In the society described in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, money was as much a social currency as it was a means of exchange for goods and services. Money was often commensurate with social rank, yet there was a feeling against parvenus who worked for their fortunes. As the mark of an eligible bachelor or an avenue to gentility or a genteel
Jane Austens Pride and Prejudice and Charles Dickens Great Expectations focus on the themes of money and social class. In both novels, money plays a significant role in shaping and directing human motives and actions. A direct connection can be drawn between the two protagonists Pip and Elizabeth Bennet. Pip is lower on the social scale than
A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls! - Mrs. Bennet on Mr. Bingleys income, Pride and Prejudice, Volume One, Chapter One
One of the hardest concepts for todays readers to grasp in Jane Austens novels are the economic realities of the times. What do her numbers mean in modern terms? What was the standard of living during the regency era? When Olivia Williams as Jane Austen blurted to her brother Henry in Miss Austen Regrets, Sense and Sensibility has brought me 140. May I not be proud of that? how can we translate that sentence so that it would hold some meaning for us?
A currency converter provided by the National Archives in the U.K. provides a rough idea of what these 1810 figures mean. Further clarification from experts will round out our understanding. Please keep in mind that the sums in the third column of the chart are merely approximations. At this precise time U.S. citizens should multiply these figures by two to derive a dollar amount. I am not an expert, and I will leave more detailed explanations to economists like Brad de
To put some of these sums into perspective, the average annual income for an English laborer or farmer in 1800 was around 15-20 pounds. To live comfortably, an English gentleman like Mr. Bennet, would require around 300 pounds per year per individual, or over fifteen times the amount for a working man who supported his family. As you can see from the figures, as long as Mr. Bennet lived, his family was comfortably off. But the situation would change drastically the moment he died. After that unhappy event, Mrs. Bennet would be expected to live off the 4% interest of her 5,000 marriage settlement, or 200 per year. No wonder she became shrill every time she thought of her unmarried daughters, for Mr. Bennets entire yearly 2,000 income and his house were entailed to Mr. Collins. After Mrs. Bennets death, Lizzy would receive just 1/5 of her mothers marriage portion, and she would bring to her marriage only 40 pounds per year.
Today it is hard to accurately determine the spending power of these sums (see the different estimates of Mr. Bingleys income in the example below). Factors that influence spending power are war, inflation, cost of goods, housing and the geographic area in which the dwellings were located. In any event, Mr. Darcys and Mr. Bingleys incomes would still be regarded as exceedingly fine. In fact, Mr. Darcys 10,000 per year represents only 4% interest of his vast fortune. And Mr. Bingley, though he receives only 4,000 per year, inherited almost 3.4 million pounds from his tradesman father in todays terms.
the income would normally come from agricultural profits on land or from other property and investments (in Bingleys case it turns out the be the latter). It is not easy to translate incomes of the time into todays money. By some calculations, the effects of inflation mean that a pound in Jane Austens time has the same value as almost forty pounds today; if so, Bingleys income would be the equivalent of 150,000 to 200,000 a year in todays pounds (or around $250,000-$300,000 in current U.S. money). Altered economic condition, however, make estimates like this tricky: for example, goods tended to be much dearer at that time, in relative terms, while labor tended to be much cheaper. In addition, average incomes in this period, even when adjusted for inflation, were much lower than today, so Bingleys income represents a far sharper deviation from the prevailing norm than its current equivalent would be. Shapard, Annotated Pride and Prejudice, P 5
One can now understand why in Sense and Sensibility Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters were forced to economize. When John Dashwood, under his wifes influence, reneged on his promise to his dying father to contribute substantial sums of money to his step family, the women were forced to live on 500 pounds per year. This paltry sum would have barely covered their living expenses had it not been for Sir John Middletons generosity in inviting his cousin to live in a cottage on his estate.
Like the Dashwood women, Jane Austen, her mother, and sister also experienced chronic money worry. However, through the sale of her books Jane was able to earn a much needed supplemental income. While the 140 she earned from the sales of Sense and Sensibility does not sound like much, it represents close to $9,800 in todays U.S. sums. In fact, the proceeds from the sale of her four books netted her over 23,000 pounds or around 46,000 dollars towards the end of her life. After her brother Henrys financial reversals, this money must have been a welcome boon indeed.
Now that youve gained some understanding of what these sums of money mean, please read the following statement made by Mrs. Bennet in Volume 3 ofPride and Prejudice, Chapter 17:
Dear, dear Lizzy. A house in town! Every thing that is charming! Three daughters married! Ten thousand a year! Oh, Lord! What will become of me. I shall go distracted.
How much does ten thousand a year in 1810 represent?
