
explanation to his reluctance to leave Berry Hill years
later in order to protect Caroline Evelyn from Madame
Duval, or Evelina from her grandmother, or even to
participate in Evelina's marriage.
Caroline Evelyn is "bequeathed" to him (14). Evelyn
knows that leaving his child with Villars precludes
Madame Duval having recourse to the Evelyn family, or
their fortune, or Caroline's inheritance. In a sense,
then, Evelyn is asking Villars to relieve the name of
Evelyn from its connection to Madame Duval.
Worth noting at this point is that Caroline Evelyn,
with the force of her inheritance from her father with
her, becomes a force in society as an heiress.
While strict settlement provided for younger sons, it
also provided for only daughters. Truly, strict
settlement was introduced to rid inheritance of
inheriting daughters, but heiresses were inevitable

(Spring 8-38). Caroline Evelyn is a prime example. Her
economic and class power is much stronger than Mr.
Villars'. He knows that instinctively. Caroline Evelyn,
however, did not live long enough to use her inheritance.
She died right after the birth of her daughter. Her
inheritance would become the property of her daughter,
Evelina, another heiress; but she, too, is kept from
receiving her due.
Villars, as a second son, may seem as powerless
legally as both Caroline and Evelina. However, Villars
himself holds the power of Caroline's demise and
Evelina's misidentification. While Caroline and Evelina
may have been heiresses, Villars was still a male with
the power of guardianship over both. As such, he did not
even need to do anything in order to do much. Doing
nothing to help Caroline, he contributed to her hasty
death; and with Evelina, he held the key to her identity
and did nothing with it.
Caroline Evelyn, then, becomes something of a second
son, like Villars. She is the second gift of the second
generation to Mr. Villars. He is bestowed with the cast-
off of the second family. The daughter of this family,
even if Mr. Evelyn had not abhorred his unfortunate
choice of wife, could never have belonged to Madame

Duval, since all goods and chattel, including children,
belonged to the husband. Caroline Evelyn is the cast-off
legacy of the Evelyns inherited by Mr. Villars.
Evelina becomes the third bequest of the Evelyn
family to Villars. For the third time, unfortunately,
Mr. Villars is not the tutor or mentor he should be or
could be for this fated family. Again, his language
becomes complicated in his correspondence with Lady
Howard, \\ . . . I have weighty, nay unanswerable
questions for detaining her daughter at present in
England; the principal of which is, that it was the
earnest desire of one to whose Will she owes implicit
duty" (13). Here is more of Epstein's white spaces.
Villars implies that Evelina must be dutiful and remain
in England by the "desire of one to whose Will" she
should feel obedience. But to whom? To whose will must
she bend? Speculation brings three answers: The wishes
of her dead mother, the wishes of her dead grandfather,
and the wishes of Villars himself. Villars could well be
the answer, and he would be more than willing to use the
third person in order to assure his humble place as
guardian and tutor, chosen by the other two to raise the
less than illustrious children of the Evelyn family.
Villars holds the answer, but he remains silent, as

always, willing to "obey custom rather than conscience, "
as Epstein observes (Iron Pen 104).
Amy Paul's influential essay on the importance of
names in Evelina does not address the importance of
ambiguous pronouns within the text. Villars constantly
disrupts his message to Lady Howard, leaving the reader
to make judgment on the duplicity of his language and to
regularly speculate about whom he may be speaking of.
As in Clarissa, the reader is also caught having to
choose among the many meanings of the word "will" in
Evelina. One sees Evelina "bequeathed" or "willed" to
Villars, but one also sees Villars exercising his "will"
as surrogate father to this child. Villars decidedly is
'willful" when he declares to Lady Howard that Evelina,
"shall never, while life is lent me, know the loss she
has sustained" (16) . Villars has the power to keep
Evelina from her grandmother, from her identity, and from
her fortune. He also has the power to reveal her real
identity, send her wherever he wants or keep her home and
present her with bona fides in his possession to her real
father and her proper fortune and station. Villars
constantly warns Evelina that a womanf s reputation is her
most coveted virtue, essential to preserving her
reputation, since a "woman's reputation, once shattered,

is not to be repaired" (Pawl 285). Without her true
name, however, Evelina's reputation is as a bastard, a
pretty, young woman who shall remain nameless, not from
her own doing or her family' sf but by the choice of her
guardian, the Reverend Mr. Villars.
Joanne Cutting-Gray accurately summarizes the
pivotal ideas of namelessness and reputation for Evelina,
telling us that, "Her position as a nameless, female
minor-a form of social silence~enerates the conflict of
the novel" (44). The implication of Evelina being a
"nameless, female minor" goes well beyond her innocence
and social ambiguity. Name can only be bestowed through
legal documents and recognized legal acts. Villars is in
possession of the document that can change Evelina's life
by changing her name, but he suppresses it, just as his
language suppresses her will and his real intentions.
Villarsf reasons for leaving Evelina nameless and
innocent of her past are imbued with conscious self-
incrimination as he writes to Lady Howard, "A youthful
mind is seldom totally free from ambition; to curb that,
is the first step to contentment, since to diminish
expectations, is to increase enjoyment" (19) . These are
the arguments of a younger son desperately trying to find
solace in his secondary position. After years of silent

ecitation and finally believing them himself, Villars
applies them to his final charge. Julia Epstein' s
assertion that Villars is "motivated by a concern for
wealth over righteous behavior" lends support to this
speculation of his inner motivations (Iron Pen 104).
Villars' reluctance to reveal to Evelina her
identity is based on a logic that at best is subversive.
While he puzzles over the "sudden" appearance of a young
woman purported to be Sir John Belmont's daughter,
Villars also feels that without a birth certificate to
prove her identity, Evelina would receive a "stigma which
will eternally blame the fair fame of her virtuous
mother" (374). On the other hand, Villars feels no need
to challenge the birth certificate of the other Miss
Belmont .
In the same breath, Villars argues that the
"appearance of a daughter of Sir John Belmont will revive
the remembrance of Miss Evelyn's story in all who have
heard it" (373). There is no better time than this
moment to approach Sir John with the letter from Caroline
and his own history. Villars feels, however, that the
public will demand he reveal the identity of the mothers
of both Miss Belmonts. This should not present a problem
for Villars if he were truly intent on the best future

and well being of his charge. The problem with Villars
is the convoluted thinking and subversive language he
employs to explain to himself and to the world that
Evelina's position in his world is in her best interests.
There may be those who know Caroline Evelyn's story.
If so, they would understand that she claims to have been
married to Sir John Belmont, and that she is the mother
of the real daughter. There would be no need for Villars
to reveal the mother's identity. In the same vein, those
who know Miss Evelyn's story and do not believe that she
was married to Sir John would already have stigmatized
Caroline, and her memory would not be one of "fair fame,"
as Villars like to think (374).
Evelina's reputation is already in question.
Without proper credentials, Evelina's upbringing and
family history are left to speculation and gossip. Lovel
and Willoughby immediately assume that Evelina is a
lovely bastard, a toy not to be taken seriously in the
marriage market society of London.
There are those who know the story of Sir John
Belmont and Miss Evelyn, and they make it unlikely that
such a small community of upper class landed gentry and
nobility, especially someone such as Lovel, who prides
himself on knowing everything about everyone, would be

ignorant of this one young woman, or of Sir John
Belmont's past and the daughter he now has with him.
While trying to persuade Evelina to come home to him
permanently and retire to country life, Villars assures
her that time is of the essence to reveal her true past,
"since the longer this mystery is suffered to continue,
the more difficult may be rendered its explanation"
(374). After seventeen years, time finally catches up
with Villars, who has tried desperately from the
beginning never to reveal Evelina's identity. He has
hidden away the letter written by Caroline Evelyn, the
one piece of textual proof of Evelina's identity, from
Evelina and her father. He states in ambiguous terms
that it, "behoves us to enquire" about the matter (373).
He continues to write from Berry Hill, reluctant as
always to come to the aid of an Evelyn, and for the third
time in as many generations, the Reverend Mr. Villars
leaves his charge to meet her fate alone (373).
Ultimately, the paper will not convince Sir John Belmont
of Evelina's identity; her striking resemblance to her
mother will, a resemblance that is not recognized or
spoken of by any other character in the book. Lady
Howard, Mr. Villars, Captain and Mrs. Mirvan, and Madame
Duval all would have seen the resemblance. Others in

London society may also have noted the resemblance, but
none speaks of it. Evelina inherited her mother's face,
the one unshakeable truth of her identity.
The job of tutors and guardians like Mr. Villars was
to protect their charges from predators. Madame Duval
and Sir John Belmont were two such predators for John and
Caroline Evelyn. Both beasts of prey, one poor and one
rich, were looking to enhance their financial and social
standings by secretly marrying a seemingly excellent
match. Now both are in London while Evelina is there.
Villars knows the double dangers for his third charge; he
remains recalcitrant, and he does not explain his
decision.
John Evelyn certainly holds true to the estimations
of Madame Duval, but he soon discovered what a horrid
mistake he has made in secretly marrying her. In the
next generation, Sir John Belmont is expecting a large
portion to come with his marriage to Caroline Evelyn.
When none develops, he quickly and quietly destroys what
little evidence there is of his marriage to Caroline.
Had Villars not been ineffective and weak at his job, one
can easily see that much of Evelina's family history
would have been very different and much more successful.

One cannot fathom the Evelyn family's continuing faith
in Villars' abilities unless one realizes the influence
Lady Howard had in his favor over the years. Her good
will and the reluctance of the Evelyns to have anything
to do with the offspring produced by John Evelyn and
Caroline Belmont keep Villars in his job. The scandals
had already brought enough trouble to the Evelyn family.
Mr. Villars' behavior can be nothing less than
suspect in relation to his position within the Evelyn
family, whose offspring are all in his charge, and who
all meet with harrowing circumstances. Indeed, two of
the three are dead. Below the surface of a loving,
doting relationship, the legacy Villars holds for Evelina
is laced with danger. Villars rarely moves to protect his
charges or interests. Indeed, his decision to allow
Evelina to travel to London without him underscores years
of leaving his charges to their own devises when trouble
comes near. Her mother and grandfather traveled without
Villars and found themselves at the end of their lives
because of it. Additionally, Villars knows that Evelina
does not have recourse to the legacy that would give her
entrance to the London marriage market. He tells us that
Evelina will received only a hundred pounds a year

inheritance (14) . Yet, he allows her to go off with the
granddaughter of a titled and well-respected woman.
Miss Mirvan goes to London because she is in the
very market that excludes Evelina. Notwithstanding the
source of Evelina's money, her legacy is not enough to
present her in decent society and make her a contender
for a strong marriage. Eileen Spring argues forcefully
that strict settlement resulted in a marked tendency
among wealthy sons of the aristocracy to go heiress
hunting ("Law, Economy and Society" 170-2) . Miss Mirvan
is in a position to take advantage of this trend.
Evelina's pittance by no means qualifies her for any such
thing. Lady Howard knows this. Mr. Villars knows this.
Even Miss Mirvan knows this. Joanne Cutting-Gray and
others have dealt with Evelina's innocence, but they do
not make note that Evelina seems to be the only one of
this group who does not understand that she is going to
London as a handmaiden, or, at best, a traveling
companion to Miss Mirvan (43-55).
Evelina' s position mirrors Mr. Villars' position. He
began his career as a companion to Mr. Evelyn, traveling
to Europe with him. Now he discharges his paternal duties
by raising Evelina to do and be the same. He commends her
to the Mirvans with his blessing, a blessing stronger and

more powerful than any apprehension he may have for her
safety or her future. He sends her as a companion and
servant, not as an entity in her own right. Evelina's
mother was left to go alone to France to Madame Duval,
left to her own devices in her marriage, then finally
left alone to deal with the conception of her child, the
denial of her marriage, and her own eventual death.
Villars, as the passive observer of those events, should
have had the common sense to decide that Evelina,
perhaps, should not be allowed to go to London without
him.
He compounds his incredible reluctance to act with
his knowledge of Madame Duval and her capabilities,
knowing she is lurking in London, threatening to contact
her granddaughter. Susan Greenfield declares Madame
Duval "a vulgar woman and dangerous parent . . . barely
less destructive" than Caroline Evelyn' s father (313) .
Once Evelina is out of reach of Mr. Villars, she has no
effective guardian and no mentor available to her until
she meets Mrs. Selwyn.
Lady Howard and her daughter, Mrs. Mirvan, do not
want to advise Evelina. Evelina is a companion to Miss
Mirvan, who is London to enter the marriage market.
Captain Mirvan has little or no interest in any woman,

