Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

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