Read Jane Austen For Dummies Online
Authors: Joan Elizabeth Klingel Ray
Jane Austen For Dummies (40 page)
With the paternal property customarily going to the eldest son through primogeniture, younger sons, like their sisters, relied on their parents' marriage settlements for their income. But unlike their sisters, younger sons could also pursue gentlemanly careers. Their sisters â unless they benefited from an excellent marriage settlement from their mother â could only hope to marry. Jane Austen's lifelong friend, Alethea Bigg, mentioned in Chapter 3, is an example of the unusual single young woman who could afford to live well on her own. So is the character Emma, who has £30,000 and will inherit the family home, Hartfield, through her father's will. (For details on marriage settlements, see Chapter 7.)
A younger son from a family of the gentry had the same educational opportunities as his eldest brother: Both the public school and university were his for the asking. And because the major goal of such education was networking with his fellow young gentlemen, attending a public school or OxBridge gave him an excellent chance of meeting the sisters of his fellow students. In
Mansfield Park,
for example, Edmund Bertram visits and plans to be ordained with his friend, Mr. Owen. Because Edmund went to Oxford, you may assume that he and Owen met at the university. When Edmund visits Mr. Owen, Mary Crawford, who has her eye on Edmund, worries that Owen has three grown sisters who might compete with her for Edmund's affections (MP 2:11). After all, what better way for one of the Miss Owenses to find a potential husband than meeting one of her brother's best friends?
Many OxBridge graduates who were also younger brothers entered the clergy. While ideally a gentleman didn't go to work, younger sons had to find something to live on to supplement whatever money they received from their mothers' marriage settlements. Being a clergyman in the Church of England was an acceptable choice of profession. A clergyman had to have an Oxbridge degree, and while both universities had some scholarship students, like Austen's father, most of the students were from the gentry. A priest was also someone whom society respects by virtue of his being associated with the church. And being a clergyman requires no real physical labor: The priest could hire an assistant, called a curate, and for little pay, have him preach the sermons, visit the ill, and do the bulk of the parish work.
Another genteel career appropriate for a younger son of the gentry was being an army officer. A gentleman didn't have to earn a promotion; he could buy a commission. Costs varied, going as high as £1,000, plus the price of the uniform. A gentleman as young as 16 could buy an officer's commission. By accumulating seniority, he rose in rank. He need not attend the Royal Military College, as training was provided on the job.
Austen's novels have several gentlemen army officers who are either younger brothers of heirs or heirs, themselves, awaiting the time of their succession to the estate. In
Sense and Sensibility,
Colonel Brandon's evil elder brother inherits the family's estate from their father; Brandon, as his title tells us, pursues an army career. When his elder brother dies without legitimate heirs, Colonel Brandon inherits the estate and becomes its master, whereupon he leaves the army. In
Pride and Prejudice,
Darcy's cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, is the younger son of an earl. The colonel's elder brother inherited the Earldom and the accompanying estate, while the colonel, as he only semi-playfully tells Elizabeth Bennet, “âmust be inured [i.e., to become accustomed] to self-denial and dependence'” (PP 2:10).
In Austen's lifetime, the Royal Navy was the especially heroic branch of the service because of Admiral Nelson's victory in the Battle of Trafalgar (1805). So being a naval officer was another career that society considered appropriate for a gentleman.
Because two of Austen's brothers, Frank and Charles, had highly distinguished naval careers, Jane Austen reflects her respect for naval officers in her novels. For more information on the Austen brothers, check out Chapter 3.
During times of war, naval officers could add to their bank accounts by winning prize money: money the Admiralty gave a ship's crew for capturing an enemy vessel. The higher one's rank, the higher one's proportion of prize money. When
Persuasion
's Frederick Wentworth â who isn't from the gentry â returns as a captain with over £20,000 in prize money, he's considered quality husband material. So imagine the eligibility of a younger son from a gentry family with a captain's rank and substantial prize money to his name: He's quite the catch (and gentleman), indeed.
Law was yet another genteel occupation, totally acceptable for younger sons of the gentry or aristocracy (those with titles), as long as they practiced law in London, rather than in the country. To become a lawyer, one first had to get a degree at OxBridge â or if from Ireland, at Trinity. (With so little work and study required for the university degree, I find myself unable to say one
earned
a degree!) Then it was off to one of London's Inns of Court:
The Inner Temple
The Middle Temple
Lincoln's Inn
Gray's Inn
The four Inns of Court were the ancient buildings where lawyers and would-be lawyers lived, ate, and “studied” the law. The lawyers who resided in the Inns were
barristers:
lawyers who argued or pled in court. They were considered the top guns of the law. Aspiring lawyers had to dine a certain number of times at their respective inn. Legal education back then was not at all like today's law school. The study of law in Austen's day was self-study: The student read the right books, worked at a barrister's or attorney's office, and looked on in the courtroom. After a set number of terms and dinners, the student attained his certificate. As a lawyer, the former student was now a gentleman â provided he practiced law
in the city
(London!). And if he was from the gentry, he was a gentleman even before he became a lawyer who practiced law
in London!
Austen understood that society deemed London lawyers genteel. When
Sense and Sensibility
's Edward Ferrars recounts the professions that his mother would've approved for him, he says that the “âlaw was allowed to be genteel enough; many young men, who had chambers in the Temple, made a very good appearance in the first circles, and drove about town in very knowing gigs'” (SS 1:19). His mother, then, was thinking of Edward's being a barrister. (Gigs were the sports cars of carriages. For more information on carriages, see Chapter 11.)
Likewise, in
Emma,
Mr. Knightley's younger brother, John, is a lawyer in London. He's probably a barrister.
But being a lawyer in the country? That's not genteel enough. Thus, the Bingley sisters of
Pride and Prejudice
include Elizabeth Bennet's Uncle Phillips, a country attorney, among her “low connections” (PP 1:6, 1:8).
Young gentlemen could also secure their financial future by marrying a young lady who was the beneficiary of her mother's generous marriage settlement. In other words, he could marry a lady with a hefty dowry. Assuming he doesn't waste her money, the husband could supplement his income by wisely investing his wife's dowry. During Elizabeth's conversation with Colonel Fitzwilliam, she infers that Colonel Fitzwilliam may be discouraging any thoughts she might have of their marrying when he states, “âI may suffer from want of money. Younger sons cannot marry where they like'” (PP 2:10). That is, younger sons can't marry where they like
if
they wish to continue living in a genteel way. (For details on marriage settlements and dowries, see Chapter 7.)
If the oldest son in a family died before his father did or died without a male heir (even a little boy), the family's property normally went to the next older brother. This procedure kept the property in the family. When this situation occurred, the wife and children of the eldest son usually vacated the property. The same thing would occur if the father died, leaving behind his wife and younger children. His survivors would normally vacate the property for the next heir â even if that next heir was the mother's eldest son and her children's eldest brother.
Jane Austen saw these circumstances occur in real life. Her good friends, the Bigg and Bigg Wither family (one family as the males added the sur- name Wither when, as Biggs, they inherited the Withers' property), lived at Manydown Park, a wealthy estate in Hampshire. (A picture of the country house, Manydown, appears in Chapter 11.) The eldest son and expected heir died at age 14 while attending Winchester College. His sudden death left his younger brother as the heir. When the father died, the younger brother â now a grown man with a wife and children â moved to Manydown Park. His grown, unmarried, and widowed sisters who'd lived with their father at Manydown left the house and moved to nearby Winchester. Having to vacate the family house to make room for the heir and his family wasn't a source of sour feelings. It was just the way things went. And in the case of the displaced Bigg sisters, they had enough money to live very nicely, indeed.