[ SECRET POST #6428 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6428 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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[House of the Dragon]



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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 47 secrets from Secret Submission Post #919.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - isn't this the same secret as the last one? ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, that's why Jane is a good match for Bingley - she has the background, he has the money. The Bingleys are on an upward trajectory and their descendants today would be actually posh. So Darcy talking Bingley out of marrying Jane is him being a bad friend because of his prejudice.

[(Anonymous)]

I wouldn't overstate that too much. It's true that Mr. Bennet is a gentleman who inherited his estate, but Bingley's wealth, good looks and amiable personality makes him a catch. If he were the social climbing type, he could aim higher than Jane. He could aim for a title, for example.

Minor nitpick, Darcy doesn't talk Bingley out of marrying Jane completely out of social prejudice. He has a valid point if he truly believes that Jane doesn't feel any particular affinity for his friend, and the novel makes the point that Jane has a very serene, reserved disposition. Elizabeth knew she loved Bingley, but that doesn't mean it was obvious to people who didn't know Jane. Darcy also had a good point about the rest of the Bennet family - he sees a family of tolerably good class, but mismanaged finances and with neither parent doing a particularly responsible job of raising their children. Lydia and Kitty run wild, doing whatever they like even when it's inappropriate. Poor Mary isn't exactly impressive. Mrs. Bennet is vulgar and publicly announces her ambition to pursue rich men for her daughters' potential husbands. Mr. Bennet has not only been irresponsible with his finances, but he's also not doing his job as head of the household by reigning in his wife and daughters. By that standard of measure, Mr. Darcy is being a good friend in saving the impressionable, malleable Mr. Bingley from a possible gold-digger who does not love him. He's mistaken in that, of course. But that's the point.

[(Anonymous)]

As a man, Bingley can't marry into a title. Titles are inherited down The male line, not the female. What he can do is marry into an established family of good breeding, and then lobby his friends and connections to have Parliament grant him one. Maybe a Baronetage, a hereditary knighthood (not quite in the aristocracy, but the highest level of gentleman commoner available), for himself and his son, and if they maintain good manners and standing etc, his grandson might get a lordship

[(Anonymous)]

I meant, he could marry the daughter of a peer. While unable to inherit the title himself, that's a huge step up for him and carries with it a great deal of social clout and connections, plus the possibility of his son or grandsons inheriting the title one day, if the circumstances were right.

(And while it's true that most titles went down the male line, that depends on the terms upon which it was granted.)

[(Anonymous)]

His son or grandson could not inherit his wife's father's titles. It doesn't work like that. In those days the title passes down the male line, and when the male line dies out then so does the title. As a newly rich man from trade he would not be seen as good marriage material for any titled family anyway. He's not in their class.

[(Anonymous)]

Like I said, it depends upon the terms the title was granted in the first place, to its original holder. What you said applies MOST of the time because titles passing to the male heir were the most common terms. Most people don't realize that inheritance laws for peerages aren't all the same, and it can get surprisingly complicated. For example, the Duke of Marlborough's second creation (i.e. when it was granted to John Churchill) made specific allowances for the fact that he didn't have any living sons, so a special Act of Parliament was passed and his daughter Henrietta succeeded him as the Duchess of Marlborough.

Similarly, if (when a title was created) it used certain language like "in fee simple" (as opposed to "in fee tail male"), that left inheritance a bit more open to interpretation. This happened with some baronies, which meant a daughter could ostensibly inherit when there was no available son. Additionally, there were some cases where a woman held a title in her own right ("suo jure"), which meant it could be passed down to her heirs. There are also (albeit rare) cases of men inheriting a title via their wife ("jure uxoris"), the most famous example being Richard Neville,16th Earl of Warwick aka the Kingmaker.

Like I said, it's a lot more complicated than most people realize.


"As a newly rich man from trade he would not be seen as good marriage material for any titled family anyway. He's not in their class."

Not necessarily true. It was not uncommon for a titled family with no money (which was also not uncommon) to form a marriage alliance with someone of a lower class with lots of money. Man with a title but little money + heiress with money from trade was more common, to be certain. But it doesn't make sense to say that, for example, the daughter of a viscount who'd run his estate into the ground and was heavily in debt would turn down a marriage alliance with Mr. Bingley, a wealthy man who's good looking AND has an agreeable personality.

[(Anonymous)]

The amount of titles which the letters patent allowed to be inherited in the female line was tiny, especially back then. We're talking statistical outliers there.

As for man of trade marries up, that is more a Victorian trope than a Georgian and later Regency one. It was the Victorian era where it was respectable to marry up in one go like that. In the late Georgian/Regency era you were still expected to marry into good breeding and landed gentry for a couple of generations before marrying into the titled class.