Solutions from Mrs. Selwyn
As both Caroline Evelyn in legacy and Evelina in
social position mirror Mr. Villars, so Villars mirrors
Mrs. Selwyn in family duty. Mrs. Selwyn is the public
side of Villars' private image. She, however, is
triumphant in her duties, unlike the good reverend.
Timothy Dykstal relates Jiirgen Habermas's
theoretical determinations of public and private spheres
emerging in the eighteenth century to Mrs. Selwyn's
extraordinary and often subversive position within
Evelina. Dykstal defines Habermas's public sphere as the
"social space where the eighteenth-century bourgeoisie
exchanged opinions, came to understand itself, and gained
the esteem to challenge the domination of the
aristocracyff (559) . Villars would never have been able
to deal with a public sphere described so, for if, as
this study suggests, Villars was born into minor
aristocracy, he certainly would not have accepted a
challenge to the aristocracy. As it was, Villars did not
"exchange opinions" with others, no matter their class.
For Dykstal, the "extraordinary thing" about Mrs. Selwyn
is that she is the only character in the novel able to
enact a critical function in the public sphere. That

let alone Evelina. Willoughby and Love1 do not want to
advise Evelina, as they are more interested in using her.
The Branghtons want only to compare themselves with
Evelina and bring her to their level. Orville must
remain socially aloof in order to guard his interest in
her, and he can only advise her clandestinely, as a
brother.
Villars should be guiding Evelina through her
marriageable years. He, however, is the product of the
inheritance system as the second son of a relatively
wealthy family. His position in life is also a product
of the inheritance system. He is the legal guardian of
two of the three Evelyn children, as he has "inherited"
them through the dying wishes of their only interested
parent. His reluctance to do so is deeply troubling and
mysterious. Mr. Villars squanders his "inheritance"
several times over. As Evelina finds herself dangerously
close to losing her reputation and her health, her savior
comes in female form. Mrs. Selwyn is the only character
in the novel free of social conventions, and she is freer
than Villars to give sincere and solid guidance to
Evelina. After all, she, unlike Villars, is willing to
travel.

of her own" (300). Evelina tells Miss Mirvan that
Villars does not like Selwyn because of her "unmerciful
propensity to satire," yet he was able to overcome his
personal feelings once again to allow Selwyn to escort
Evelina in order to get her to Bristol Wells safely
(300). Mrs. Selwyn comes to life in the last two pages
of the second volume. Her introduction there secures her
an important place in the novel, for the last volume must
provide a resolution to the story of Evelina' s search for
a name. Selwyn will guide her to the end of this
journey .
Julia Shaffer claims that because of Evelinafs
desire for a mentor's advice in all the situations she
encounters, Burney cannot help but revealing that, "even
the most virtuous males may be unable to grasp elements
of reality that women can perceive" and Evelina can only
act when she departs from "male knowledge and male
advice" (61). Mrs. Selwyn, a female capable of using the
dominant male language as her own, breaks Villars' hold
on Evelina. David Oakleaf argues that, "Burney suggests
that private character evades the binary oppositions of
public character," which allows Mrs. Selwyn the position
of Villarsf alter ego (349). Mrs. Selwyn must solve
Evelinafs identity crisis and set her on the road to her

Burney chose a woman and one of ambiguous social status
for the role is curious. More curious is how Burney
characterizes her (560) .
The reader never has a clear picture of Mrs. Selwyn,
since those who describe her or interact with her can do
so only with the prejudice of the age for women of her
ilk. Epstein, however, speculates that "Burney uses her
to present a woman who is kind and compassionate to those
who deserve it and who achieves independent status
without compromising herself either socially or
personally" (Iron Pen 113) . Mrs. Selwyn does all of this
and more.
Whereas Mr. Villars, virtually disembodied
throughout much of the novel, is secluded at Berry Hill,
Mrs. Selwyn, full-bodied and vital, is situated
comfortably within the public social sphere, though we
are told she lives only three miles from Berry Hill
(191). In order to confirm a place for her in London
society, Burney describes her as "masculine," reinforcing
the eighteenth-century prejudice about strong women,
women with "masculine" abilities (300). Evelina goes on
with the description, telling Villars that, "her manners
deserve the same epithet; for in studying to acquire the
knowledge of the other sex, she has lost all the softness

identity and name and Orville and marriage. Selwyn,
herself, however, represents a great deal more than alter
ego or family and marriage broker. During the first
pages of Volume Three, Mrs. Selwyn saves Evelina from a
ruinous encounter with several young men on the way to
the Pump-Room. Unlike Evelina's initial encounters with
Lovel, Willoughby and Orville, this encounter is
neutralized by Mrs. Selwyn's stern words and humor,
leaving Evelina relatively unscathed.
Mrs. Selwyn is a working example of what Burney, as
well as eighteenth-century society in general, would
expect to happen to a woman having too much money, too
much learning, and not enough male guidance. She is one
of Burney's characters who exemplify the blurring of
class lines through marriage or inheritance. Mrs. Selwyn
describes her own position while telling Evelina about
Mrs. Beaumont. Mrs. Selwyn did a favor for Mrs.
Beaumont, who at the time thought Mrs. Selwyn was a woman
of quality. Mrs. Selwyn suspects Mrs. Beaumont was
"miserable when she discovered me to be a mere country
gentlewoman" (315) . Evelina cannot fail to make the
comparison, for she, too, is a "mere country
gentlewoman." Mrs. Selwyn will always remain such, no

matter her inheritance; only patrilineage can elevate
Evelina, and it will.
Mrs. Selwyn is the product of an financially
advantageous marriage to which she brought a goodly
portion. Her marriage, however, cannot give much cover
to her breeding as a "country gentlewoman," just as
Captain Mirvan cannot overcome his own breeding. However,
as Joanne Cutting-Gray observes, Captain Mirvan and Mrs.
Selwyn are tolerated in upper class society because of
their marriages. Madame Duval, however, is not, nor was
she when she married John Evelyn. She was a bar-maid,
having not even a whisper of respect. Her breeding
cannot be overcome or tolerated by marriage, either in
England or in France. She is the butt of jokes and
tricks, and she is made to pay for her socially
outrageous behavior because of her lack of breeding.
Birth, breeding, title and wealth all are factors of
class identification in eighteenth-century England. Many
in Evelina are miscast because of misidentification.
Mrs. Beaumont misidentifies Mrs. Selwyn, as pointed out
above, and Evelina herself is misidentified several
times. Mrs. Selwyn, in speaking of Mrs. Beaumont asserts
that Mrs. Beaumont "thinks proper to be of opinion that
birth and virtue are one and the same thing" (315). Her

uncanny perception is pivotal to Evelina's identity and
the cause of Evelinafs frequent misidentifications (315).
First, Willoughby and Lovel identify her as a pretty
bastard, then the Branghtons identify her as one of their
own. However, most troubling is Villarsf identification
of Evelina as his and not her father's. Though she was
bequeathed to him, and he does have the power of her
guardianship, he still knows her identity and has the
documents to prove it. Had he truly considered her his
own, would he not have given her his name? Instead, he
gives her the anagram of Anville, not only an anagram of
her name, but another for " a villein."
Likewise, Mrs. Selwyn' s name implies that she had to
offer her feminine side in order to win a place in
society after the death of her husband. In the end, she
does win. Willoughby, Mirvan, and Lovel use Madame Duval
as proof of Evelina's lack of birthright, placing her low
on the marriage scale. Burney uses Mrs. Selwyn, another
country gentlewoman, as the agent of Evelina's future
happiness. She successfully solves the mystery of
Evelinafs birth, confronting Sir John Belmont with the
truth and bringing Evelina to her rightful place in
society. Barbara Zonitch aptly confirms that in order
for a woman to defend herself against the dominant male

culture without the help of a father, brother or lover,
she must be either a Mrs. Beaumont or a Mrs. Selwyn,
distinct opposites in a patriarchal society (51). One
must either adopt the values dictated by upper class male
society or marginalize oneself by adopting upper class
male behavior as one's own. Through Mrs. Beaumont and
Mrs. Selwyn, Burney shows us the problematic outcome of
doing either. Through Mrs. Mirvan and Madame Duval, we
are shown extremes, one sad, the other ludicrous.
Burneyfs final statement about Mrs. Selwyn lies in
the success Mrs. Selwyn has in uniting Evelina with her
father. Mrs. Selwyn' s birth has little to do with her
virtue. The same is true for Mr. Villars. He lacks the
virtue necessary to carry out the duties he is charged
with for three generations of Evelyns. Mrs. Selwynf s
marriage and subsequent inheritance puts her in position
to facilitate Evelina' s final journey to acceptance and
her own inheritance. She, unlike Villars, uses her
position and power to act and speak and ultimately to
right wrongs.

The Inheritance of Evelina
Mr. Villars cannot guide Evelina to the discovery of
her rightful birth name. Mrs. Selwyn must discover the
nurse's switch and rectify the mistake. Villars has
spent three generations hiding the result of Evelyn
tragedies, and he cannot find it in himself to venture
from Berry Hill to save any one of them. When we look
past Mr. Villars' first fiasco with John Evelyn, we must
confront his mishandling of Caroline Evelyn.
Several important questions must be asked about the
mother of Evelina. First, there must be more than just
the burned certificate of marriage to verify the identity
of Caroline Evelyn. Burney passes Caroline out of
existence when Belmont destroys the marriage certificate.
Susan Greenfield mentions the burned certificate,
claiming that it is "rewritten" in the features of
Evelina, who is the embodiment of her mother (311).
Surely, Mr. Villars saw the resemblance and would know
that Sir John Belmont, confronted by this genetic replica
of his wife, would be compelled to accept her as his
daughter. There is another document, however, hidden
away by Villars himself, and the letter is produced only
through the machinations of Mrs. Selwyn after Evelina's

first encounter with her father. At the same time, Sir
John Belmont is in possession of a child he believes is
his true daughter.
The existence of a Belmont daughter is significant.
Because Belmont decided to raise his daughter, rather
than give her over to Villars' charge, he determined not
to let Villars have another chance to fail. Little does
he know that he has the wrong child. Villars knows, but
does not tell him. Could Villars be seeking retribution
for Belmont's snubbing him? If he is, then Villars'
silence, his distancing himself from Evelina and his lack
of explanation for his behavior becomes clearly a
conscious act on his part. He hides the real Evelina in
order to punish Belmont. He knows that Belmont's
"daughter" should not be allowed to carry on his lineage,
no matter her inheritance, but he does nothing to prevent
it.
One common threat to dynasty that strict settlement
tried to mend was the quality of family line. Those in
possession of wealth and power, bound by rules of strict
settlement and inheritance, had to worry about mistaken
identity and the possibility of bestowing their estates
on impostors. For Burney, the possibility of mistaken
identity encompasses more than titles and estates. For

her, mistaken identity and impostors bring into question
the purity and quality of the aristocracy and landed
gentry. Further, Burney's underlying questions of purity
of heredity should have given pause to all men
considering the purity of their own lines and the quality
of their inheritors. Indeed, men of power, wealth and
title would be concerned with the quality of their own
blood.
Men throughout the ages have spent inordinate
amounts of time and effort ensuring that offspring
produced by their legitimate wives is legitimate-theirs.
How difficult it is for a man to acquiesce to the truth
that the workings of female biology are out of sight and
therefore out of male control! Therefore, one finds it
significant that Burney made John Evelynf s child female,
and her offspring female, as well. Not only are there
inheritance problems, but Burney raises legitimate
concerns about Villars' ability to manipulate the quality
of Sir John's bloodline.
Villars raises Caroline Evelyn, the product of a
secret marriage. John Evelyn's daughter travels to live
with her mother, Madame Duval. Pressed by the obsequious
Duval into an arranged marriage, one that would make
Duvalfs estate larger, Caroline rashly agrees instead to

a clandestine marriage with Sir John Belmont. Sir John,
a product of his time, is looking for the best match for
his estates and a match that will enhance his possessions
and his power. When the match falls through, he burns
the certificate and leaves his wife, denying their
marriage. The daughter of this marriage becomes our
heroine, while Sir John raises the nurse's daughter.
Had Evelina been a male, Sir John would have had a
much easier time reclaiming and attaching whatever
inheritance there could be to the Evelyn family name.
For, according to primogenitural law, a male child could
inherit directly, while in a family of daughters, the
inheritor would be a brother, or the husband of a sister
in line for the estate, though the line was through a
mother rather than father. Straub points out that
Evelina presents female experience as distinct and
separable while still deferring to patriarchal authority
(1) The patriarchal language of inheritance is so
pervasive that Evelina cannot resist, and the characters,
especially our heroine, succumb to the confusion and
silence it causes.
Sir John reforms and remains in society. By doing
so, he is privy to the gossip of his social class,
including any gossip regarding his secret marriage and

