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阅读理解。
&&&& Brenda Bongos was a happy
artistic girl. She had one big ambition-to play the drums in a band. But one big obstacle lay in her way. To be good enough to play in a band
Brenda had to practice a lot
but she lived next-door to a lot of old people. Many of them are sick. She knew that the sound of beating drums would really get on their nerves. So
she had tried playing in the strangest places: a basement
and even in a shower. But there was always someone it would annoy.&&&&One day
while watching a science documentary on TV
she heard that sound cannot travel in space
because there's no air. At that moment
Brenda Bongos decided to become a sort of musical astronaut.&&&&With the help of a lot of time
books and work
Brenda built a space bubble. This was a big glass ballconnected to a machine which sucked out all the air inside. All that would be left inside was a drum kit(成套设备) and a chair. Brenda got into the space suit she had made
entered the bubble
turned on the machine
and played those drums like a wild child.&&&&It wasn't long before Brenda Bongos came very famous. Many people came to see her play in her space bubble. Shortly afterwards she came out of the bubble and started giving concerts. Her famespread so much that the government suggested that she be part of a unique space journey. Finally
Brenda was a real musical astronaut
and had gone far beyond her first ambition of playing drums in a band. &&&&Years later
when asked how she had achieved all this
she thought for a moment
and said: ''If those old people next - door hadn't mattered so much to me
I wouldn't have found a solution
and none of this would have ever happened.''
1. Why did Brenda try to play in the strangest places?
A. Because she didn't want others to hear her play.B. Because she didn't want to disturb others.C. Because she didn't have a large house.D. Because she liked to play in strange places.
2. Brenda started to give concerts _______ .
A. after she practiced in her space bubbleB. when she became part of the unique space journeyC. after she became a real musical astronaut&D. when people came to see her in the space bubble
3. Brenda became famous because _______ .
A. she made a space suitB. she became a real musical astronautC. she played drums in her space bubbleD. she played drums in a band
4. Which of the following can be used to describe Brenda?
hardworking and cleverB. brave
kind and hardworkingC. lovely
brave and kindD. nervous
kind and clever
5. We can draw a conclusion from the passage that: " _______".
A. He laughs best who laughs lastB. It's never too old to learnC. Two heads are better than oneD. One good turn deserves another
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扫描下载二维码Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice -- Notes on Education, Marriage, Status of Women, etc.
(divorce, married women's lack of property rights, "fortune-hunting")
including:
(and some modern misconceptions).
(with C.E. Brock illustrations to Pride and
Prejudice)
"...her hair is done up with an elegance to do credit to any
education."
day, there was no
centrally-organized system of state-supported education.
There were local
charity or church-run day schools (such as the one set up by St. John
later novel Jane Eyre),
but these were not attended by the children of the "genteel" social levels
writes about.
More or less the
same is true of apprenticeships, another relatively less "respectable" mode of
education -- thus in
the character Mrs. Jennings thinks that the young
woman whom she imagines is Colonel Brandon's illegitimate child can be gotten
out of the way by being "'prenticed out at a small cost".
(However in
fragment of a novel
, about a family
on the lower financial fringes of gentility, Sam Watson is a "surgeon" -- a
less exalted profession in
now -- and so probably would have been apprenticed.)
And "Dame Schools", of
the type satirized in Dicken's Great Expectations, were even less
respectable (thus a character in one of Jane Austen's
"knew nothing more at the age of 18
than what a twopenny Dame's School in the village could teach him").
Instead, "genteel" children might be educated at home by their parents,
particularly when young (as the Morland children are in
Miss Taylor in )
or by going off to a private boarding school or to live with a tutor (as
Edward Ferrars went to
several boys went to
tutored with ).
There might also be
(specialists such as piano teachers, etc.).
Some local "Grammar" schools
did exist, teaching the educational basics (including Greek and Latin) to
higher-class or upwardly mobile boys -- but did not admit girls.
of education depended on
the preferences and financial resources of the parents in each family (thus
"would have
Of course, women were not allowed to attend the institutionalized rungs on
the educational ladder: "public" schools such as Eton (which Edmund Bertram in
attends), and
the universities ( and Cambridge).
The (somewhat dubious) prime symbol of academic knowledge, and more-or-less
exclusively masculine educational attainments, was the
, to which a great
deal of time was devoted in "genteel" boys' education, but which few women
Jane Austen never refers to Classical literature, except in a joking
way in some of the , such as
to Mr. Clarke,
cites her ignorance of the Classical
languages as one of the factors which would prevent her from writing a novel
on a subject suggested by Mr. Clarke).
Since women , there was
little generally-perceived need for such higher education for them, and most
writers on the subject of "female education" preferred that women receive a
practical (and religious) training for their domestic r&le -- thus Byron
once spouted off the remark that women should "read neither poetry nor
politics -- nothing but books of piety and cookery" (leavened with the
conventional
of "music --
drawing -- dancing").
