Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

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) .