To have just realised that Mr Collins got Mrs Collins in the family way.

[squoosh]

Have just re-read Pride & Prejudice for the first time in yonks and at the end Mr Collins mentions 'dear Charlotte’s situation, and his expectation of a young olive-branch. How had I not noticed that before?

I'd always imagined dear Charlotte avoiding that messy business by keeping him occupied with his sermon writing and his gardening and his pash on Lady Catherine.

But she was a woman who knew what she wanted so I wouldn't be surprised if she was the one who took conjugal matters in hand.

Good old P&P, the book that keeps on giving.

There was no rule of primogeniture in England in a legal sense, it was just that the very strong custom was to preserve the estate intact so that the family (as opposed to individual members of the family) would retain most of its wealth and thus its social position.

The usual way of providing for widows and daughters was by marriage settlements - an agreement on marriage to pay a fixed amount to the widow and children. In the Bennett's case, £5,000 had been settled on Mrs Bennett and her children, but it was not laid down how it was to be shared, which was why the agreement with Wickham when he married Lydia stipulated that Mr Bennett should 'assure to [Lydia] by settlement her equal share of the five thousand pounds secured among your children after the deceased of yourself and my sister'
In addition, of course, there was 'some little money....to settle on Lydia' even after Wickham's debts were paid - this money of course actually came from Darcey, not Wickham himself.

I'm not sure where the £5000 was to come from, it's probable it was laid down in the terms of the original entail that a limited settlement of that kind would be allowed. The terms of an entail could vary, and in some cases settlements could mean that the eventual heir might receive just the land and the title, if there was one, with hardly enough money to maintain it.

The intestacy law was different and did, very strongly, support primogeniture. You die without a will, your land goes to your eldest son. If you have no sons, but several daughters it goes to all of them in a form of inheritance called co-parceny (like a joint tenancy). If only one daughter and no will, then she's your heiress.

The £5000 that's to be shared between the Bennet daughters is presumably the money Mrs Bennet brought to the marriage; it was very usual for maternal fortunes, or a portion of them, to be ring fenced for daughters and younger sons under a marriage settlement.

The £5000 that's to be shared between the Bennet daughters is presumably the money Mrs Bennet brought to the marriage;

For whatever reason, that's what I always believed. That it was money settled on her as a dowry by her father, secured to her as a widow's portion. After all, her father was an attorney and presumably would have looked after her security.

Well, exactly! But perhaps Mr Bennet wasn't quite so much of a catch for Miss Gardiner as we tend to imagine given how little freedom he has with his finances ...

There's also the famous question as to why, if the entail is in tail male, Mr Collins isn't called Bennet :)

Though the conversation has moved on from Anne de Bourgh's fate I can't help but recommend this rather lovely fan-written idea of what might have happened to her if she managed to get out of her mother's shadow: www.fanfiction.net/s/5375087/1/Miss-de-Bourgh-in-Bath

Financially I always thought Mr Bennett and Mrs Bennett were a decent match, and reasonably well off. 5k wasn't a bad amount and neither was an income of 1k a year. Not loads, but enough to keep them very comfortably in that strata of society. If they'd had eg 1 son and 1 daughter, they'd have been sitting quite pretty! The son would've had the estate, the daughter her 5k, everyone's happy.

Miss Lambe re Mr Collins' last name, I never thought of that!!! If he's an heir in the direct male line, his name should be Bennet! Perhaps somewhere a male heir 'married well' and took his wife's name?

I'd think in absence of a direct male heir (son of Mr Bennet) the 'daughter of a direct male heir' (Jane, eldest child of Mr Bennet) would stand higher than the 'son of a daughter of a lesser male heir' (Mr Collins as the son of a female of the indirect Bennet line?) in an entail.

IIRC, all P&P says is that he's a 'distant cousin'.

I dread to think what an 18th Century abortion entailed though I have some idea from what is mentioned on 20th Century backstreet abortion on TV and in novels) please no-one inform me I'm quite sure I don't want to know!

Oh, and I must recommend this, too - a take on what might have happened when the "olive branch" began archiveofourown.org/works/2434838

I always took it that Collins was just the next available bloke in the line regardless of surname. For example Peter Phillips is in the line of Royal succession despite having no Royal rank

Liz > Charles > William > George > Charlotte > Harry > Andrew > Bea > Eug > Ed > James > Louise >Anne > Peter > Savannah > Isla > Zara > Mia

(James being above Louise because they were born before the rules changed)

So Collins mother could have been a first cousin of Mr Bennet. They only made him distant to make him "unknown" in a real scenario, it probably would've gone to a nephew.

