Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

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