See the account of
for the frequent relative
lack of attention to academics in the female education of the time (the
attended by
have been much more elegant, but not necessarily much more academically
rigorous).
In his play
(1775) the
playwright Sheridan satirized the debate over women's education:
Sir Anthony Absolute:
"It is not to be wonder'd at, Ma'am -- all this is the natural
consequence of teaching girls to read. -- Had I a thousand daughters, by
Heaven! I'd as soon have them taught the black-art [black magic] as their
alphabet!"
Mrs. Malaprop:
"Fie, fie, Sir Anthony, you surely speak laconically!"
Sir Anthony Absolute:
"Why, Mrs. Malaprop, in moderation, now, what would you have a woman
Mrs. Malaprop:
"Observe me, Sir Anthony. -- I would by no means wish a daughter of mine
to be a I don't think so much learning becomes a young
for instance -- I would never let her meddle with Greek, or Hebrew, or
Algebra, or Simony, or Fluxions, or Paradoxes, or such inflammatory branches
of learning -- neither would it be necessary for her to handle any of your
mathematical, astronomical, di -- But, Sir Anthony, I
would send her, at nine years old, to a boarding-school, in order to learn a
little ingenuity and artifice. -- Then, Sir, she should have a supercilious
k -- and as she grew up, I would have her instructed in
geometry, that she might know something of the
above all, Sir Anthony, she should be mistress of orthodoxy, that she might
not mis-spell, and mis-pronounce words so shamefully and
likewise that she might reprehend the true meaning of what she is saying. --
This, Sir Anthony, is what I wou -- and I don't think
there is a superstitious article in it."
for domestic training, in those days before sewing machines, a
relatively large amount of girls' and women's time was spent on sewing or
needlework (often just abbreviated to "work"); this is not
incompatible with
(as long as it
is not done for money, of course), and even such a high-ranking woman as Lady
Bertram, the
, occupies
herself this way.
The sheer amount of sewing done by gentlewomen in those
days sometimes takes us moderns aback, but it would probably generally be a mistake to
view it either as merely constant joyless toiling, or as young ladies turning
out highly embroidered ornamental knicknacks to show off their elegant but
meaningless .
Sewing was
something to do (during the long hours at home) that often had great practical
utility (this doesn't apply to Lady Bertram's "carpet-work", of course) -- and
that wasn't greatly mentally taxing, and could be done sitting down while
engaging in light conversation, or listening to a novel being read.
you personally just happened not to like sewing, then you were pretty
much out of luck...)
once wrote a
(word-puzzle) on the subject.
"my whole" is the word to be guessed, "my first" is its first syllable, and
"my second" its second syllable:
When my first is a task to a young girl of spirit,
And my second confines her to finish the piece,
How hard is her fate! but how great is her merit
If by taking my whole she effects her release!
See also an .
But much of the household work was actually done by
prides herself on her
family's being , unlike the
(drawing of a prosperous farmer by Gillray, 1809; for more information and another scan, see the .)
For women of the "genteel" classes the goal of non-domestic education was
thus often the acquisition of "accomplishments", such as the ability to draw,
sing, play music, or speak
non-) languages (generally French and
Though it was not usually
stated with such open cynicism, the purpose of such accomplishments was often
so that these skills then
tended to be neglected after marriage (Lady Middleton in
celebrated her marriage by giving up music, although by her mother's account
she had played extremely well, and by her own was very fond of it", while
fears that her musical
skills will deteriorate as have those of several married women she knows).
displays her
relatively detached attitude towards the more trivial aspects of this
conventional game by adopting a somewhat
towards her
"accomplishment" of playing the piano, and
Several quotes from
, the first is
from , where
Catharine sums up a new acquaintance:
"Miss Stanley had been attended by the most capital
from the time of her being six years old to the
last spring, which, comprehending a period of twelve years, had been dedicated
to the acquirement of accomplishments which were now to be displayed and in a
few years [i.e. after her probable marriage] to be entirely neglected.
was not... naturally de but those years which ought to
have been spent in the attainment of useful knowledge and
had all been bestowed in learning
Drawing, Italian, and Music."
And in , the
title character takes the entirely cynical view that the only purpose of her
teenaged daughter Frederica's education is to increase her attractiveness in
, and even thinks that some of the
conventional "female accomplishments" are entirely superfluous for this
"I wish her [the daughter's] education to be attended to while she
remains with Miss Summers.
I want her to play and sing with some portion of
taste and a good deal of assurance ... -- those accomplishments which are now
necessary to finish a pretty woman.
Not that I am an advocate for the
prevailing fashion of acquiring a perfect knowledge in all the languages,
arts, and sciences -- it i to be mistress of French,
Italian, German, music, singing, drawing, &c. will gain a woman some
applause, but will not add one lover to her list.