the inevitable questions about the young daughter at his
side. Even after protests, however slight, by Mr.
Villars, Sir John Belmont takes up his "daughter" and
lives his life, raising his alter-Evelina to the station
to which she was supposedly born. The irony is classic,
yet the underlying unlawfulness of the situation,
considering the inheritance practice of the time and the
amounts of inheritance at stake within the novel have
been overlooked until now. Mrs. Selwyn tells Evelina
that she knew her mother and that she has known the
unhappy story of Evelina's life for a long time. If Mrs.
Selwyn, a "simple countrywoman," marginalized by society,
knows the story of Evelina, then surely there are others.
Not until she tells Evelina she knows does Evelina swear
her to secrecy (351). Even Villars admits that the
appearance of a daughter with Sir John will cause "all
who have heard it" to demand to know who the mother is
(373). Evelina's life is not as private, as secret, as
Villars has made it out to be.
Burney asks serious questions about the language of
inheritance, refusing to tailor her own language to gloss
over the contradictions often implicit in cultural
ideology, leaving disturbing rifts in the fabric of
words. Evelina is disrupted and disruptive at the same

time (Straub 2-3). Questions about the will of Mr.
Villars and the "will" he has for his charges confound
definitions and muddle the words that vie for centrality
in this novel. Julia Epstein considers Evelina through
the broader concept of cultural context, arguing that
Burney's fiction analyzes domestic and socioeconomic
power relations during an especially charged historical
period. Epstein asserts that Burney dissects the
economics of sexuality and argues for the authority of
narrative fiction to reframe social conditions through
representational discourse (Burney Criticism 281).
When we consider the fiction of the novel and its
representation of real life, we immediately see the irony
of life for Evelina Anville. She inherits a fictional
life, however real it may be for her, only to be consumed
by the language of virtue that cloaks the infidelity of
husbands and fathers, then to be fictionalized once more
by the marriage-seeking males who equate her "marriage-
ability" with her mistaken money position. Her
misidentification disrupts eighteenth-century society's
belief in birth being equated with virtue. All this
gives us a sense of reality. Truly, Burney's masterpiece
shows us that fiction sometimes makes a better reality
than real life. Evelina proves the pitfalls of

inheritance, proves that marriage and money can be
manipulated by personal agenda, and proves that life is
too unpredictable to guarantee the intended results of
strict legal settlement.

Chapter Four
Property Rites: Inheritance Language and
Unexpected Legacy in Pride and Prejudice
Introduction
Jane Austenf s Pride and Prejudice gives a third view
of the effect of marriage and strict settlement practice
and its language on eighteenth-century novels. Pride and
Prejudice portrays settlements seemingly improbable and
comic. Austen targets the reality of inheritance and
marriage settlements, not all of which were textbook
cases. Not all families followed the ideal standards
envisioned by the creators of strict settlement. Not all
inheritances ran smoothly. The story of the Bennet
family, however, does give us all the characteristics of
an inheritance novel.
Austen was personally involved with inheritance
problems in her family. She was familiar, not only with
the workings of strict settlement, but also with the

language of settlement practice, which she uses in her
work. Her characters use the language of inheritance to
silence other characters. Our heroine, Elizabeth, is the
center of judgment for Darcy, Collins, Wickham, and her
father in order to qualify her worthiness of their
inheritances-Darcy' s name and title, Collinsf s
Longbourn, and Wickham's debts. Austen, using a less
than perfect settlement, emphasizes Elizabethf s
worthiness to inherit for her father rather than from her
father.
As Mr. Bennet slowly loses Longbourn, he gains
Pemberley through his more than worthy daughter. Collins
may gain Longbourn, but the Bennets have social standing
by birth, which at the time was as important as land and
untouchable by men like Collins. Elizabeth at length
vindicates her immediate impressions of Wickham through
Darcy, finally reading him correctly through her maturity
and good judgment and ultimate understanding of the
language of inheritance, something poor Kitty lacks.
The famous opening line of the novel points to the
importance of inheritance: "It is a truth universally
acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good
fortune, must be in want of a wife" (5). The main

storyline follows the courtship of Fitzwilliam Darcy and
Elizabeth Bennet, as well as the courtship of her sister
Jane and Mr. Bingley. In each case, a single man in
possession of a fortune bears out the truth of the first
line. On a deeper note, however, the opening line also
describes the courtship and marriage of Mr. and Mrs.
Bennet and the courtship of Charlotte Lucas and Mr.
Collins. Mr. Wickham, however, is a man who fervently
wants to be mistaken for a man in possession of a good
fortune in order to marry into one.
The opening line does not say that a single man in
possession of a good fortune must be in want of a good
wife, nor does it tells us that a good man is in
possession of that fortune. Austen subtly supports the
eighteenth-century reality that strict settlement law may
have intended perfect marriages among the landed classes,
but sadly could not regulate the worthiness of those who
married or the offspring they produced.
Judith Newton claims that Austen's men enjoy the
power and status of money: "Male privilege . . . and
access to money in particular, makes men feel
autonomous," and therefore "the [men] in Pride and
Prejudice are conscious of having the power to choose and
they are fond of dwelling on it, of impressing it on

women" (65, 64). True as Newtonf s statement is, Austen
also shows menf s powerlessness to predict or produce the
proper heirs to their money.
Darcy is in possession of a good fortune when he
meets Elizabeth Bennet. For him, the terms of settlement
have worked so far. The terms of his resettlement at
marriage still lie in the future. Mr. Bingley's fortune
and estate are the result of his fatherf s hard work. He
is the first generation to inherit. The power of his
father's sweat has given Bingley, Jr., access to the
habits and culture of the upper classes. He, too, will
settle his estate in the future, at his marriage. For
Darcy and Bingley, inheritance practice and marriage
settlements work as they were intended. More
specifically, Darcy and Bingley are honest men who have
come by their money and power honestly.
The opening line, therefore, signals the importance
of marriage settlements and inheritance practices, but
the three minor male characters, Mr. Bennet, Mr. Collins
and Mr. Wickham, are pivotal to the inheritance plot of
the novel. Mr. Bennet is the most crucial of the three,
for it is his entail, the designated series of inheritors
that cannot be changed in any way, that sets the plot in

motion. Eileen Spring tells us that " . . . had it been
a simple entail, Mr Bennet could have brought it to an
end at any time. That he could not do so is the starting
point for the story" (Law, Land and Family 33).
Personal Prejudice
Austen's focus on the middle-class need for improved
status, as Ian Watt so aptly observed, was in part a
reflection of her own identification with the anomalies
of inheritance and the rules of settlement (298). Her
family situation gave her a heightened awareness of the
differences between the lots of genteel women and those
of genteel men. Newton reminds us that Austen had five
brothers who had "access to work that paid, access to the
status that belong[ed] to being prosperous and male"
(60). Although Austen treated her situation and that of
her brothers with "amused and uncomplaining comment,"
Newton calls Austen's reaction a "telling emphasis" on
the difference between the economic restrictions placed
on women and economic privileges accorded to men, a
reaction implied in her letters, but which she does not
articulate (61). Austen, then, was acutely aware of the
inequities of life for women; and, with five brothers,

she was intimately aware of marriage practice and
settlement practice as they chose their wives. Austen
may not have articulated her awareness in her letters or
in her novels, but her reflections in her novels, like in
her letters, depict an attitude of "amused and
uncomplaining comment."
Austen brings an awareness of and experience with
inheritance practice and its language different from
Clarissa and Evelina. Vivien Jones points out Austen' s
alertness "to the complexities and insecurities of her
own social constituency" of rural England at a time when
estates were being bought, rented or created by the
rising merchant class (Introduction xxxiii).
Pride and Prejudice is an excellent representation
of inheritance practice and language because of the legal
aberrations that it presents. Ivor Morris observes that
the texture of the language within Austen's novels
reiterates "the values of commerce and property, the
counting houses and the inherited estate" (51) . However,
legal aberrations define the situations of Mr. Bennet,
Mr. Collins, and Mr. Wickham and show Austen' s awareness
that the power of inheritance and patronage stems from.
She places characters in predicaments of inheritance the
law could not foresee.

Critics place great emphasis on the women of
Austen's novels and the treatment they receive at the
hand of males through inheritance and patronage.
However, the males of her novels, such as Mr. Bennet,
Collins, and Wickham, become intriguing characters as
they are also pawns in the settlement game. Their
language, their actions, and their futures depend on how
inheritance practice touches them.
Just as the Bennet women, like many women of the
time, lived out their lives according to whatever
accustomed pattern of privilege had been bestowed upon
them, these particular men must come to terms with events
they never considered would visit their lives. How they
deal with their inheritance circumstances sheds new
light on both Pride and Prejudice and on the power of
inheritance practice and language over men in the
eighteenth century. Rachel Trickett believes Austen
realistically portrays the social and financial status of
each of her characters in order to situate them among the
same class of which she was a member, a "section
expanding from the landed gentry down to the professional
families in the mercantile rich who had made their
fortunes in trade" (297). Trickett continues, pointing
out that Austen "locates every character of importance

according to his or her status, social and financial,"
including her titled characters (298).
Class distinction was part of Austen's personal life
as much as of her charactersf lives. Her characters
often demonstrate that title does not always signal worth
or good character. For instance, Trickett notes Lady de
Bourgh and Sir William Lucas are of very different
backgrounds; and while both are comic characters, Sir
William is affectionately portrayed (298) . The "trade-
ups and trade-downs," as Edward Copeland calls the
marriage scenarios in the novel, are made in "values" and
worth in order to "put to the side or mitigate, the harsh
economic system . . . which runs ninety percent of the
novelf s actions" (43) .
The "harshness" of the economic system, however, is
a product more of marriage settlements and strict
settlement practice than of mundane economic matters.
The novel's circumstances are specific to marriage and
inheritance practice regulated by specific procedures put
in place to preserve the power and wealth of the landed
gentry and nobility. Specifically the entail puts in
place a line of male heirs to an estate that cannot be
changed. Mr. Bennet loses his estate to an entail, and
Mr. Wickham learns very early that blood not love, family

not favoritism, ultimately decide who will inherit the
estate. He, Mr. Bennet learn that the "harshness" comes
with the application of these rigid laws in singular
cases not foreseen by the law itself. The realism Austen
lends to her characters' social and financial situations,
then, continues through her portrayal of their legal
situations regarding inheritance and strict settlement
practice. Austen's own family felt the "harshness"
firsthand.
Just after the publication of Pride and Prejudice,
Austen's mother nearly lost the family cottage at Chawton
through the imposition of an entail. A relative had
adopted Austen's brother, Edward Knight, the inheritor of
the estate at Chawton. A settlement will placed on the
estate nearly a hundred years earlier had put an entail
on it. Inheritors were to follow one family line; if
that line were to end, the entail would then follow the
Hinton family line. When Edward Knight was in a position
to inherit, a Hinton nephew disputed the inheritance,
contending that the entail had never been legally
dissolved, and that adoption negated Edward's claim,
since he was not truly of the family line. Edward
countered that there had been errors made in the deed of
suspending entailment and the entail was invalid because

it had been executed outside its legal term limit.
Knight won the case, but Mrs. Austen was left alarmed by
the real possibility that she could have lost her cottage
and her home had her son not won the suit (Nokes 438-
Strict settlement affected Austen' s life personally,
as it did the lives of those around her, especially the
women. They were touched often by the "harshness" of the
economic circumstances that developed from marriage
settlements and strict settlement. Austen' s female
characters reflect the constant disruption inheritance
practice and marriage settlements could make in life.
These same practices, however, often disrupt male
characters, as well. Both Austen and her characters were
always aware of the precariousness of their situations,
and they were caught by the power settlement practices
had over their lives.
Inheritance practice and its language disrupt not
only the lives of nearly every character in Pride and
Prejudice, but also their ability to communicate,
silencing some and emboldening others. Inheritance
practice becomes part of the motivation for the pride and
the prejudice in those who either have or have not,

driving Austen' s characters and working its power
throughout the plot.
Daughters and Discourse
Mr. Bennet is in possession of a good fortune and an
estate before he marries. He has every reason to believe
his future is secure. Connected by family to the
Bennets, Mr. Collins, future possessor of Longbourn
through the entail, has no fortune or estate as the novel
opens, though he is looking forward to his future
possession. Looking for a connection to any upper class
family of means, and feeling he has good reason because
of his childhood connection to the Darcy family, Mr.
Wickham finally connects himself with the Bennet family
for want of his own fortune or estate.
All three gentlemen are influenced by the language
and power of inheritance, but they react to their
situations and use that influence differently. Perhaps
the most telling effect of strict settlement is that
Longbourn, the Bennet family home where the Bennets have
been "long born," will pass from Mr. Bennet, born and
bred to care for the estate, will lose not only the land,
but the family name on the land. His successor, Mr.

