Mrs Bennet Was Right About the Entail

Mrs Bennet was right about the entail, and the novel itself shows it. We open the Longbourn ledger: £2,000 a year that none of five daughters could inherit, against her own £160 to £200 a year, with every figure shown with its measure and its source. 00:00 Mrs Bennet was right about the entail 00:27 How to read the ledger 02:23 Two thousand a year, in default of heirs male 04:40 Destitute enough: her side of the page 07:44 Could Mr Bennet have undone it? 10:45 Where the danger really lay 13:21 The verdict: guaranteed and possible 15:40 The real women behind the entail Picture Mr Bennet in the first year of his marriage, the ledger open, the son not yet born. What would you have asked him to do: save part of every year, see a lawyer, or trust, as they both did, that the son was coming? Tell us in the comments. If you would like to open the next heroine's ledger with us, do subscribe. Educational content. Modern-money equivalents are estimates; measures and sources are listed above. Illustrations: public-domain archive prints and paintings (credited on screen) and original stylised illustrations made for the channel. The narration uses a synthetic voice. SOURCES Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813), chapters 7, 13, 19 and 50, Project Gutenberg #1342: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1342 MeasuringWorth, purchasing power of UK pounds (retail prices and average earnings, 1813 to 2024): https://www.measuringworth.com/calcul... and https://www.measuringworth.com/datase... Dollar conversion: Bank of England Interactive Database, series XUAAUSS, 2024 annual average, $1.2783 per £1. William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England: Book II ch. 7 https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_cent... ; Book II ch. 8 https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_cent... ; Book II ch. 21 https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_cent... G. H. Treitel, "Jane Austen and the Law", 100 Law Quarterly Review 549 (1984), as summarised by Appel (2013) and Avery Jones (2025). Peter A. Appel, "A Funhouse Mirror of Law: The Entailment in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice", 41 Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law 609 (2013): https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/fa... John Avery Jones, "Five Legal Topics Global Readers Need to Understand about Jane Austen's England", Persuasions On-Line 46.1 (2025): https://jasna.org/publications-2/pers... Background on later reform: Fines and Recoveries Act 1833 (3 & 4 Will. IV c. 74): https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/... ; s. 34: https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1833/... Chawton and the 1814 writ of ejectment: Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record, as quoted at https://pemberley.com/?p=12385 ; Letters of Jane Austen, ed. Lord Brabourne (1884): https://pemberley.com/janeinfo/brablt... Assumptions: Mrs Bennet's fortune is £4,000 (ch. 7) or £5,000 (ch. 50), and we assume it earns 4% a year, which gives £160 or £200 a year; we read the interest as going to her parents' household during their lives. The 1813 pound is converted with two measures (retail prices and average earnings), both shown on screen. Modern equivalents are estimates. Whether Mr Bennet could have broken the entail himself is disputed by legal scholars, and the video presents it as a dispute. #PrideAndPrejudice #JaneAusten #MrsBennet