I do not mean,
therefore, that Frederica's acquirements will be more than superficial, and I
flatter myself that she will not remain long enough at school to understand
anything thoroughly.
I hope to see her the wife of Sir James within a
twelvemonth."
-- therefore it depended very strongly on what kind of instruction
each woman's parents offered her in childhood, and on the individual
inclinations of the woman herself (as in
) -- intelligent girls
could even have an advantage over boys in being able to more or less choose
their own studies, and in not being subject to the rather mixed blessings of a
more uniform Classical curriculum.
[Notice in the two quotes above that the
disapproving Catharine is
spokeswoman, while the cynical and even humorously overstated
is definitely not.]
In the novels,
that besides the
accomplishments, a woman "must yet add something more substantial, in the
improvement of her mind by extensive reading".
makes fun of the opposite opinion in
mock-editorial comment (on Catherine Morland during ) that:
"Where people wish to attach [others
to them], they should always be ignorant. To come with a well-informed mind is
to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others which a
sensible person would always wish to avoid.
A woman especially, if she have
the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.
advantages of folly in a beautiful girl have already been set forth by the
capital pen of a
and to her treatment of the subject I will only add in justice to men, that
though to the larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females
is a great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them
too reasonable and too well-informed themselves to desire anything more in
woman than ignorance."
more serious opinion as to the desirability of ignorance is probably expressed
when , in the
, teases the sensible
Mr. Knightley by professing sentiments similar to the above, and he
decidedly rejects them.
And in any case, the conventional "accomplishments" were not totally to be
despised -- in the days before phonographs and radio, the only music available
was that which amateur or professional performers could produce on the spot,
so that the ability to play music did have a practical social value.
Similarly painting, drawing, and the ability to write a good long informative
(itself also something of a "female
accomplishment") were valued in the age before photographs and cheap fast
transportation.
The following is
referring to
"accomplishments", or to women's education:
is pleased with the
assembly because she "had heard
herself mentioned to
as ."; "in consequence of being the only plain one in the
family", .
than the pedantic and affected
: "It is amazing to me, how
young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are"; "I
am sure I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time, without being
informed that she was very accomplished".
This discussion develops a minimal list of accomplishments:
: "They all paint
tables, cover skreens, and net purses".
...and also a maximal list of accomplishments:
: "A woman must
have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the
, to deserve the word".
"To all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the
by extensive reading."
, and thinks the Bennet sisters' education has
been insufficiently systematic.
: "There are few
people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than
myself, or a better natural taste.
If I had ever learnt, I should have been a
great proficient.
And so would Anne, if her health had allowed her to apply.
I am confident that she would have performed delightfully."
"My fingers do
not move over this
masterly manner which I see so many women's do. They have not the same force
or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression.
But then I have always
supposed it to be my own fault -- because I would not take the trouble of
practising.
It is not that I do not believe my fingers as capable as
any other woman's of superior execution."
, and could have the advantage of
She has a very good notion of
fingering, though her taste is not equal to Anne's.
Anne would have been a
delightful performer, had her health allowed her to learn."
"I often wonder how you can find time for what you do, in addition
to t and how good Mrs. West could have written such
books and collected so many hard works, with all her family cares, is still
more a matter of astonishment! Composition seems to me impossible with a head
full of joints of mutton and doses of rhubarb."
-- Jane Austen,
"I will only add in justice to men, that though to the larger and
more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of
their personal charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable and too well
informed themselves to desire any thing more in woman than ignorance."
"...when a young lady professes to be of a different opinion from
her friends, it is only a prelude to something worse. -- She begins by saying
that she is determined to think for herself, and she is determined to act for
herself -- and then it is all over with her"
-- the character Mrs. Stanhope in chapter 6 of Maria Edgeworth's
Belinda [Here basically "friends"="family"]
a feminist?
That has not been the
traditional view (in 1870, Anthony Trollope declared that "Throughout all her
works, a sweet lesson of homely household womanly virtue is ever being
taught"), but once the question has been asked (which it was not, until
relatively recently), it is not hard to see some feminist tendencies.
Of course,
is not a simple
ideologue -- when a character in a
novel makes a broad statement that seems to stand up for women in general,
this is actually usually done by an unsympathetic character (such as
), and is not meant to be
taken seriously.
the main example is
" is one of those
young ladies who seek to recommend themselves to the other sex by undervaluing
their own, and with many men, I dare say, it succeeds.
But, in my opinion, it
is a paltry device, a very mean art."
is "undervaluing"
sees through her easily.
Conversely, Henry Tilney's teasing remarks on the subject of women during the
really meant to invalidate his character.
On the other hand, however,
presents a rather cool and objective view of the
this is ).
And it has been pointed out that
makes an implicit statement by simply disregarding certain strictures of her
era that may not be obvious to modern readers.