Collins is "low" born, someone without property, and
certainly not bred to be the keeper of an estate, while
Wickham, also low born, but more importantly, ill bred,
mistakenly weasels his way into the Bennet family, only
to find he marries into the entail fallout. The
property, therefore, becomes the centerpiece of the
novel. Longbourn is rarely spoken of directly, but it
remains the silent constant, representing the backbone of
upper class English society, and the ultimate objective
of strict settlement practice.
Mona Scheuermann points out, "It is impossible to
speak of falling in love, courtship, and marriage in
Pride and Prejudice without speaking of property" (201) .
If we focus on the marriages of our three minor males
characters rather than on the marriages of Darcy and
Bingley, then we also say that it is property that
becomes the impetus for falling in love, courtship and
marriage. The women Bennet, Collins and Wickham marry
seem incidental when it comes to love and courtship; they
seem more for money and show though they have little of
each, Austen believing as much in marriage for money as
in marriage for love (McMaster 290). Further, with
Wickham, one could even say that spite plays a part in
some marriages.

Overtones of the pecuniary plight of women in
marriage are always present in the terms of marriage
settlements, giving the reader a "grim picture, but
perhaps statistically not a wildly inaccurate one . . . /I
(McMaster 291) . The central issue of a womanf s marriage
clearly is "[tlhe amount of ready capital that a woman
possesses as her marriage portion [and] is the motor that
runs the economic plot of [Pride and Prejudice]"
(Copeland 35) . Successful characters in Pride and
Prejudice do not become so through their own actions, but
through the language and power of strict settlement and
inheritance, and not only female characters are
successful. Male and female characters alike spiral
upward into the higher fringes of the landed gentry and
aristocracy, which is the eighteenth-century merchant-
class dream though quirky and often laughable, with
situations that strict settlement puts them into.
Austen' s men are often dismissed as shallow caricatures;
however, their personalities actions can be partly
attributed to the dispensation of estates, money and
women through strict settlement. Austen's subtle irony
regarding the effect of inheritance often is found in her
characters.

Juliet McMaster rightly asserts that Lady Catherine
de Bourgh's cradle arrangement for the marriage of her
sickly daughter to the vibrant son of her sister in order
to fulfill the family's dynastic ambition was botched
because Austen felt that an infusion of new blood into
the family would be a very healthy move (292). Miss de
Bourgh's sickliness implies inbreeding, an event common
given the relatively small number of aristocratic
families, and one which could be erased through marriage
of the aristocracy with the upwardly mobile and very
wealthy merchant and professional classes.
Mr. Bennet represents the best of the upwardly
mobile. He is a wealthy landowner who is the son of a
wealthy landowner. The Bennet family has been able to
pass down its estate through strict settlement practice
for at least two generations thanks to prescient planning
and good husbandry of the land. Mr. Bennet, however,
does not ascend to marriage; rather, he moves
collaterally, marrying the daughter of a professional who
will bring four thousand pounds to their marriage.
Little did he know what the future would hold. All the
prudent planning and care taking would prove useless.
Until recently, critics have felt that Mr. Bennet
was remiss with his family. There is a lingering

tendency to believe he could have done something about
the entail. Edward Copeland sees Mr. Bennet as "grossly
irresponsible" to his wife and five daughters, allowing
his family situation to be such as it is at the beginning
of the novel (38). Judith Newton says that Mr. Bennet's
imprudence accounts for his unhappy family life (67).
Alistair Duckworth contends that Mr. Bennet is socially
derelict, "less than responsible," and a man who "refuses
to adopt the role of father and landowner" (128).
Elizabeth Langland believes that Mr. Bennet forgoes his
parental responsibilities in order to satisfy his
individual pleasure (32) . That is how it generally goes
for Mr. Bennet. However, personal shortcomings
notwithstanding, one does have to appreciate his dilemma.
Mr. Bennet has five daughters and no son. Most
importantly, however, as Eileen Spring has pointed out,
Mr. Bennet could do nothing to break the entail, since
laws forbid it (Law, Land and Family 33) .
Mr. Bennet did the appropriate thing with his estate
when he married. The succession of sons in his family
had continued for at least two generations. He felt
secure in his option to resettle the estate with the
entail intact. Anticipating the arrival of his first
son, Mr. Bennet also assumed economy to be "perfectly

useless" when he made his marriage settlement. Reaching
majority, his eldest son would join with him and resettle
the entail or cut it off, if necessary (249). Austen
tells us that despair set in, and it was "too late to be
saving" (249) . We are told that Mr. Bennet often wished
that he had "done his duty" in laying by an annual sum
for his wife and family, especially when Lydia's honor
would need to be purchased, and he would have to turn to
others for the money (249). Mrs. Bennet had four
thousand pounds of her own, but she also had "no turn for
economy," and only her husbandf s "love of independence"
prevented them from exceeding their income (249). He held
her four thousand, made interest on it, but did not touch
it out of prudent respect for the integrity of his estate
and freedom from debt. He does not consider that money
even for restoration of Lydiaf s honor. The entail was an
error of his money and his estate and became an error of
choice only when his wife could not produce a male heir.
Over the ensuing years, Mr. Bennet exhibits moral
anguish for signing his familyf s future away and finding
himself powerless to rectify it. The entail weighs
heavily on his mind, but for him, talk is useless. None
near him is familiar with his position, so he rises to
the level of his upbringing, bearing his error with

dignity, irony, silence. The Bennet name will end; the
legacy of his father and his family will be handed to a
stranger. The Bennet women cannot fathom the devastation
visited upon the family name, as women lose patronyms
when they marry, taking up the last name of their
husband, rarely finding identity in male-oriented labels.
Mr. Bennet is silent and detached from his family
and responsibilities to them, not because it is his
nature, but because his estate, his future, no longer
demand his input. In other areas of his life, he is a
vital and vigorous man. He talks of the farm and the
need for the horses in the field, and he is certainly on
good terms with his neighbors, both high and low. He is
the first to visit Mr. Bingley, knowing that his own
position is one of high social standing in his village.
Mr. Bennet was, at one time, much like Fitzwilliam
Darcy, a wealthy young man, though not titled and with a
palpable difference in wealth; but, still he was a man of
pride and intelligence, worthy to inherit the family
estate and the responsibilities that go with it. Now,
however, Mr. Collins will inherit Longbourn, and only
five thousand pounds will go to his wife and daughters.
All of this, along with his unfortunate choice of wife,
combines to make Mr. Bennet a silent, sardonic man:

"Respect, esteem, and confidence, had vanished for ever;
and all his views of domestic happiness were overthrown"
(194).
Mr. Bennet is silent because of a prodigious
production of girl babies coupled with the omnipresent
entail, an ominous combination, encountered by real
families in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Randolph Trumbach tells us that land normally went to the
eldest son and then to the "oldest male patrilineal
relative," and when the settlement was made, "younger
children were usually given money when the land went to
the eldest son" (41) . Longbourn, Mr. Bennet' s land, his
realty, his real worth, would no longer carry his name or
be passed to his direct heirs, while his personalty, his
money, provided for the rest of his family. Through
strict settlement his land is out of his control, and
through his will, his money, like his wife's spending,
seems out of his control.
Trumbach reminds us that a settlement's most
important business was to balance the claims of family
continuity and greatness against a satisfactory provision
for younger children and wives (70). Inherent in this is
the presence of an eldest male. Mr. Bennet, at the
beginning of his marriage, was looking out for his future

family through provision for his male line through his
son. Years later, without that son, there would be
nothing left of the Bennet name when he died. For Mr.
Bennet, Mrs. Bennet was a large part of his inheritance
problem. She and her family were responsible for more
than just the birth of five girls. Their part in his
downfall goes much deeper.
Members of a husband's family, his father and
father-in-law included, negotiated the marriage
settlement. Sometimes even the input of the future wife
was included. If the future husband received estates
from his future wife or her family, he could not sell
them; thus, his economic power could be severely limited.
Resettlement of his estate upon marriage would legally
affix those lands and the marriage portion his wife
brought with her became his to use until his death. At
the marriage settlement, well before the birth of any
children, the wife and any future children's inheritances
were fixed.
Trumbach observes that daughters received monetary
inheritances, but they usually were not allowed to
inherit land. If there was no male heir at the death of
the father, then larger portions were given to daughters
and the land went to an uncle or male cousin (70).

George Brodrick notes that scarcely a wealthy family of
considerable antiquity remained whose estate had not
experienced descent to an heir or coparceners (daughters
who inherited land equally) because of strict settlement.
Brodrick reasons that this situation was usually caused
by a family not retaining the advice of a solicitor
accustomed to dispensing marriage settlement (94).
Mrs. Bennet's father was a lawyer in Meryton. His
daughter, then, was "marrying up," as Mr. Bennet
inherited Longbourn and had an income. Mrs. Bennet's
brother was a successful businessman, and her sister was
married to her father's former law clerk. Had there been
a foreseeable problem with the settlement, Mrs. Bennet's
father should certainly have been able to handle it. He
would have been part of the negotiations for the
settlement on his daughter's behalf, and he most likely
was involved in the marriage settlements for his son, as
well.
Mrs. Bennet's father was in a middle-class
profession. He made money and did not need to worry
about his children or their futures, for the money and
connections to make them happy and/or to help them marry
well were readily available; after all, beauty and four

thousand pounds was enough to make Mr. Bennet settle his
marriage. He looked forward to raising his family.
What man foresees only daughters? As we meet Mr.
Bennet, we know he wishes with blinding hindsight that he
had either resettled his estate in fee simple (taken off
the entail) in conjunction with his father when he
married, or that he had laid by an annual sum rather than
spend his whole income (249). His deprecation of himself
was not unshared. Even his favorite daughter Elizabeth
had a difficult time forgiving him. She had never been
"so fully aware of the evils arising from so ill-judged a
direction of talents; talents which rightly used, might
at least have preserved the respectability of his
daughters" (194) .
Elizabeth cannot excuse what she considers to be an
oversight by her father, but she also cannot understand
the pressures of settlement he was dealing with when he
married, and to which he now so desperately regrets
giving in. Habbakuk sheds light on Mr. Bennet' s guilt,
observing that when "the eldest son in a landed family
entered into a new settlement by which his own interest
was-like that of his father and grandfather before
hiwlimited to that of life tenant," he was allowing the
estate to be "entailed in turn to the eldest son" (2).

Willing one's estate to an unborn son was the normal
procedure for an upper class landed family. Mr. Bennet
was not doing anything out of the ordinary in settling
his estate as he did at his marriage.
Mr. Bennet did have a choice at marriage to break
the entail or resettle. Habbakuk explains that the
eldest son in a family could choose to join in a
resettlement: " . . . when his father died he would
succeed as tenant in tail and become absolute owner,"
though Habbakuk insists these cases were rare (2). Mr.
Bennet could not have foreseen there would be no son in
his future, so he went the way of most young men at
marriage and resettled his estate in tail with his
father. Such were his hopes when he was "captivated by
youth and beauty, and that appearance of good humor,
which youth and beauty generally give . . ." (194). He
married a pretty girl who brought 4000 pounds to his
estate. Unfortunately, not only did Mrs. Bennet not give
him a son, but she turned out to be less than Mr. Bennet
expected, and her fortune less than necessary for the
future .
For Mr. Bennet, Mrs. Bennet is "ignorant and
foolish," with a "weak understanding and an illiberal
mind" (194). Witty repartee and appreciative respect for

her husband's considerable intelligence and common sense
are missing from her make-up. Mrs. Bennet's lack of
economy was not a problem at first, for Mr. Bennet was
sure of having a son. Mrs. Bennet gave him no boys. As
the years slipped past, Mr. Bennet's good humor and
optimism waned, slowly replaced by a sardonic, fatalistic
attitude.
Strict settlement got the better of him, and its
power to silence and disrupt communication overtook him.
Mr. Bennet no longer engaged in meaningful communication
with his family, except with Elizabeth, as it held no
value for him. He had five daughters, a spendthrift
wife, and a rock-solid entail. There was no one in his
home to commiserate with him. His wife was oblivious to
his problem. Mr. Bennet knew that the "experience of
three and twenty years had been insufficient to make his
wife understand his character" (8).
Mrs. Bennet could not fathom the details of the
entail: "Jane and Elizabeth attempted to explain the
nature of an entail. They had often attempted it before,
but it was a subject on which Mrs. Bennet was beyond the
reach of reason . . ." (54) . Mr. Bennet had no comfort
from his wife regarding the entail. Indeed, she did not
understand its meaning. She was not capable of