However, why isn't the entail to Longbourne settled upon Jane's eldest son? Surely a direct grandchild has a stronger claim?

eg they didn't have to go casting about for another rando cousin to carry on the Crawley name because they had George.

As a dramatic device it doesn't bear scrutiny.

Was he a distant cousin in terms of being distantly related, or merely distant in terms of not being well known to them?

Didn't Mr Collins' father have a falling out with Mr Bennet? He wrote his initial letter saying he wanted to build bridges so they must have been familiar. Maybe they fell out over the entail, but why would you have a falling out with your cousin's husband over his son inheriting your house? I never thought about the surname either. I can't work it out.

every wasn't George the heir to Downtown because he was Matthews son, rather than because he is Mary's son, if you know what I mean??

Well, his father and Mr Bennet had a had a falling out about the entail which is why he has to write to introduce himself to them. Mr and Mrs Bennet knows who he is.

Every, a strict entail in tail male is more like royal succession under Salic law, where women can't inherit, or pass on inheritance rights to their sons.

It all depends on the wording of the entail. I've always tended to think that someone has changed a surname somewhere along the way (far from unusual, happened three times in Austen's own close family) but it could well be that if the direct male line failed then everything flips over to the direct male line descended from a daughter; it all depends on the wording of the entail, so not quite as rigid. You can't set entails up anymore, of course, but when you could, you were allowed be as complicated as you liked.

And yeah, in Downton Abbey Mary's son doesn't inherit through her, but through his father.

Entailments could be drawn up to include or exclude particular descendants - so for example, Mr Bennett's great-grandfather (or previous ancestor) could have made an entailment specifying that no woman should inherit if there was a male descendant of his own living, whether that male was descended through the male or the female line.

Or maybe Mr Collins' father or grandfather was born a Bennett, but adopted into another family and took their name, like Frank Churchill, or JA's brother Edward, who became Edward Austen Knight.

misslambe yes that sounds simple enough, that in the absence of the male eldest son usual inheritance it would go to the closest male relative eg Mr B and Mr C senior are first cousins, their parents are brother and sister, so Mr B inherits Longbourne from his father but then bthe male line fails. The entail would then go to his aunt's line, and she has married Mr Collins Senior and had a son. I think

Potentially, the falling out is relative to the fact that had the Collins branch signed away its distant claim to the entail; women would be able to inherit it and that's what Bennet tried to do, which is why Mrs Bennett hates him when he's first mentioned.

Which is why he considers himself to be "making amends" by condescending to make one of them his wife.

Why was Edward Edward Austen Knight?

Must buy an Austen biography

Edward was adopted by the Knight family, who were distant relatives of his father, rich and childless, so they wanted an heir (presumably their estates were not entailed, so they could choose who inherited) Edward inherited three estates from the Knights, and later adopted their name.

Interesting idea that the falling out between the Bennet and Collins family might have been over the Bennet desire to break the entail. This was normally done by 'buying out' the interest of the entailee and could cost a very, very pretty penny!

But if said entail consisted of the closest male heir regardless of the gender line from which he was descended, then wouldn't Mr Collins lose out if Jane and Bingley have a son before Mr Bennet dies?

ATP55 - I always thought it was obvious that that was the reason, not being smuggy smug or anything, I thought it was established canon.

And Bennett obviously didn't have the asking price.

I'm really confused about the eldest Bingley child though (if a son) as surely that works?

pigs Yes, silly me, of course, but I knew there was something bothering me about that and it's that Mary states at some poin, more than once that she not George has inherited from Matthew, which is nonsense.

I would think once that line was lost, it was lost to that branch of the family forevermore, otherwise it could cause ructions with it going backwards and forwards. Going back to Downton, if Mary could have had a son with anyone and just become mother of the heir the entail wouldn't have mattered so much as long as one of the daughters hurried up and had a son by anyone. The line was lost to that generation completely due to the lack of a son. It seems such a ridiculous premise that you could lose your estate but that your line could still inherit the crown even if you just had daughters, eg Elizabeth and Margaret.