For example most of
Jane Austen's heroines
, Elinor Dashwood
Fanny Price in ,
Anne Elliot in ,
and even Emma Woodhouse in
) don't have anyone whom
they can confide in, or whose advice they can rely on, about certain delicate
Thus they must make their own decisions more or less independently
(for example,
until he has actually
proposed again, and she has accepted).
Similarly, in
to her niece , discussing
whether Fanny should engage herself to one
Mr. Plumtre, Jane Austen wrote: "...you must
not let anything depend on my own opinion.
Your own feelings & none but
your own, should determine such an important point".
Such moral autonomy on the part of young women would by no means have been
universally approved of in
can be seen from Sir Thomas's diatribes in
, when Fanny
Price is resisting his advice to marry Henry Crawford.
Thus another novel
writer, () had her heroine
Evelina write the following non-Austenian sentiments to her adoptive father:
"I know not what to wish: think for me, therefore, my dearest Sir,
and suffer my doubting mind, that knows not what way to direct its hopes, to
be guided by your wisdom and counsel".
Jane Austen makes fun of the novel-heroine who
"receives repeated offers of Marriage -- which she refers wholly to her Father,
exceedingly angry that he should not be first applied to".
also makes a positive statement by
being treated as , when trying to make her "No" be understood as
Here's a a brief summary (taken from Women's Life and Work in the
Southern Colonies by Julia Cherry Spruill) of an early 18th century
etiquette book, The Lady's Preceptor, which was not out of the
ordinary in conventional advice books for women in Jane Austen's period:
"It admonished her to abstain from gossip and a spirit of
contradiction, which, while disagreeable in everyone, was especially so in
the ``fair sex''; to be careful not to be too quick and passionate in
conversation, and to ``endeavour that Cheerfullness,
Sweetness, and Modesty be always blended in your countenance and Air.'' It
gave special directions for her conduct when with men, advising: ``Be careful
of maintaining that strict Watch over your Eyes, Words, and Heart, that they
may not in the least perceive you have any special Regard for them.''
it warned, took great pleasure in being thought irresistable lovers, and in
gaining victories over ``the most rigid virtue''; therefore, the young lady
should put little confidence in what they promised, and when fine things were
said to her, should ``acquit yourself by a gentle Smile accompanied with a
Blush, to shew that you are neither a Prude or a Coquette.''
When questioned
on the subject of matrimony, without betraying any personal inclination, she
should reply that she was not the person to be consulted ``upon such a
Head'', but rather her father and mother, whose will she would always make
(See also a summary of
(mentioned in chapter 14 of
Pride and Prejudice).
It is interesting that the most explicit feminist protests by
in her six novels all have to do with
literature.
Anne Elliot debates Captain Harville on who loves longest, women or men:
Captain Harville:
"I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something
to say upon woman's inconstancy. ...
But perhaps you will say, these were all
written by men."
Anne Elliot:
"Perhaps I shall. -- Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in
Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story.
Education has been theirs in so
the pen has been in
their hands.
I will not allow books to prove anything."
only contains the , but what has seemed to me to be a strong statement --
Catherine Morland's faux-na&f declaration: "But history,
real solemn history, I cannot be interested in...
I read it a little as
a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary
The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences,
the men so good-for-nothing, and hardly any women at all -- it is very
tiresome."
Here the last sentence is as succinct a summary as one could wish of the
objections of feminist historiography, social history, and/or the
Annales school to the traditional "Great Man" theory of history.
(See also Jane Austen's own .)
"Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor,
which is one very strong argument in favour of matrimony"
-- Jane Austen,
time, there was no real way
for young women of the "genteel" classes to strike out on their own or be
independent.
Professions, the universities, politics, etc. were not open to
women (thus
"that though this great lady
[] was not in
the commission of the peace for the county, she was a most active magistrate
in her own parish" is ironic, since of course
Few occupations were open to them -- and those few that were
(such as being a
were not highly respected, and did not generally pay well or have very good
working conditions:
, about a governess hired by her brother
: "By this time I suppose she is hard
at it, governing away -- poor creature!
I pity her, tho' they are my
neices"; and the patronizing
is "astonished" that
former governess is "so very lady-like
... quite the gentlewoman" (as opposed to being like a servant).
most "genteel" women could not get money except by marrying for it or
inheriting it (and since , a woman can only
really be a "heiress" if she has no brothers).
Only a rather small number
of women were what could be called professionals, who though their own efforts
earned an income sufficient to make themselves independent, or had a
recognized career ( herself was not
really one of these few women professionals -- during the last six years of
her life she earned an average of a little more than £100 a year by her
novel-writing, but her family's expenses were
, and she did not meet
with other authors or move in literary circles).