understanding it or the language it was written in. She
blames Mr. Bennet, saying, "How any one could have the
conscience to entail away an estate from one's own
daughters, I cannot understand . . ." (109). When Mr.
Bennet announces that Mr. Collins, the future inheritor
of Longbourn, is coming to dinner, Mrs. Bennet complains
that "it [is] the hardest thing in the world, that your
estate should be entailed away from your children; and I
am sure if I had been you, I should have tried to do
something about it" (54). This one seemingly sensible
statement regarding the adverse power of an entail also
reflects her lack of sensitivity and understanding.
Mr. Bennet's despair deepens as he listens to his
wife talking about the match between Mr. Collins and
Charlotte Lucas: "They will take care not to outrun
their income. They will never be distressed for money.
Well, much good may it do them! And so, I suppose they
often talk of having Longbourn when your father is dead"
(187). Considering the emphasis she may have placed on
her words, one can read Mrs. Bennet as blaming her
husband for his "lack of economy" and for the
inevitability of his death. At the same time, she is
incapable of acknowledging her role in the "lack of
economy" in the Bennet household. Her words belie her

inability to comprehend inheritance and settlement
language. The more she talks, the less she says, and the
more she silences her husband.
Mr. Bennet's conduct may be reprehensible in Mrs.
Bennet' s and many readersf eyes, but much of his demeanor
and action comes from the entail. His life is a product
of his marriage settlement. In Meryton, Mr. Bennet is
alone in having inherited an estate. He spends his days
secluded in his study. He is in command of the language
of inheritance, but he is unable to use it. David Nokes
writes that Pride and Prejudice is a novel "in which one
character misapprehends the character of another, on the
basis of false first impressions" (432). Despite his
rapport with Elizabeth, Mr. Bennet has been
"misapprehended" by Mrs. Bennet and his five daughters
because the language of inheritance has made it
impossible to create the proper first or lasting
impression.
Austen tells us Mr. Bennet misses Elizabeth after
her marriage to Darcy, and his affection for her "drew
him oftener from home than any thing else could do; he
delighted in going to Pemberley" (310) . Mr. Bennet knows
that Darcy speaks his language, and he is unique among
the characters in his life to understand his position.

The Wrong Man in the Right Place
Mr. Collins takes the place of the son Mr. Bennet
never had. He will inherit Longbourn. In Mr. Collins,
Austen shows the full irony of strict settlement.
Without a Bennet male heir, Longbourn, long held by the
Bennet family, and therefore, the landed gentry, will
pass to the son of an "illegitimate and miserly man," the
complete opposite of Mr. Bennet.
Mr. Bennet was the beneficiary and victim of strict
settlement. Mr. Collins fell into his inheritance and
living by what Austen describes as "unexpected
prosperity" (61) . The greater affront to Mr. Bennet
comes when Mr. Collins seeks to marry one of the Bennet
girls in order to "assure [Mr. Bennet] of my readiness to
make them every possible amends . . ." (55). Ivor Morris
observes that marrying into the family will have little
effect on Mr. Collins's standing. Unfazed and "without
social standing himself, he displays undiscriminating
respect for degree and those who possess it" (56) . Mr.
Collins was not born a gentleman, so neither Longbourn
nor his living will be able to raise his intrinsic value.
His birth will always betray him. His "undiscriminating

espect" will always betray his lack of breeding to just
those he wishes to impress.
His father, who could be as close to Mr. Bennet as a
brother-in-law, could be relatively close in rank and
stature to Mr. Bennet. Mrs. Bennet speaks of hating such
"false friends," while Mr. Bennet finds Collins to have
"some filial scruples," indicating there is a legitimate
relationship between the two men (55). Had they been
distant relatives, separated widely by marriage, Mr.
Bennet would have little reason to know Collins's father
at all. However, they were close enough to have argued
and to have resolved never to see each other or speak to
each other again. Collins knew of the rift between his
father and Mr. Bennet, which he admits he "frequently
wished to heal . . . but for some time I was kept back .
. . fearing lest it might seem disrespectful to his
memory" (55). Mr. Bennet had never seen the elder
Collins's son, but he knew upon receipt of his letter
that the future inheritor of his estate was aware of the
entail and aware that Mr. Bennet had only daughters. Mr.
Bennet and the elder Mr. Collins had been intimate on
some footing in order for both Collins men to be aware of
their eligibility in the entail, and therefore, they had
to be closely related to Mr. Bennet.

Mr. Bennet, as the only or eldest son, came away
with the Bennet estate. Had Mr. Collins, Sr., been a
younger half-brother or cousin, then he may have felt the
effects of primogeniture. A younger child feeling
cheated because of primogeniture and strict settlement
was common. An eldest or only son who became secondary
through a second marriage was also common. Spring tells
us that "landowners . . . knew within fairly narrow
bounds what was the correct division of property between
eldest son and younger children. They never had serious
doubt that the bulk of the estate should go to the eldest
son" (Law, Land and Family 87) . Mr. Collins, Sr., would
have assumed the restricted position of a younger son or
step-son coupled with a restricted ability to marry well.
The elder Collins and Mr. Bennet may both have felt
they were punished by strict settlement, especially Mr.
Bennet with his entail, but Mr. Collins, Jr., as Mrs.
Bennet observes, exults in it (56). The irony in the
portrayal is that strict settlement practice not only had
the power to subvert the Bennet family's existence, but
it also adversely affected the inheritor. Rather than
throwing Collins into a higher standard of living and a
more expansive manner befitting his new station, the
knowledge and power of his future inheritance served only

to heighten his bad qualities and his insipid kowtowing
to his betters.
Collinsf s good qualities-and Austen tells us he
does have some-are silenced in lieu of his praise of and
unctuous behavior to those he feels deserve his notice.
That he seeks to make one of the Bennet girls his wife in
order to smooth over "bad feelings" is bad enough, but he
outdoes himself in going from one sister to another.
Morris remarks that Collins cannot fathom his own
baseness, as he feels a superficial desire to marry
Elizabeth in order to "improve the lot of the Bennet
daughters upon his inheriting the estate" (34).
So overwhelmed is Mr. Collins with his prospects for
the future that he not only cannot understand why
Elizabeth would turn him down, but he feels obligated to
lecture her on the very real possibility that no one else
will ask for her hand considering the smallness of her
dowry. Like many other critics, Morris points out that
all Austen novels couple marriage with the mercenary
aspect of eighteenth-century finance: "Money-the need
for it and the satisfactions of possessing it-"
dominates the musings of her heroines, and there is "a

universal assumption that knowing a man implies knowing
his bank balance" (34-35) .
The character of Mr. Collins takes this argument to
another level, suggesting that a woman's knowledge of a
man's worth is a natural response to a man's knowing a
woman's worth as she enters the marriage market. It
implies that what a woman brings to a marriage is as
important as the wealth of a prospective husband. Rumor
and speculation haunt both parties as they negotiate
marriage, since true monetary worth is private and often
changeable with the vicissitudes of business. The only
public acknowledgement of worth comes with the offer of a
marriage settlement, and only then are the negotiated
amounts made public and provable.
Collins bombards Mr. Bennet with letters of thanks
and apology and offers not to mention Elizabeth's lack of
fortune if she were to marry him. He even boasts he is
better qualified than Elizabeth to decide the social
niceties upper-class life deserves through his education
and study.
The challenge of modern interpretation and knowledge
of the power of strict settlement and its language comes
in the perspective each man brings to Longbourn. For Mr.
Bennet, Longbourn is the culmination of generations and

the symbol of the Bennet dynasty, its intrinsic value,
forgoing all else. For Mr. Collins, Longbourn presents
an extrinsic value, something he knows about from his
youth, yet never thinks of "rising" to, something far
beyond the reach of his birth, breeding and dreaming, yet
his because of the accident of birth. In the eyes of
landed gentry, Longbourn is a small piece of land
tenanted by a man of little money but long heritage.
After Mr. Bennet' s death, the land will be a small piece
of land tenanted by a man with little money and less
breeding.
More appalling for the Bennet family is the
subsequent marriage of Mr. Collins to Charlotte Lucas.
Charlotte's father has a title, one he received as a gift
from the king while Sir William was mayor of Meryton.
Just as with Collins, Sir Lucas gains his family line,
estate or inheritance earned through good fortune rather
than through strict settlement law. The title
contributed, however, to Sir William's decision to quit
his business and remove to Lucas Lodge to "occupy himself
solely in being civil to all the world. For though
elated with his rank, it did not render him supercilious"
(18).

Austen's ironic pairing of Collins with Lucas is
two-fold. Charlotte has no dowry or portion and little
hope of marrying well, though her father has a title and
assumes the lifestyle of the landed gentry. Her future
husband falls into an estate and a good living by being
in the right place and the right time, not through merit
or title. His good fortune does not work in his favor as
does the accident of title on Sir William, for Collins
becomes even more supercilious than he was before his
inheritance. Charlotte, without a voice or future, turns
to Collins for comfort and security, knowing the social
consequences for herself and her family.
Mr. Bennet reflects privately on the marriage of
Charlotte Lucas, consoling himself that the young woman
whom he used to consider sensible, "was as foolish as his
wife, and more foolish than his daughter" (107). Jane
Bennet, however, remarks that Charlotte's marrying
Collins is a "most eligible match," since Charlotte is
the oldest daughter in a large family without much of a
portion (115). Elizabeth fails to see what Jane
does-that the Bennet daughters are in much the same
position.
Inheritance practice and its language bring out the
worst in Collins. Ivor Morris declares that Collins's

"name has become a byword for a silliness all of his
own-a felicitous blend of complacent self-approval and
ceremonious servility" (1) . Austen describes Collins as
originally filled with humility, but his consequent
feelings of "early and unexpected prosperity" made him
"altogether a mixture of pride and humility" (61).
Unlike Sir Lucas or Mr. Bingley, who have risen to the
occasion of their worth, Collins only sinks further into
the baser qualities that make up the greatest portion of
his personality. Morris says it best regarding Collins,
calling hi, "the living expression and microcosm of all
those things against which [Austen] must in her personal
life come to terms" (160). The language of his
inheritance and his living consume Collins. He is
incapable of speaking without making mention of either.
His communication is so severely disrupted by his
inheritance that he becomes an ugly personification of
what he cannot articulate.
At the same time, Austen makes it clear that a
womanf s job is to marry well. Charlottef s marriage to
Collins shows that Austen understood there were ups and
downs in the marriage market, and not all young women
were endowed with enough talent, beauty, charm or portion
to make an excellent match. Many women like Charlotte

Lucas would marry for comfort rather than suffer the
discomfort of not marrying at all, a potential fate
waiting for Kitty and Mary Bennet. Charlotte quietly
accepts the faults of her new husband, and Austen takes
particular care to show her comfortable in her marriage
rather than mercenary and miserable (Scheuermann 200,
207). Like her husband, Charlotte is in the market to
marry, not to find love. Security, status, and class
drive these two people together. Inheritance and entails
make up the language of courtship for Collins, as he
first pursues the daughters of the estate he is going to
receive, then settles on the daughter of the only titled
man in Meryton. Collins was aware of his new legal and
social position long before he met the Bennets. Mr.
Bennet draws out Collinsf s self-aggrandizing
presentiments regarding his future position and future
wife in their first conversation after dinner at the
Bennets . As Collins goes on about Lady Catherine de
Bourghf s daughter, the reader and Mr. Bennet sense
Collins's interest in her as a possible future wife.
Bennet asks him "whether these pleasing attentions [to
Miss de Bourghl proceed from the impulse of the moment,
or are the result of previous study?" (59) . Collins
replies that he wishes "to give ['such little elegant

complimentsf] as unstudied an air as possible," though he
admits to enjoying the work of putting them together(59).
Collins by nature is driven by his place in the strict
settlement system, and he spends a great deal of time
devising "compliments" that will help his position
further. He cannot have the daughter of Lady Catherine
de Bourgh, but he has flattered both. He moves to the
Bennet sisters, then on to Charlotte Lucas. The slow
descent down the social ladder is not haphazard; Collins
starts at the top and works down systematically. The
reaction of the women on all three rungs is typical
Austen humor: Lady Catherine de Bourgh doesnf t even
register the thought of Collins marrying her daughter,
telling Collins he should find a wife soon; Elizabeth and
Jane are amused and disgusted; Charlotte is flattered and
relieved finally to find a comfortable future. Collins's
settlement starts him down the ladder of success.
Mr. Wickham's World
Evelinafs Mr. Villars has a name that alerts the
reader to several possible character traits heralded
through his name. Mr. Villars may not have the character
of a villain, but he does have the character of a

