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Women's Property In Pride And Prejudice Essay

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Women’s right to property in “Pride and Prejudice”.
Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” portrays the society, culture, beliefs and daily life of 19th century people of England (Widger, n.d.). In that era wealth and property played a very important role in England. In Jane Austen’s era, families with inherited property were considered to have higher class and social standings. However women’s right to property was a delusion to be interpreted as women were not subjected to inherit any wealth from the ancestor or the head of family, male of 19th century had all the control over the wealth of the family but this concept has changed in 21th century.
In “Pride and Prejudice”, the family estate of Bennet family was entailed, it would be inherited by the son or the closest male relative when Mr. Bennet died even if he had five daughters, they cannot inherit the wealth of their father. The Bennet girls didn’t have the expectation of large amount of money, with very little money to inherit and with the estate entailed away from the women in the family, the Bennet girls had to marry well in order to live luxurious life to which they are accustomed (Price, 2013).This shows …show more content…

As a result, the position of the daughter within the family changes as they become the means through which Bennet family and especially other sisters could attain greater prosperity if one of them gets married with wealthier man. None of the Bennet girls will receive any of their father’s property. Unless they marry well, they will be left penniless. It was exasperating to know that Mr. Bennet’s cousin,a man the family had never met, would inherit all their property which proves that 19th century women were incomparable even to a man whom they never

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