And unmarried women also
-- it is almost unheard of
for a genteel youngish and never-married female to live by herself, even if
she happened to be a
So Queen Victoria
had to have her mother living with her in the palace in the late 1830's, until
she married Albert (though she and her mother actually were not even on
speaking terms during that period).
Only in the relatively uncommon case of
an orphan heiress who has already inherited (i.e. who has "come of age" and
whose father and mother are both dead), can a young never-married female set
herself up as the head of a household (and even here she must hire a
respectable older lady to be a "companion").
When a young woman
leaves her family without their approval (or leaves the relatives or
family-approved friends or school where she has been staying), this is always
very serious -- a symptom of a radical break, such as running away to marry a
disapproved husband, or entering into an illicit relationship (as when
leaves the Forsters to run away
with ); when Frederica
Susanna Vernon runs away from her boarding school in
, it is to try to
escape from her overbearing mother's authority completely.
Therefore, a woman who did not marry could generally only look forward to
living with her relatives as a `dependant' (more or less
situation), so that marriage is
pretty much the only way of ever getting out from under the parental roof --
unless, of course, her family could not support her, in which case she could
face the unpleasant necessity of going to live with employers as a `dependant'
or teacher, or hired "lady's companion".
A woman with no relations or
employer was in danger of slipping off the scale of gentility altogether (thus
Mrs. and
are kept at some minimal
level of "respectability" only through the informal charity of neighbours).
And in general, becoming an "old maid" was not considered a desirable fate (so
when , at age 27,
marries , her
brothers are "relieved from their apprehension of
dying an old maid", and
, published in 1815 when she was
herself 39 years old and never-married.)
Given all this, some women were willing to marry just because marriage was
the only allowed route to financial security, or to escape an uncongenial
family situation.
This is the dilemma discussed in following exchange between
the relatively impoverished sisters Emma and Elizabeth Watson in
"To be so bent on marriage -- to pursue a man merely for the sake of a
situation -- is a sort of
I cannot understand it.
Poverty is a great evil, but to a woman of education and feeling it ought not,
it cannot be the greatest. -- I would rather be a teacher in a school (and I
can think of nothing worse) than marry a man I did not like."
Elizabeth:
"I have been at school, Emma,
and know w you never have. -- I should not like
marrying a disagreeable man any more than yourself, -- but I do not think
there are m -- I think I could like any
good-humoured man with a comfortable income. -- [you are] rather refined."
the dilemma is expressed most clearly by the
character , whose
pragmatic views on marrying are voiced several times in the novel:
She is 27, not especially beautiful (according to both
), and without an
especially large , and so decides to marry
All this has more point because
herself was relatively
(which apparently prevented
from becoming anything serious), and once turned down
In addition to all these reasons why the woman herself might wish to be
married, there could also be family pressure on her to be married.
this issue is
treated comically, since
is so silly, and , but that such family pressure could be a serious matter is
seen from Sir Thomas's rantings to Fanny Price to persuade her to marry Henry
Crawford in .
There are also :
"knew enough [about what her father-in-law-to-be would
contribute] to feel secure of an honourable and speedy establishment, and her
imagination took a rapid flight over its attendant felicities.
herself at the end of a few weeks, the gaze and admiration of every new
acquaintance at Fullerton, the envy of every valued old friend in Putney, with
a carriage at her command, a new name on her tickets [visiting cards], and a
brilliant exhibition of hoop rings on her finger."
Similarly, according to
: "This young
gentleman [] is
be married,
marriage : "What
, what jewels, what carriages
you will have! ... A house in ! ...
thousand a year!
I shall go distracted!"
expresses her opinion on all this
clearly enough by the fact that only her silliest characters have such
sentiments (while
intend to simply condemn
"her home and her housekeeping, her parish and her poultry, and all their
dependent concerns") for marrying
is a real one.
"People that marry can never part, but must go and keep house together."
-- Catherine Morland defines matrimony for Henry Tilney in
"Ay, you may abuse me as you please," said the good-natured old
"you have taken Charlotte off my hands, and cannot give her back again.
So there I have the whip hand of you."
-- Mrs. Jennings addresses her son-in-law in
There are also reasons why marriage was not a state to be entered into
Marriage was almost always for life -- English divorce law during
the pre-1857 period was a truly bizarre medieval holdover (readers of
Jane Eyre will remember
that Mr. Rochester couldn't divorce his insane wife).
Simplifying a bit
("saving myself the trouble of writing what I do not perfectly recollect", as
wrote in her
the only grounds for divorce was the sexual in a husband
who wished to divorce his wife for this reason had to get the permission of
Parliamen and the divorce trial was between the husband
and the wife's alleged lover, with the wife herself more or less a bystander.
All these finaglings cost quite a bit of money, so that only the rich could
afford divorces.
There was also the possibility of legal separations on grounds of cruelty,
etc. (where neither spouse had the right to remarry), but the husband
generally had absolute custody rights over any children, and could prevent
the wife from seeing them at his whim.