villein. Pride and Prejudice's George Wickham also
presents a possible character trait through his name.
The reader comes to realize that George Wickham is surely
as wicked as his name suggests. He uses false pretenses
and a story of denied inheritance to gain access to the
upper regions of society. His deceit and treachery
nearly ruin every woman he sets his greed on.
Young aristocrats were out to find wives with
fortunes and estates in order to improve their own lot,
but there were also those who pretended to have a fortune
in order to marry a fortune. Claudia Johnson notes that
"for [Austen's] male characters, dependence on the wishes
or the purses of others, if sometimes exonerated as
necessity, is never admirable . . ." (85) . George
Wickham's life and energy are devoted to finding a
wealthy wife. He builds a past out of partial truths and
turns his less than stellar youth into a moral cause.
Tara Wallace observes that the silences surrounding
Wickham, including Darcy' s, Elizabethf s, and Jane' s,
allow George Wickham to "invent a self and a history as
attractive as his features," keeping him free to "safely
contract more debts and seduce more women" (49).
Wickham counts on the discretion of others to mark
his own silence regarding the truth. Elizabeth is taken

with him from the moment she sees him. Quick and bright,
she is attracted to him immediately, taken by his looks
and his conversation. Austen describes him as "perfectly
correct and unassuming" (63) . Wickham settles on
Elizabeth and begins his play for her feelings and
perhaps even her hand in marriage. He begins with his
past and his relationship with Darcy.
What Wickham does not say about Darcy or himself is
pivotal to his gaining position in the upper middle class
and the military. Wickham, like Collins, is taken with
the extrinsic value of Longbourn, reasoning that
inherited property means prosperity and wealth. Access
into Elizabeth's good graces depends on him telling his
side of the Darcy legend and keeping Darcyfs side quiet.
Access to Lydia will depend on Lydia's silence as well as
the silence of those around her. In this way, Wickham
tells no real lie, but neither does he tell the real
truth.
As Tara Wallace suggests, silences in Pride and
Prejudice are never accidental or neutral (46) .
Wickham's silence, like Mr. Bennet's, is a studied
absence of self-referral regarding family and social
settings. Although Wickham talks a great deal about the
wrongs done to him in the past and about himself, he does

not want to draw attention to his true self and feelings.
Wickham knows his physical good looks and charm are
enough to draw the attention of marriageable young women
and their mothers. His congenial manner dupes many young
men, as well, especially his fellow officers, most of
whom are younger sons whose portions have paid for their
commissions. They understand and can commiserate with
Wickham regarding his "inheritance," and they provide
introductions into households holding promise for George
Wickham's marriage plans.
Talking with Elizabeth at Mrs. Phillip's house,
Wickham reveals his circumstances and Darcy' s alleged
part in them. He works Elizabeth's experience with Darcy
to his favor. He enhances his own standing, humbly and
discreetly, putting the onus on Darcy: "I have no right
to give my opinion . . . as to his being agreeable or
otherwise. I am not qualified to form one" (67). He
goes on, saying he has no reason to avoid Darcy, but if
Darcy does not want to see him, then Darcy must be the
one to leave their company. He ends by telling
Elizabeth, "I will not trust myself on the subject . . .
I can hardly be just to him" (69).
His circuitous reasoning leaves Elizabeth with an
incredibly false impression of his status. Wickham tells

her, "Upon my word, I say no more here than I might say
in any house in the neighborhood, except Netherfield . .
. You will not find [Darcy] more favourably spoken of by
any one" (67). Although Wickham has not lied, he has
given the impression that his inheritance from the elder
Mr. Darcy has been held up by Fitzwilliam Darcy for no
good reason other than Darcyfs bad temper and spite,
traits Wickham magnanimously decides to overlook, making
himself out to be the better bred, the better man, of the
two.
Elizabeth is drawn into his "problem." Her own
family situation seems so similar. Collins is the
rightful heir to Longbourn, while she and her sisters
will be on the streets without inheritance or home
because they were born girls. Mrs. Bennetf s constant
railing about the unfair consequences the entail has on
their ability to marry well has left all the girls with a
deep dissatisfaction for strict settlement inheritance
practices. Wickham is able to manipulate Elizabethf s
emotions through his skilled use of language and
manipulation of the facts regarding the Darcy
inheritance.
Darcy, Collins, and Bingley are described in terms
of their wealth, yet Austen describes Wickham in terms of

his good looks and charm (Morris 51). Tara Wallace finds
Wickham to be "the most dangerous character . . . whose
formidable powers of conversation empower him to injure
others" (52). The power of inheritance language, the
drive behind Wickham's success so far, is just as
forceful, if not more formidable than the inheritance
itself. He easily manipulates Elizabeth's feelings about
Darcy for a good portion of the novel. He jumps from
Miss Darcy to Elizabeth to Miss King, and is nearly
successful with all three. He finally succeeds with
Lydia, compromising her integrity and jeopardizing her
sisters' futures, all in his search for money. We
realize that even with his marriage to Lydia, Wickham has
no intention of abandoning his search for a woman of
fortune.
Men categorize women in Pride and Prejudice as they
would in real life, by their marketability. Austen uses
Wickham to show the crude and despicable depths to which
this practice can sink. Strict settlement works for
those with large estates who are aggrandizing their
wealth and power, and who can produce a male heir.
Attaching a wife's property or using her portion to
accumulate land and interest is more acceptable than

marrying a woman for love. Yet, the standard works the
other way, as well.
Because eligible women are commodified, men like
George Wickham are capable of seducing women for their
wealth, securing from them an income and gaining position
without being born to it or having to earn it. Here the
difference between Wickham and Collins becomes clear.
Collins inherits Longbourn and merits his position at The
Rosings because he is legitimately eligible for the post.
Wickham, however, was born the son of a servant; he gave
up his education, and now he uses the military only as a
means to gain access to eligible young women. He relies
on his good looks and conversational skills to find a
good position and a good wife. Austen allows us to
forgive Collins his obsequiousness, since he comes by his
inheritance and position fairly and without deception.
We are not allowed to do the same with Wickham, nor would
we want to.
Elizabeth affirms the mercenary side of the marriage
market and settlement practices when she replies to Mrs.
Gardiner's remark about Wickham calling on Miss King:
"[Kitty and Lydia] are young in ways of the world and not
yet open to the mortifying conviction that handsome young

men must have something to live on, as well as the plain"
(126).
In the end, with Lydia by his side, Wickham presses
his suit for the portion he must have before he will
marry her. Mr. Bennet cannot hesitate, for without a
legal marriage to Wickham, Lydia will have no marriage at
all and will be homebound, dishonored, and become a
burden on the Bennet family's already pressed finances.
Further, Austen relates the solution to Lydia's
predicament in typical male financial terms : " [Mr.
Bennet] had never supposed that, could Wickham be
prevailed on to marry his daughter, it would be with so
little inconvenience to himself, as by the present
arrangement" (249-50) . Compassion is not an option when
the reputation of a family name is at stake.
Mr. Bennet calculated that "[hle would scarcely be
ten pounds a-year the loser, by the hundred that was to
be paid for them . . ." (250). Wickham believes he is
squeezing Mr. Bennet, dangling social degradation in
front of him, assuming that as the basis for quick
payment. Darcy, too, feels the social bribery and
determines to pay off Wickham. Beyond this, the practice
of strict settlement demanded that husbands seek a
financial base from their wives. Wickham understands the

practice well enough to know that at his marriage
settlement, Bennet would have settled a portion for all
of his younger children. Bennet, however, considers the
entire matter a "trifling exertion" (250). Mona
Scheuermann believes "It is Wickham's callous use of
blackmail and his abnegation of responsibility that
offend Austen, not merely the fact that Wickham seeks
some sort of financial base from his wife as wives often
do from their husbands" (207) . Austen presents us
with the short end of strict settlement practice in Pride
and Prejudice . She pointedly alerts the reader that
marriage does not always fit the classic mold of
settlement practices, the worst examples of which are the
five Bennet daughters and Wickham's marriage to Lydia.
Pamela Bromberg proposes that Lydia and Wickham
"illustrate the dangers of narcissistic egos and
unprincipled greed" (131) .
For women, Lydia's narcissism and greed seem far
more dangerous than Wickham's. Like her mother, she does
not see marriage for more than its appeal at the moment.
Mr. Bennet sees Lydia as a commodity, her escapade as an
expense of his marriage. He tells Elizabeth that "Lydia
will never be easy till she has exposed herself in some
public place or other," and that her doing so now "under

the present circumstances" will cost the family "little
expense or inconvenience" (189). Elizabeth immediately
reminds him that Lydia's "present circumstances" are
ruinous to Elizabeth and her sisters and any future they
may hope to have (189). If Lydia should fall a tainted
woman outside marriage, her sisters will fall, too.
Lydia's self-centered needs do not take into account
money, family, or future. George Wickham is all she sees
and wants. At the same time, Mr. Bennet sees little
implication beyond the monetary and the momentary. He
does not consider the possibility of having to care for
his daughters for the rest of his life because of the
silliness of the youngest.
Coupled with already straitened circumstances, the
rest of the Bennet sisters could lose what little chance
they have to "marry up. " Lady Catherine de Bourgh,
walking in the Bennet garden, tells Elizabeth she is "no
stranger to the particulars of your youngest sister's
infamous elopement," appalled at the prospect that "such
a girl [is] to be my nephew's sister? Is her husband, is
the son of his late father's steward, to be his brother?"
(288).
A woman's lack of financial power is often
accompanied by a lack of knowledge of the real world.

Lydia, like her mother, cannot see the financial side of
marriage or of the world. Wickham set out to seduce
Lydia thinking there would be more of a settlement. When
he finds there is little to be had from the family, and
that Mr. Bennet may not pay at all, he is ready to leave
her. When Darcy arranges the payoff, Wickham is finally
ready to marry Lydia. He is simply looking for the best
deal possible, but he also feels he has bettered Darcy by
making him pay. As Darcy meets with him to arrange the
marriage, he asks Wickham why he has not married Lydia
already. The answer is stunning in its simplistic
egoism: "Wickham still cherished the hope of more
effectually making his fortune by marriage, in some other
country" (260) .
Mr. Wickham is wicked because of what he is not and
what he does not say. His silences and manipulation of
marriage settlement and inheritance language allow him to
seduce and ruin young women almost at will. Further, if
Austen is able to give us a credible Wickham in her
story, then one can postulate there are many Wickhams in
real life playing the same wicked games as he.
Manipulating the language of inheritance allows men like
Wickham to manipulate the system and to fool petty or

naYve women like Miss Darcy, Elizabeth, Mrs. Bennet, Miss
King, and finally, Lydia.
Conclusion
In Pride and Prejudice, Austen accentuates the
foibles of strict settlement and its language. Darcy
shines magnificently in the glow of his ten thousand a
year and Pemberley. He can afford to glow, for strict
settlement and inheritance practices have worked well for
him. The men on the fringe, Mr. Bennet, Collins, and
Wickham, paint a picture of what happens with everyday
people touched by the same laws that are meant to benefit
the landed gentry and the aristocracy.
Mr. Bennet is an inheritor, but he has a non-
removable entail. He followed acceptable practice when
he resettled his estate, for he was sure he would have a
son. Social and family pressure worked on him to repeat
the entail. The Bennet marriage is a paradigm of
eighteenth-century standards. He marries Mrs. Bennet for
beauty and four thousand pounds, and she marries him for
position and comfort. As both objectives begin to fade,
the marriage does as well.

