Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

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