(Caroline Norton's incompatible marriage was a celebrated case of problems created by the peculiar and biased pre-1857 laws.)
Here's a quote from Caroline Norton:
``In Scotland, the property, personalty, and rights of the wife,
are far more strictly protected than in England: and in divorce cases, she
has the advantage over the English wife, in the fact that the first step is
to inquire into the truth of the allegations against her.
The English wife,
in an action for "damages," brought as a first step towards divorce, by her
husband against her lover, is not considered as cannot
and can only benefit by such chance circumstances in her favour
as belong to the defence made by the man against whom the action is laid.
Lord Brougham, in 1838, mentioned a case in the House of Lords, in which not
only the man proceeded against was not in truth the woman's lover, but not
and the action was an agreed plot between him and the
husband, who desired to be rid of his wife!''
Here's a quote from the judgement of Mr. Justice Maule in the case of
Thomas Hall, a labourer convicted of bigamy in 1845:
``Prisoner at the bar, you have been convicted before me of what the
law regards as a very grave and serious offence: that of going through the
marriage ceremony a second time while your wife was still alive.
You plead in
mitigation of your conduct that she was given to dissipation and drunkenness,
that she proved herself a curse to your household while she remined mistress
of it, and that she had l but I am not permitted to
recognise any such plea.
You had entered into a solemn arrangement to take
her for better, for worse, and if you infinitely got more of the latter, as
you appear to have done, it was your duty patiently to submit.
You say you
took another person to become your wife because you were left with several
young children... but the law makes no allowance for bigamists with large
Had you taken the other female to live with you as a concubine, you
would never have been interfered with by the law.
But your crime consists in
having -- to use your own language -- preferred to make an honest woman of
Another of your irrational excuses is that your wife had committed
adultery, and so you thought you were relieved from treating her with any
further consideration -- but you were mistaken.
The law in its wisdom points
out a means by which you might rid yourself of further association with a
woman who but you did not think proper to adopt it.
will tell you what the process is.
You ought first to have brought an action
against your wife's seducer, if you could that might have
cost you money, and you say you are a poor working man, but that is not the
fault of the law.
You would then be obliged to prove by evidence your wife's
criminality in a Court of Justice, and thus obtain a verdict with damages
against the defendant, who was not unlikely to turn out a pauper.
jealous is the law (which you ought to be aware is the perfection of reason)
of the sanctity of the marriage tie, that in accomplishing this you would only
have fulfilled the lighter portion of your duty.
You must then have gone,
with your verdict in your hand, and petitioned the House of Lords for a
It would cost you perhaps five or six hundred pounds, and you do not
seem to be worth as many pence.
But it is the boast of the law that it is
impartial, and makes no difference between the rich and the poor.
wealthiest man in the kingdom would have had to pay no less than that sum for
so that you would have no reason to complain.
You would, of
course, have to prove your case over again, and at the end of a year, or
possibly two, you might obtain a divorce which would enable you legally to do
what you have thought proper to do without it.
You have thus wilfully
rejected the boon the legislature offered you, and it is my duty to pass upon
you such sentence as I think your offence deserves, and that sentence is, that
you be im and in as much as the present assizes are three
days old, the result is that you will be immediately discharged.''
exulted as much as a fortune-hunter who has got an heiress
with him to set out for ."
-- Boswell, Life of Johnson
Of course, any property that a woman possessed before her marriage
automatically becomes her husband's, unless it is
this leads to the "fortune-hunter"
phenomenon: men who marry a woman only for the sake of the woman's fortune --
after the marriage, the woman and her money are legally in the husband's
power (without any of the limitations of pre-nuptial legal "settlements", which the
wife's family might have insisted upon if she had married with their approval)
-- an example in Jane Austen is Captain O'Brien's marriage to Emma
Watson's Aunt Turner in .
This is the reason why
£30,000.
The other side of the same thing was the forced marriage of an
, to ensure that her money passes into
family- this appears in
only in Colonel Brandon's story in
appears to have been drawn more from literature than from
observations of the life around
"Louisa Burton was naturally ill-tempered and C but she
had been taught to disguise her real Disposition, under the appearance of
insinuating Sweetness, by a father who but too well knew that to be married
would be the only chance she would have of not being starved, and who
flattered himself that with such an extraordinary share of personal beauty,
joined to a gentleness of Manners, and an engaging address, she might stand a
good chance of pleasing some young Man who might afford to marry a Girl
without a Shilling."
-- Jane Austen,
The seeming preoccupation with money in connection with marriage in
work may mislead modern readers.
While there is no lack of greed and , even sensible people must
devote serious thought to this topic, since it is rather foolhardy to marry
without having a more-or-less guaranteed income in advance -- not only was
, but there was no social
security, old age pensions, unemployment compensation, health insurance, etc.
