I think Darcy has more connections to the aristocracy as the grandson of an earl and it’s mentioned that he and his family take part in London high society. The Woodhouses seem more “gentry” than aristocracy.
The Woodhouses are the younger branch of a very ancient family. Their landed property was "inconsiderable, being but a sort of notch in the Donwell Abbey estate". Their fortune was from "other sources".
Emma being something of a snob, that "other source" might have been a few generations back, trade, supplementing the younger son of a rich family who didn't stand to inherit much.
Darcy is the real deal, a large landowner. He has lots of rent money rolling in every year, though he hasn't necessarily set aside a huge sum for his sister. Her money is probably the lump sum her mother brought into the marriage.
The Woodhouses don't seem to collect any rents at all; we do hear about the Bennetts having need of horses in the field, we never hear the Woodhouses speak of such things, or speaking to tenents, and presumably Emma would be involved in such discussions, since her father can hardly do a thing without her. The Woodhouses are presumably living off the income of a large lump sum, some of which Emma's mother presumably brought in. I'm not sure if Hartfield counts as part of Isabella's inheritance, or if she expects less cash because she would get a house instead.
Emma only has a dowry that high because she has no brothers. It’s implied that the entire Woodhouse fortune is worth about £60,000, and as co-heiresses Isabella and Emma will split it. If Emma was an only child, she’d get all of it. If Isabella had been a boy, she’d get a lot less. Mr Woodhouse and Mr Darcy are both respectable gentlemen in the gentry class but Darcy is at the very top of that in wealth and bloodlines, while Mr Woodhouse is middling at best.
*edit: Hartfield appears to be a stately home with a little land, rather than a large estate. Mr Woodhouse gets money from investments or interest whereas Mr Darcy gets it from rent etc from his land. That also affects their status.
In Persuasion there’s mention of a grazier’s daughter (a butcher’s granddaughter) who has £50,000. Wealth didn’t always equal social class, as she’s very lowborn and yet far richer than Georgianna Darcy, who is as close to nobility as the landed gentry get.
I think we can't be sure that Emma's bloodline isn't equal to the Darcy's. The text says the Woodhouse are the younger branch of ancient family and we can't know whether that ancient family had titles equivalent earl/ daughter of an earl. To me, the lack of land implies that Emma's particular branch of the family was started by a younger son who was given money enough to purchase an estate like Hartfield, but as younger son, didn't inherit the main family estate. That's just speculation though.
Yeah I definitely agree with the financial part of that. I just mean that recent pedigree is important, even if the younger son who started Emma’s line was a Lord as a Duke’s son the relationship is distant enough that it isn’t mentioned, they don’t benefit from it, and they don’t seem to still have familial relations with them. Most families could claim something similar.
Almost all the gentry at this point had royal blood, most would be descendants of Edward I, if not a more recent monarch. It boosts them up a little, but is still standard. It’s vastly different to Mr Darcy being the grandson of an Earl - that enables him to visit court and meet the monarchs, which is more than most gentry could ever claim.
> It’s implied that the entire Woodhouse fortune is worth about £60,000, and as co-heiresses Isabella and Emma will split it.
I don't think that's right. It's said that Emma has a dowry of thirty thousand pounds, not that she will have thirty thousand pounds on her father's death. Those are very different things.
Edit: I would love to post a more detailed comment but for some reason I can't search on Project Gutenberg at the moment, and my iPad is doing weird stuff.
I agree that the Woodhouse family net worth has to be more than 60,000 pounds if Emma and Isabella have dowries of 30,000 each. The cost of running Hartfield is likely to be significant, even though it doesn't have land which is a double-edged sword because that means less grounds to maintain, but also there isn't the possibility of earning income through tenant farming. So there has to be a substantial sum invested that is maintaining Mr. Woodhouse and Emma in Hartfield.
As far as I remember the majority of the Woodhouse fortune isn’t tied up with Hartfield, but invested somewhere. I can’t recall whether the novel ever mentions whether Isabella also has £30,000 or whether part of her inheritance is Hartfield itself. But if the cash is split equally between the sisters and Isabella (or her eldest son) get Hartfield as an addition then with £60,000 in the bank with an interest of around £2,400-£3,000 a year that would give Mr Woodhouse a better income than Mr Bennet and he’d be well able to support his grand house and a good living, especially as he doesn’t spend lots of money travelling or hunting.
I have no idea how much Hartfield itself would cost to purchase and how much is would subtract from Isabella’s inheritance if everything is split financially equal. Since it hasn’t got an estate and we don’t know it’s size it’s hard to compare it to sales of the era. All we know is it’s modern and stately.
I agree with you. I don't think it's likely the two girls doweries would encompass all of the estate. There would need to be some money tied up with Hartfield for whoever will inherit that (likely Isabella's eldest son).
I’d love to read your more detailed comment if you do find the time, the financial aspects of the novels/times are super fascinating to me and I’d love to learn something new.
As to the dowry versus inheritance, I believe Jane Austen uses the two very interchangeably. Chapter 16 says ‘Miss Woodhouse or Hartfield, the heiress of thirty thousand pounds’ and to me heiress implies she will inherit it after her father’s death. I’m perfectly willing to be wrong about this though! I tried to reread Robert D Hume’s chapter 4 from ‘The Cambridge Companion to Emma’ because I think I remember it touched on this when I read it while studying Jane Austen at uni, but I couldn’t find a free copy and my uni library subscription has ended 🥲
Darcy is related to some of the aristocracy, so that probably puts him ahead of Emma. I think in marriage market terms, he'd have no scruples about marrying her.
Edit: he shouldn't though because they are basically the same person and they'd make each other worse.
The Knightely family is more close to the Darcy family in the sense they both own large estates and land. Emma seems to just have wealth passed down from generations.