Had Mr. Bennet removed the entail before he married,
it is also very possible that Mrs. Bennetfs "lack of
economy" could have run Longbourn into the ground long
before the entail could have. Free of conditions,
portions of the land could have been sold to pay debts, a
fate that critics fail to evoke in the diatribe against
Mr. Bennet and the entail. Longbourn could have been lost
piece by piece to pay debts, a fate perhaps more
reprehensible and unthinkable. Austen's portrayal of the
Bennetfs estate problems is realistic and probably far
more common than we would expect.
Mr. Collins becomes the repository of the lawf s
settlement once Mr. Bennet made the decision not to
remove the entail before he married. The Bennet estate,
unfortunately, will devolve to him. Collinsf s luck
depends on the distant past, when Mr. Bennet and Mr.
Bennet's father both made the decision to leave the
entail in place until the birth of the next male Bennet.
Collins's great good luck does everything to enhance his
position, but nothing to temper his personality or low
breeding. The enlargement of his estate serves only to
magnify his shortcomings.
Most dangerous, however, is Mr. Wickham. Like many
who sit close to great wealth, Mr. Wickham is sure that

ecause of his proximity to the senior Mr. Darcy, he too
should be accorded the same respect, love, and regard as
Fitzwilliam Darcy, heir apparent. He fills himself with
delusions, using them to build a past of half-truths and
a life of empty dreams. He asserts to Elizabeth that the
church was his true calling, not the military. He was
born for the church, but Darcy denied him an excellent
living (68). He acts much like a spurned younger son,
rather than the son of a servant. Darcy reveals the
truth to Elizabeth: Wickham was well provided for and
could not settle on anything except money. Even after
exhausting the good graces of the Darcy family, Wickham
continued to demand money and assistance in finding a
living (165). Darcy's letter reveals Wickham's adamant
belief that he was entitled to preferment through the
senior Mr. Darcy' s will.
Wickham asks Elizabeth if she had traveled through
the village of Kympton on her way to Pemberley. He tells
her that Kympton "is the living which I ought to have
had. A most delightful place! Excellent parsonage
House! It would have suited me in every respect" (264).
Elizabeth hints she knows the circumstances surrounding
the living, yet Wickham is unfazed, telling her again why
he did not get it, continuing the narrative he wants her

to believe. He talks of the late Mr. Darcy' s "uncommon
attachment" to him and to the jealousy it evoked in the
young Darcy, that being the root of the trouble between
them (69). Even though the senior Darcy may have found
him more amiable than his own son, Pernberley and the
Darcy estate were never in danger of not being passed to
Fitzwilliam Darcy. He cannot consider thinking of himself
as Lady Catherine does, as the son of her brother's
steward.
Wickham, much like Collins, does not understand on
which rung of the economic and social ladders he belongs.
Catering to those on higher rungs and being liked by them
does not automatically afford him a place with them.
Wickham resorts to lying, extortion, and fraud in order
to mingle with the women he considers worthy of his hand.
He hopes that when he marries, his wife will bring him
the money and prestige he wants and thinks he deserves.
She will be the inheritance he believes is justly his.
Unlike Mr. Bennet, Mr. Collins, and Mr. Wickham,
Darcy is in possession of his property and inheritances,
and he knows the structure of strict settlement means
that he will retain his property, free from unseen
circumstances. Alistair Duckworth calls this the "sense
of inherited security that is the birthright of the self

in Jane Austenf s world" (2). The instruments of strict
settlement and primogeniture worked like a well-oiled
machine for Mr. Darcy. Bennet, Collins, Wickham, as
well as Austenrs women, represent characters who
experience the effects of unforeseen circumstances
imposed even with the best intentions of the law of
strict settlement. Duckworth points out that many of
Austenrs characters are exposed to the uncertainty of
losing the comfort and security of "property" (3). They
become "isolated from a stable and inherited 'estate,'"
and then suffer being excluded not only from their
station in life, but also from "[their] 'grounds' of
being and actionsf' (4) .
Mr. Bennet, Mr. Collins, and Mr. Wickham do not have
the same control and confidence in their futures as Darcy
for the same reason that the practice of inheritance and
marriage settlements overpowers "their ground of being
and action." In stark contrast to the precarious states
of these three gentlemen, Judith Newton observes, "Darcy
is also presently aware of his power to bestow value,
whether it is his desirable attention or his desirable
fortune and station" (65) . The contrast between the
positions of these men is startling. However, one must
consider a more startling event of the future: Mr. Darcy

and Mr. Collins could well find themselves in the same
position as Mr. Bennet at the opening of Pride and
Prejudice.

Chapter Five
The Inheritance Novel
The case is strong for making a niche in eighteenth-
century studies for inheritance novels. Many early
novels deal with inheritance problems and strict
settlement practice, and use the language of inheritance
practices. Eighteenth-century upper class obsessions
with strict settlement and inheritance practice allowed
the language to become commonplace and powerful, useful
in both private and public conversations and
transactions. Englishmen in the eighteenth century, even
before the emergence of the novel, were aware that one
vital social problem for them was the inter-penetration
of the middle class and the surviving aristocracy (Sale
"From Pamela to Clarissa" 41) .
The power of inheritance practice manifested itself
in various ways, often taking the form of an estate
through which the wealth and power of a family could be
judged by anyone who saw it. Money and other forms of

wealth were difficult to determine, hidden away from the
public view, but estates were realty, easily assessed by
the public. The personalty of the estate, its
trappings-the manor, the paintings, the furniture, the
books-all were totted up and assessed as the taste and
distinction of a landed family and were open for public
consumption as proof of their lineage, heritage and
continuity. The estate was the tangible link between
ancestors and descendants (Habbakuk 60).
Marriage settlements were public affairs and wills
were private documents. Each corresponds to the public
and private division of a familyf s wealth. Dynastic
stability was the object of great families and of
families aspiring to greatness; the power of inheritance
provided the language through which the upper classes
expressed a wish for further posterity, and through which
they signaled their social and political dominance. Much
of the public speculated about these families, using a
general knowledge of strict settlement practice and a
probable amount of guessing regarding invisible wealth,
such as money, stocks and bonds. Strict settlement
provided a general public stability to the continuity of
power and culture. Wills were the variables, lending an

air of mystery and possibility to the transition of power
from one generation to the next.
The legal tendency of the eighteenth century, then,
was to express relationships in terms of transactions.
Marriage was viewed as a property transaction and the
legal rights of females were subjects of "inexhaustible
interest"; the law, which gave men a financial interest
in the chastity of women, reinforced this view (Langford
6-7). As soon as she was contracted to a marriage, a
woman lost all right to dispose of her property without
the consent of her future husband. At the same time, a
husband became the guardian of all legitimate children,
and as such, had the right to take them away from their
mother if he desired (Williams 6). A womanf s obedience
to her husband, parents and family property, religion and
moral authority could all be means of protection against
predatory male behavior (Calder 16). A slip from the
rigid rules of life by a young eighteenth-century woman
could mean a dangerous trip into the real world of
patriarchal power and politics, a trip often iterated in
the pages of the emerging novel.
The obsession of the public with strict settlement
visited authors as well as everyone else. Those authors
who wrote inheritance novels were usually involved with

the language of effects of strict settlement and
inheritance practice in some way. As Sale tells us,
authors during specific periods often incorporate into
their works the language and terms of a phenomenon within
their society, describing and using competing tensions
through representative characters and events that would
be immediately recognizable to their contemporaries
("From Pamela to Clarissa" 39).
Authors of inheritance novels not only describe and
use "competing tensions," they also are personally
familiar with or involved with inheritance practices and
language. Richardson was editor of the Journal of the
House of Commons during a period when lawmakers
introduced, debated and passed many laws dealing with
inheritance issues. The Speaker of the House of Commons
was a close friend and someone Richardson often talked
with concerning political issues. Burney lived through
her stepmother's and stepsister's marriages, both fraught
with inheritance problems. Burney was particularly close
to and, thus, closely aware of, her stepsister's
inheritance predicament, made more bizarre by her
stepmother's determination to pilfer Maria's inheritance
for her own use. Austen also had a narrow escape from
the throes of strict settlement. She watched as her

others profited from being male, rising in a world
meant for men, knowing that she and her mother and
sisters depended on them for regular assistance, helpless
and controlled existence, to say the least.
Authors of inheritance novels use their own
knowledge of inheritance and marriage practices to
empower their characters' actions and experiences,
allowing inheritance language and practice to fuel the
plots of their novels. Allowing Clarissa Harlowe to
remain single and rich, Richardson underscores the power
of individuality. Clarissa was able to gather wealth
until her death and delegate it as she wished-a clear
usurpation of power reserved for the males in her family
and the larger patriarchal family of the eighteenth
century. Although Richardson gives Clarissa the moral
authority to triumph ultimately, he also gives his male
characters the force of eighteenth-century law and duty
to ruin her earthly life and precipitate her death,
revealing a side of Richardson that favors male authority
(Beasley 37-42).
The males in Clarissars life shut her away from the
real world, positioning themselves against her
inheritance of the dairy house and against Robert
Lovelace. Once her power to resist is gone, her only

ecourse is to escape them. Because of their obsession
with gaining a title, Clarissa must run away from her
filial and legal responsibilities in order to find
"freedom." Escaping the confinement of her home, she
finds herself closeted first among the wicked likes of
Mrs. Sinclair. She eventually finds herself cloistered
among the marginalized. As she nears death, she accepts
her legal obligations to write her will. Through
writing, Clarissa is able to express her individual will
in a language that she, among Richardson's other
writings, uses expertly to will away her possessions, but
more important, ultimately to tell her story.
Burney' s John Evelyn circumvents his legal
responsibilities to his family by running to France to
marry the future Madame Duval. Regretting his faux pas,
he lawfully wills his child, Caroline, to Mr. Villars to
break ties with his wife and provide what he hopes will
be a more secure future for his daughter. He and
Clarissa Harlowe seem unable to grasp the significance of
the power of inheritance until death is upon them. They
produce powerful legal documents on their deathbeds.
The legal guardianship of Caroline, commuted on John
Evelyn's deathbed, sets up the future actions in Evelina.
That body of law allowing John Evelyn to give his child

to whomever he pleases is the same body of law silencing
Evelina and keeping her from her legacy while elevating
an artificial heiress in her place. Similarly, Evelina
is the artificial property of Mr. Villars, who views her
as an extension of his moral self, an unclaimed property,
free to be appropriated as his own representation (Tucker
5). He raises her to be a model of himself, continuing
in his footsteps after his death. It is Mrs. Selwyn,
another byproduct of settlements and jointures, a woman
not looked on kindly by the upper classes, who becomes
Evelinafs savior through her ability to manipulate the
language of male hierarchy.
Similarly, Austen hampered Mr. Bennet' s ability to
provide for his family by having him to resettle his
estate long before the birth of his children, as was the
custom of his day. In the end, his youthful decision
unfortunately allows him only to wait for his death while
the odious Collins waited with him. With his death, the
profundity of Mr. Bennett s decision will become publicly
clear. The Bennet daughters labor under the shadow of
being daughters of landed gentry with nothing to offer,
but they, like their mother, continue to spend
thriftlessly. While critics continue to call Mr. Bennet
to task for, among other things, not ridding his estate

of the entail, John Habbakuk is very clear about the
value of continuing it:
Family provision was a reason, independent of
dynastic ambition, for setting a high value on
the integrity of the paternal estate and one
which moved the family of a wife and not only
that of a husband. The wife's family was
concerned to ensure that the husband could not
impair his ability to provide for wife and
younger children by dissipating his estate or
by disinheriting them, and the most effective
way of doing this was to ensure that he was
made a life tenant. (14)
A man became a life tenant by resettling his estate at
marriage or majority by continuing the entail. At the
same time, he ensured the financial and social stability
of future generations of his family. Mr. Bennet looked
into the future with the resettlement of his estate at
marriage and could not foresee the absence of a male
heir.
The ability to maintain a title and rank through
generations in the eighteenth century became the
manifestation of social c~n~ciou~ne~~ regarding
continuity of rank (Habbakuk 59). Mr. Bennet showed a

deviation from this preoccupation; for instance, he was
the first to visit Mr. Bingley, and he knew the extent
and value of his estate and the marriage-ability of his
daughters. He was aware, however, that he alone
understood his position; there were no other voices
sharing the pride he had for his family lineage, or the
fatalism with which he viewed his family's futures.
As guardians of their daughters, Mr. Harlowe, Mr.
Villars, and Mr. Bennet are failures. Maaja Stewart
points out that Mr. Bennet and Mr. Villars abandon their
daughters through either helplessness or indolence (54).
This study argues that Mr. Harlowe is easily included in
this group of abandoners, for though he is life tenant on
his estate, he still has authority to empower or
disinherit any of his younger children (Habbakuk 15).
All three gentlemen take no real action to protect, let
alone advance, their daughters.
Strict settlement and primogeniture were the
supported forces of reaffirmation of perpetuity for
family estates. At first blush, primogeniture appears to
be at odds with the spirit of individualism, also
emerging during the eighteenth century. Wealthy
landowners had a "personal stake in the maintenance of

power and wealth in a nation," making their private
interest a public one, associating the "exertion of
public virtue with landed wealth" (Bellamy 2) . However,
because daughters and younger children were being cared
for through settlement agreements, and wives were able to
retain more of their personal property through either
jointure of trusteeships, the general trend was to
undermine the principle of patriarchal power.
Primogeniture successfully harmonized with individualism
(Stone 167) .
Liz Bellamy proposes that the economic boom at the
beginning of the eighteenth century allowed the monied
and upper classes to adopt a discourse of economy so
strong it influenced profoundly the writings of Defoe,
Fielding and others, and this influence in their writing
is the precursor to the economic discourse so visible in
the writing of Richardson and Austen (2-3). In the
relationship between economics, the wealthy landed class
and the language of inheritance, economic boundaries
between the aristocracy, merchant and business classes,
and freeholders blurred. Peers were related to each
other through marriage and were related through marriage
to the wealthy merchant class and gentry, as well.