(as pointed out by ) -- it is only
the ridiculous
who extolls
was engaged for several years
without being able to marry, due to lack of money on the part of her and her
fianc& (and their families).
is a rogue, even a sincere
man with his limited income might be deterred by financial reasons from
(this more or
less what ).
wrote a satirical
(word-puzzle) on the resulting "marriage
market", where personal attractions are weighed against financial
considerations (here "my whole" is the word to be guessed, "my first" is its
first syllable, and "my second" its second syllable):
You may lie on my first on the side of a stream,
And my second compose to the nymph you adore,
But if, when you've none of my whole, her esteem
And affection diminish -- think of her no more!
The groom's income, and the money that the bride may have had
on her (such as
£30,000),
was frequently augmented by contributions from one or both of their families
(in line with the view of marriage as an
the two families).
Passages in
dealing with money and marriage:
"portion is is
unhappily so small that it will in all likelihood undo the effects of [her]
loveliness and amiable qualifications", and
: "If you go on
will never get a husband -- and I am sure I do not know who is to maintain you
: "affection" for
would be "so very imprudent"
because of his .
: "we see every day
that where there is affection, young people are seldom withheld by immediate
from entering into
engagements with each other".
is willing to allow
transferring his
attentions from her (to )
: "what is the
difference, in matrimonial affairs, between the
are not many in my rank of life who can
, on hearing of
elopement with
In the context of marriage, a "settlement" is a legal document that usually
ensures that some or all of the property that the wife brings to the
marriage ultimately belongs to her, and will revert to her or her children
(though she does not necessarily have personal control over it during her
marriage); otherwise it would basically . And a settlement can also specify a guaranteed minimum
that the children of the marriage are to inherit
Henry Tilney can't be entirely disinherited by his father, General Tilney,
because some of his inheritance is guaranteed by the marriage settlement of
the money that came with Mr. Henry Dashwood's late
first wife is settled on their son, and it can't be used to help his second
wife or his daughters by his second wife (see the
A settlement is generally
part of an overall pre-marital
between the wife or wife's family and the husband or husband's family (and
can guarantee the amounts to be contributed).
is required to guarantee
", her equal share of the
five thousand pounds secured among his children after the decease of"
and his wife, "and,
moreover, to enter into an engagement of allowing her, during his life, one
hundred pounds per" year.
In addition,
to pay his debts and
(as an ensign or
sub-lieutenant) .
"Her husband, however, would not for...
cousin Charles Hayter was an eldest son, and he saw things as an eldest son
-- , Chapter 9
"Sir William Mountague was the son of Sir Henry Mountague, who was
the son of Sir John Mountague, a descendant of Sir Christopher Mountague, who
was the nephew of Sir Edward Mountague, whose ancestor was Sir James
Mountague, a near relation of Sir Robert Mountague, who inherited the Title
& Estate from Sir Frederic Mountague."
An entail was a legal device used to prevent a landed property
from being broken up, and/or from descending in a female line.
is a logical extension of the then-prevalent practice of leaving the bulk of
one's wealth (particularly real estate) to one's eldest son or
has an income of
£10,000 a year, representing a wealth of about £200,000, while
has £30,000;
similarly,
£100,000, and
£20,000 apiece).
Entailed property is usually inherited by male primogeniture, in more or
less the same way as are some
-- i.e. by the nearest
male-line descendant (son of son etc.) of the original owner of the estate
or title, whose ancestry in each generation goes through the eldest son who
has left living male-line descendants (thus the male-line descendants of the
second son of an owner will not have a chance to inherit until all the
male-line descendants of the eldest son have died out).
So, for example,
Mr. Elliot is the heir to Sir Walter in
Entailment also
prevents a father from disinheriting his eldest son -- a factor in
(father to son:
Women generally
inherit only if there are no male-line heirs left, and if there is more than
one sister, then they are all equal co-heiresses, rather than only the
eldest inheriting.
The following diagram may help illustrate the mysterious workings of such an
the original possessor of the estate is at the top of the diagram,
males are denoted by "M", females by "F", the current (male) owner of the
estate by "X", siblings are arranged left-to-right from eldest to youngest,
and the potential heirs to the estate upon the death of "X" are numbered in
the order of successsion (potential co-heiress-ships are shown by several
women being given the same number):
+-----------+----------+-------+
+------------+--------+------+------+
Note that the technical interpretation of this chart is that, given this
family configuration, the individual numbered (1) is the immediate heir of the
man labeled "X"; but if (1) died before "X", then (2) would be X's immediate
and if (1) and (2) died before "X", then (3) would be X's immediate
heir, and so on down the line (i.e. if all individuals labelled with numbers
(1)-(11) were to die before "X", then the individual numbered (12) would be
X's immediate heir).
The following is an edited version of a post to :
Sun, 22 Sep :53 -0400
John Hopfner
Let me start with the disclaimer that I'm neither a lawyer nor a
legal historian.