Mr. Darcy is not the wealthiest of Jane Austens characters. That honor belongs, as far as we can determine, to Mr. Rushworth in Mansfield Park; and it may belong to Sir Thomas Bertram, though we are never told what his income is. Nevertheless, Mr. Darcy is very wealthy. He has an income of 10,000 a year; if we multiply that by $33.13, then we see that Mr. Darcy has an income of well over $300,000 a year. On the face of it, that hardly makes him Lee Iacocca. But Mr. Darcys income is at least 300 times the per capita income in his day. Moreover, Mr. Darcy belongs to a very select group. G.E. Mingay, an economic historian, estimates that in 1790, about twenty years before the time of Pride and Prejudice, there were only 400 families among the landed gentry in England whose incomes fell within that range, a range from 5,000 to 50,000 a year, with the average being 10,000 a year. Mr. Darcy is thus the average among what Mingay describes as the Great Landlords (26). The magnitude of his income may also be further understood when seen in relation to other incomes of the day. In 1795, the income of a leading merchant or banker was only 2,000 a year (McGrandle 73). Thus it is easy to understand why Mrs. Bennet is flustered when she learns of her daughters coming marriage. Elizabeth will no doubt be comfortable. Mr. Bingley has inherited 100,000 something over $3,000,000 from his father, and his income is half Mr. Darcys 5,000 or about $165,000 a year. Mr. Bennet, however, is not so wealthy, with an income of only 2,000 or a little over $65,000 a year; and though he owns his estate, at least for his lifetime, and no doubt gets most of the family food from his own farms, he must satisfy the needs of five daughters and a silly wife. One measure of the cost of those needs is Mr. Bennets response to the requirement that he settle 100 a year on Lydia as part of the arrangements for her marriage to Wickham. We are told:
So for Mr. Bennet the cost of maintaining one teen-age daughter is roughly $3,300 a year. If we assume that the requirements of his other daughters are approximately the same and they may not all be as expensive as Lydia then his daughters cost him 500 or $16,500 a year, and he still has 1500 or almost $49,700 to devote to his wife, his library, and the other accoutrements of modestly gracious living.
The future prospects for Mrs. Bennet and the girls, in the event of Mr. Bennets death, are, as Mrs. Bennet fully understands early in the novel, rather bleak by comparison. Mrs. Bennet has inherited 4,000 from her father, an attorney in Meryton, and 5,000 has been settled on her and her children by marriage articles, to be divided among her and the children as the parents wish. Assuming that Mrs. Bennet has not spent any of her inheritance perhaps a questionable assumption and assuming that Mrs. Bennets worst fears are realized and none of her daughters marry, the six of them would have a modest fortune of 9,000. Invested in five per cent government bonds, this would bring them an income of 450 a year almost $15,000 less than one-fourth of what they had been accustomed to at Longbourn. Of course, things dont turn out that way. Mr. Bennet is required to settle on Lydia her portion the portion unspecified of that 5,000 at the time of her marriage to Wickham. Both Jane and Elizabeth marry extremely well and have no need of their shares. In view of the financial circumstances of two of her daughters, I think we may assume that Mrs. Bennet would be well taken care of in any eventuality and even that she might continue to slip Lydia a few pounds from time to time.
Wickham is also an interesting case for financial examination. He had been left 1,000 slightly over $33,000 by Mr. Darcys father. Subsequently, he received an additional 3,000 almost $100,000 from Mr. Darcy in return for his giving up any further claim to the Darcy church living, and thus Mr. Darcy felt himself absolved of any further obligation to him. But as we learn, Wickham is a spendthrift, a neer-do-well, a welcher, and a gamester Mr. Darcy must settle more than 1,000 of Wickhams debts over $33,000 before he will agree to marry Lydia. Though we can hardly approve, we can at least understand how someone with his spending habits would be tempted to plot an elopement with Georgiana Darcy, whose fortune of 30,000 almost $1,000,000 is equal to that of Emma Woodhouse. Georgiana is, as Alistair Duckworth has observed of Emma, a bona fide heiress in Jane Austens financial scale (148). No one else would be well served by Wickhams marriage to Georgiana, but Wickham, with his tastes and habits, certainly would be.
Money in Pride and Prejudice is primarily a measure of relative wealth and securit
Pride and Prejudice Theme of Society and Class
Pride and Prejudice upholds reasonably conservative views on class. Darcy's character arc is to become the ultimate gentleman he starts out wealthy, aristocratic, and good-hearted, and learns to add good manners and sociability to the mix. Conversely, although Wickham seems to have the outer polish of an aristocrat, he is proven to be thoroughly ungentlemanly. (And believe it or not, that's one of the more serious insults characters lob at each other in the novel.) It is the same with the female characters, whose behavior and decorum immediately marks them as either upper or lower class. Although both Jane and Elizabeth cross class lines to get married, the general idea is that they are almost aristocratic already.
Already have an account? Log In Now
7361