Others in those classes intermarried with the freehold
class, muddying hard social distinctions (Mingay 9).
Although Bellamy restricts her study to the earliest
novels, works involving economic and inheritance language
often evolve into the narrative practices we see in
writers of the mid- and late-eighteenth century.
Richardson, Burney and Austen share similarities in their
lives and themes, taking the economic theory of Bellamy
further to include the economics of inheritance.
Certainly, Alistair Duckworth observes, Richardson's
Clarissa offers similar dilemmas and responses to those
in Austen, with the conflict in Clarissa between
authority and individuality echoed in Austen's plots.
Ian Watt is the first of many to consider the legacy of
Richardson in Burney and the close connection between
Burney and Austen. Richardson, Burney and Austen were
gentrified authors, and as such, produced gentrified
heroines able to disrupt class boundaries even further,
not only through marriage, but also through inheritance
problems and their disruptive language.

Conclusions about Clarissa, Evelina and
Pride and Prejudice
Clarissa is the premier model of what I have labeled
inheritance novels. Clarissa blunts the ambitions of her
father, brother and uncles to gain a title by marrying
her to the higher bidder. Her individuality and stubborn
self-will are empowered through her grandfather's legal
will, leaving her the money and power to decide her own
future. James Harlowe, Sr., also senses that Clarissa is
a challenge to his supremacy. In his mind, she becomes
his problem child---one who brings problems and anxieties
of youth into young adulthood (Nelson 125).
One would like Clarissa' s father to act more
reasonably, but there is never any question of Mr.
Harlowe's entitlement to the familial authority he exerts
and then passes to his son (Scheuermann 63). Mr.
Harlowe's son reaches majority and, as the father, Mr.
Harlowe, Sr., becomes tenant for life. All the males of
the Harlowe family gather their fortunes in order to gain
a title and a vote, the ultimate power of landed gentry.
Clarissa inherits a dairy farm, and although she gives
managerial consent to her father, her power of legacy

causes a rift in family communications, aggravated by the
presence of Lovelace and brought to tragic ends by the
language of inheritance and the inability of the Harlowe
males to talk of anything else. The older, more
experienced males defer all judgment to James, Jr., who
schemes to confiscate the dairy house and marry Clarissa
to Solmes, connecting the Harlowe estate to his. The
driving desire to "raise the family" is beyond the
control of the senior Harlowe men and proves ultimately
to be beyond the control of anyone. The power of desire
is so strong, coupled with a language so powerful that
Mr. Harlowe, Sr., cannot speak and young James Harlowe
can speak of nothing else.
Evelina presents us with a notably different set of
inheritance problems. Mr. Villars is guardian of John
Evelyn and then of Evelynf s child. Caroline Evelyn asks
Villars to raise her child in the absence of the father,
yet that right is not hers. Children belong to fathers.
Mr. Villars should feel it his duty to unite father with
child. Instead, Villars keeps the child and chooses to
raise Evelina, keeping her hidden from the world and from
her father. Mr. Villars, like James Harlowe, Sr., and
his son, exerts his authority over Evelina, assuming the

final bequest of Caroline Evelyn as the legal gateway to
becoming Evelina' s de facto parent.
Villars' own background lends him the ability and
character to raise three generations of Evelyns, but his
efforts in the first two cases fail, and the third
succeeds despite him. Mr. Villars is a product of his
own family inheritance, while the language of his own
family situation endows his actions as he raised the
Evelyn generations. As a younger son, he is destined to
raise daughters in the same way he was raised, not
considering Evelina as the potential heiress she is, but,
more as an abandoned bastard. Because inheritance is
beyond him, he believes it beyond his charge.
Pride and Prejudice offers a different problem of
inheritance, but one that surely arose with some
frequency in eighteenth-century families and one that
affects one only our heroine, but also her father. The
Harlowe men are despicable and are portrayed as such.
Mr. Villars has a questionable character, but he
generally is loved. Mr. Bennet, however, is a good and
just man with a generally bad reputation. Even his
favorite, Elizabeth, recounts his bad points. He is
indolent and lackadaisical in his duties; his wife is the

utt of his humor. He did at his marriage what many
others had done, as well as many after, with no ill
effects to their estates: He continued the entail on his
estate. No one could foresee he would be given five
daughters. Mr. Bennet soon knew a distant male relative
would wait patiently for him to die. Mr. Bennet
inherited everything, then found his estate doomed and
his family a failure for want of a male heir.
All three fathers, Mr. Harlowe, Mr. Villars, and Mr.
Bennet, share a silence resulting from inheritance
practices and language. The effect of inheritance on
these guardians of our heroines directly alters our
heroinesf abilities to act and to inherit. Still,
Clarissa Harlowe inherits the Kingdom of Heaven, Evelina
inherits her identity and destiny, and Elizabeth inherits
Pemberley and her birthright among the landed gentry.
Our heroines rise above the problems of inheritance and
triumph in the face of law and land.
Liz Bellamy points out that Clarissa Harlowe, for
all her sermonizing against loveless marriage and her
penchant for running away with unsuitable men, is prudent
when prioritizing the financial information about Robert
Lovelace that would most importantly influence her family

In the same way, Evelina Anville thinks nothing of
money or its value until she comes upon her cousins, the
Branghtons. Madame Duval's introduction of Evelina to
her cousins "shocks" Evelina "extremely," as she is
described as the poor relation "without a friend in the
world besides" (76) . The Branghtons are Evelina's first
meeting with the merchant nouveau riche. In the
conclusion of her letter relating her first meeting with
them, Evelina says, "I am sure I shall not be very
ambitious of being known to any more of my relations, if
they have any resemblance to those whose acquaintances I
have been introduced already" (78) . Raised in the
country without benefit of city-knowledge or a father of
her own, Evelina reveals her consciousness of the power
of manners, character and breeding she inherited from her
ancestors, even though she is raised as an unclaimed
daughter and disinherited heir. The Branghtons represent
money that does not make up for lack of character,
paralleling Collins in Pride and Prejudice. Evelina
learns, as do Clarissa and Elizabeth, that breeding makes
a lady. Darcy, Lovelace and Orville are possessed, as
only Clarissa is, among the women, of financial acumen
and economic knowledge usually associated with
businessmen and not nobility, while all the women spring

from the business, the upper, merchant class (Bellamy
75).
Elizabeth Bennet is struck by the estate of which
she "might have been mistress," and by the realization
that "to be mistress of Pemberley might be something!"
(202, 201). Until she comes upon Pemberley, Elizabeth
Bennet discounts the wealth and inheritance of
Fitzwilliam Darcy. When she see what power, wealth and
inheritance bring and sees the responsibility Darcy must
bear because of his inheritance, she begins to understand
the prudence of striving for both Darcy and his estate.
Many of the lessons in eighteenth-century
inheritance literature comes from the characteristics and
actions of its characters. Comparisons between our
characters and their actions abound. For instance,
Evelina's mother is silent through her absence, but she
speaks through the letters she left with Villars. More
importantly, she speaks through Evelina's stunning
resemblance to her. Villars, however, regulates both
mother's and daughter's power to speak through the
patriarchal powers as surrogate father, guardian to both.
Elizabeth Bennet's mother can speak, but the more she
speaks, the less she says. She is rendered silent

through her thoughtlessness and shallowness. She
understands only the consequences of the entail, though
she is not able to form a plan for the future to
counteract it. The entail for Mrs. Bennet was something
"beyond reason," the object against which she "continued
to rail bitterly," bemoaning the "cruelty of settling an
estate away from a family of five daughters, in favour of
a man whom nobody cared anything about" (54). If there
were anyone to blame for five daughters, the eighteenth-
century would generally blame her. Medical tradition
would have laid the penchant for having daughters
squarely on the shoulders of the wife. Notwithstanding,
Mrs. Bennet's whining accusations silence her daughters
and her husband to the detriment of everyone in the
family.
Mrs. Bennet's silence comes from her useless
chatter, which, more than being harmless, hinders her
daughters' futures, for her own conduct comes into
question even with Darcy, who is not sure he wants to
bring someone like Mrs. Bennet into his distinguished
family. Austen is careful to develop both Mrs. Bennet
and Miss Bingley with the same backgrounds, contrasting
them with the more ephemeral qualities of the Bennet
daughters and Miss de Bourgh, who have inherited a

quality of character seemingly unavailable to the
burgeoning wealthy merchant class, inherited through
their gentrified parent. If we extend this argument to
the Harlowe family, one can easily identify Mrs.
Harlowers weakness and silence as the result of the
Harlowe men drowning her out despite her breeding and the
fundamental wealth she brought to her marriage.
Richardson magnifies her inherited importance by endowing
her second daughter, Clarissa, with her noble character
and aristocratic breeding and without her cultural desire
to be a weak and silent woman.
Maaja Stewart contrasts Madame Duval with Mrs.
Bennet . Stewart believes Burney emphasizes Madame
Duval' s vanity and selfishness; Austen, Mrs. Bennett s
stupidity (54). However, for vanity and selfishness, one
should compare Madame Duval with Lady Catherine de
Bourgh. Both have French names; both are mistresses of
fortunes, allowing them language and legal power. Both
are highly opinionated and easily provoked to lend their
opinions in order to benefit those they feel are in need
of their worthy advice. Madame Duval rails against the
foibles of the British and the boorish behavior of
Captain Mirvan, never thinking herself in the same class
and from the same country as he. Lady Catherine de

Bourgh advises everyone on everything, considering
herself an ultimate expert, a privilege stemming from her
position as heiress with the intimation of past Norman
governance.
Madame Duval represents the worst of women involved
in the ups and downs of the eighteenth-century marriage
market, in her youth hawking her beauty and charm,
covering her bawdy barmaid roots in order to seduce
wealth and power from a susceptible young man as quickly
as she could. Lady de Bourgh, on the other hand, reminds
us that the Norman Conquest continues. Her guidance and
advice are critical to understanding her as an
authoritative descendant, albeit through marriage, of
Norman victory. She represents what the eighteenth
century considered as wrong with women having power.
Unlike Mrs. Selwyn, who is able to save the day for
Evelina, Lady Catherine de Bourgh tries her hardest to
ruin the day for Elizabeth Bennet in order to push her
own private agenda.
Further, Madame Duval and Lady de Bourgh share a
fading beauty only they cannot bear to lose. They are
widows with no power in the market to remarry. Though
they have money and power, they are still irrelevant in
patriarchal, patrilineal England. They are symbols of

the passing cultural values and the progress of society.
Madame Duval fights her age through clownish makeup and
inappropriate dress and manners. She assumes a young
lover, but not another husband. Lady Catherine is
subtler, taking on many of the characteristics of her
deceased husband, assuming his role and placing herself
in the patriarchal position of authority and power. Both
understand that another marriage means losing their
money, their voice and their power. Lady de Bourgh,
Madame Duval and Mrs. Selwyn make us realize that the
eighteenth century viewed power in women as something to
make them masculine; money is a masculine form of power,
turning women into men or monsters.
Not only the women invite comparison, however.
There can be no more inviting or striking comparison than
between Villars and Wickham. Personalities aside, their
backgrounds and youthful aspirations and predicaments are
much the same. Lawrence Stone proposes that the number
of bachelors among the younger children of upper-class
families was growing in the eighteenth century, and if
they could not marry a fortune, they were pushed out of
the family into one of the professions (243). Both
Villars and Wickham are pushed out into professions. Mr.
Villars goes willingly; Wickham does not. Both men,

eaching majority, could not continue to live in the
lifestyle in which they were raised; they went into the
world with a small portion and a jaundiced view of the
rules of inheritance and primogeniture. Sentiment alone
provides a language through which both men relate their
family experiences to those around them. Villars raises
three generations of Evelyns in his own image. Wickham,
without benefit of a real estate, makes his dreams into
the stuff of a cause celebre, setting out to convince
himself and a sympathetic, rich young woman that he was
unjustly denied a rightful inheritance.
Liz Bellamy points out that the mid-century novel
developed at a time of social and moral uncertainty, with
a variety of competing images for the individual and his
or her relationship to the larger community (61). At the
same time, John Richetti advises that the mid-eighteenth-
century novel was a form of public debate on current
issues, a conversation of sorts, taking place in some
sense in the public sphere, pushing itself forward as an
expression of the self-assertion and satisfaction of
individuals (125). Our characters become part of that
forum, giving another voice to the debate.

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BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Linda Scott was born on Staten Island, New York, and
attended public schools all over the eastern seaboard as
her family followed her father through his career in the
Coast Guard. Linda attended Davis and Elkins College and
graduated with a BA in English in 1970. In 1992, she
received her MA in English from the University of Maine
at Orono. Linda lives in Roswell, New Mexico, with her
husband George. She is an assistant professor of English
at New Mexico Military Institute. Linda is a candidate
for the Doctor of Philosophy degree Individualized in
English from The University of Maine in August, 2003.