The following is my best understanding of the facts
from British history, but I almost certainly am overgeneralizing in some
In order to understand entails, the first thing to consider is the
importance that ownership of land had, both in the England of Jane
Austen's time and in England for centuries previous to her day.
Ownership of land wasn't just an ornament to the family (in the way that
a collection of paintings or a library might be considered an ornament).
Land was what made a family part of the aristocracy or gentry.
Ownership of land produced an income that was steady, predictable, and
recurring.
That income was what freed the family from the necessity to
earn their living by daily effort.
It freed them to secure and enjoy an
education, to -- as they chose -- dabble in the arts and sciences,
become involved in politics, or lead a life of idleness and refinement.
This gave ownership of land a cachet that went beyond ownership of cash
or movable goods.
A landed estate was The Patrimony -- it conferred
status in society, not just on one person for one generation, but on the
family so long as it lasted.
This fact wasn't lost on members of the gentry and aristocracy.
were they blind to two real dangers that threaten a landed estate:
dissipation by sale, if the head of the family at any point in time (a
wastrel, say, or a foolish speculator) were to sell his land to raise
funds, and then fritter awa and subdivision (if an
estate were divided equally between all sons or children over several
generations, then a single Patrimony, sufficient to make its holder a
gentleman and member of the gentry, becomes a multitude of smaller
patrimonies that, individually, don't qualify his descendents for the
same social status).
The result is that the whole family sinks into obscurity,
which was held to be a bad thing.
The answer to this problem is
primogeniture among male heirs, which keeps The Patrimony itself intact
and under the control of the head of the family in each generation --
though at the cost of unfairness to other surviving children of the
family head.
If the family head dies without sons, then by operation of common
law, the estate would be inherited equally by all the man's daughters.
If there were several daughters, they each would inherit an equal share,
and the subdivision problem occurs.
But even if the head of the family
died leaving only one daughter, the daughter almost surely will marry --
and at her death her heirs would be, presumably, the children she had
with her husband.
Which means that the "Bennet" patrimony ceases to
exist, and becomes part of the Darcy or Bingley estates (for example).
Nobody in the Bennet line would consider the prospect of this to be a
good thing, and so the answer was to make provision to extend
primogeniture to the entire male line, not just to the male sons of a
given holder of a landed estate.
The law behind entails showed the usual British legal tendency to
accumulation of complexity over time, so that only a true expert could explain all the arcane ramifications (for example, in Jane Austen's period what was
called an "entail" was technically a "strict settlement"), but it may be mentioned that
entails had to be periodically renewed, and could be "broken" with the
consent of a heir who has come of age (cf. :
"When first Mr. Bennet had married, economy was held to be
for, of course, they were to have a son.
was to join in cutting off the entail, as soon as he
should be of age, and the widow and younger children would by that
means be provided for").
If Mr. Collins were to leave only daughters on his death, and there were
no further patrilineal heirs lurking in the wings behind Mr. Collins, I
don't know whether Longbourn would then actually revert to the Bennet
daughters upon the death of Mr. Bennet and Mr. Collins (as would be
predicted by strict application of the principle of seniority); it's
certainly an intriguing possibility (though if the entail were considered to have come to an end with the death of the last male-line heir, then the estate would be divided among Mr. Collins's daughters by the normal operation of common law).
The entail on the
(according to which
is the heir) is treated somewhat lightly in the novel (or at least
reaction to it is),
expected her readers to understand
that it is no joke
died, his wife and five
daughters would have to leave
and live on the interest of , or
a little more than £200 a year (because
, it is obvious that their
standard of living would drop considerably
); probably they would be partly dependent on the charity of
died in 1805,
and her mother and sister
needed an income of about
, which had to be partly supplied
by some of
that "If you go on
refusing every offer of marriage, you will never get a husband -- and I am
sure I do not know who is to maintain you when your father is dead" has some
This is the background against which
are not desperate to be
married to anyone with a good income (unlike
Passages in
referring to the :
incomprehension:
"Alliance"
"Sister" is used frequently for "sister-in-law", and "brother" for
"brother-in-law".
for "son-in-law".
herself being presented to
the fianc& of
that Mr. and
will be his
if he marries
(when talking to
after his marriage to
her sister )
her uncle and aunt, .
The use of the same terms for one's spouse's family as for one's own family
reflects .
(Thus later on in the 19th century, there was a
long debate about whether or not it is incest to marry one's dead wife's
This is why
conceives herself to have the right to prevent
possible marriage to
her nephew .
(Mary Musgrove in :
"I do not think any young woman has a right to make a choice that may be
disagreeable and inconvenient to the principal part of her family, and be
giving bad connections to those who have not been used to them.")
vulgar relatives.
imagines that
has given her up because
(who has married her sister
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