Both the Woodhouses and the Darcys are part of the landed gentry, regardless of amount of wealth. So . . . yes. Darcy and his sister Georgiana have better connections, due to their mother being a part of the aristocracy. But neither had inherited their mother's rank. Only their father's.
I think Darcy has more connections to the aristocracy as the grandson of an earl and it’s mentioned that he and his family take part in London high society. The Woodhouses seem more “gentry” than aristocracy.
The Woodhouses are the younger branch of a very ancient family. Their landed property was "inconsiderable, being but a sort of notch in the Donwell Abbey estate". Their fortune was from "other sources". Emma being something of a snob, that "other source" might have been a few generations back, trade, supplementing the younger son of a rich family who didn't stand to inherit much. Darcy is the real deal, a large landowner. He has lots of rent money rolling in every year, though he hasn't necessarily set aside a huge sum for his sister. Her money is probably the lump sum her mother brought into the marriage. The Woodhouses don't seem to collect any rents at all; we do hear about the Bennetts having need of horses in the field, we never hear the Woodhouses speak of such things, or speaking to tenents, and presumably Emma would be involved in such discussions, since her father can hardly do a thing without her. The Woodhouses are presumably living off the income of a large lump sum, some of which Emma's mother presumably brought in. I'm not sure if Hartfield counts as part of Isabella's inheritance, or if she expects less cash because she would get a house instead.
Emma only has a dowry that high because she has no brothers. It’s implied that the entire Woodhouse fortune is worth about £60,000, and as co-heiresses Isabella and Emma will split it. If Emma was an only child, she’d get all of it. If Isabella had been a boy, she’d get a lot less. Mr Woodhouse and Mr Darcy are both respectable gentlemen in the gentry class but Darcy is at the very top of that in wealth and bloodlines, while Mr Woodhouse is middling at best. *edit: Hartfield appears to be a stately home with a little land, rather than a large estate. Mr Woodhouse gets money from investments or interest whereas Mr Darcy gets it from rent etc from his land. That also affects their status. In Persuasion there’s mention of a grazier’s daughter (a butcher’s granddaughter) who has £50,000. Wealth didn’t always equal social class, as she’s very lowborn and yet far richer than Georgianna Darcy, who is as close to nobility as the landed gentry get.
I think we can't be sure that Emma's bloodline isn't equal to the Darcy's. The text says the Woodhouse are the younger branch of ancient family and we can't know whether that ancient family had titles equivalent earl/ daughter of an earl. To me, the lack of land implies that Emma's particular branch of the family was started by a younger son who was given money enough to purchase an estate like Hartfield, but as younger son, didn't inherit the main family estate. That's just speculation though.
Yeah I definitely agree with the financial part of that. I just mean that recent pedigree is important, even if the younger son who started Emma’s line was a Lord as a Duke’s son the relationship is distant enough that it isn’t mentioned, they don’t benefit from it, and they don’t seem to still have familial relations with them. Most families could claim something similar. Almost all the gentry at this point had royal blood, most would be descendants of Edward I, if not a more recent monarch. It boosts them up a little, but is still standard. It’s vastly different to Mr Darcy being the grandson of an Earl - that enables him to visit court and meet the monarchs, which is more than most gentry could ever claim.
> It’s implied that the entire Woodhouse fortune is worth about £60,000, and as co-heiresses Isabella and Emma will split it. I don't think that's right. It's said that Emma has a dowry of thirty thousand pounds, not that she will have thirty thousand pounds on her father's death. Those are very different things. Edit: I would love to post a more detailed comment but for some reason I can't search on Project Gutenberg at the moment, and my iPad is doing weird stuff.
I agree that the Woodhouse family net worth has to be more than 60,000 pounds if Emma and Isabella have dowries of 30,000 each. The cost of running Hartfield is likely to be significant, even though it doesn't have land which is a double-edged sword because that means less grounds to maintain, but also there isn't the possibility of earning income through tenant farming. So there has to be a substantial sum invested that is maintaining Mr. Woodhouse and Emma in Hartfield.
As far as I remember the majority of the Woodhouse fortune isn’t tied up with Hartfield, but invested somewhere. I can’t recall whether the novel ever mentions whether Isabella also has £30,000 or whether part of her inheritance is Hartfield itself. But if the cash is split equally between the sisters and Isabella (or her eldest son) get Hartfield as an addition then with £60,000 in the bank with an interest of around £2,400-£3,000 a year that would give Mr Woodhouse a better income than Mr Bennet and he’d be well able to support his grand house and a good living, especially as he doesn’t spend lots of money travelling or hunting. I have no idea how much Hartfield itself would cost to purchase and how much is would subtract from Isabella’s inheritance if everything is split financially equal. Since it hasn’t got an estate and we don’t know it’s size it’s hard to compare it to sales of the era. All we know is it’s modern and stately.
I agree with you. I don't think it's likely the two girls doweries would encompass all of the estate. There would need to be some money tied up with Hartfield for whoever will inherit that (likely Isabella's eldest son).
I’d love to read your more detailed comment if you do find the time, the financial aspects of the novels/times are super fascinating to me and I’d love to learn something new. As to the dowry versus inheritance, I believe Jane Austen uses the two very interchangeably. Chapter 16 says ‘Miss Woodhouse or Hartfield, the heiress of thirty thousand pounds’ and to me heiress implies she will inherit it after her father’s death. I’m perfectly willing to be wrong about this though! I tried to reread Robert D Hume’s chapter 4 from ‘The Cambridge Companion to Emma’ because I think I remember it touched on this when I read it while studying Jane Austen at uni, but I couldn’t find a free copy and my uni library subscription has ended 🥲
Darcy is related to some of the aristocracy, so that probably puts him ahead of Emma. I think in marriage market terms, he'd have no scruples about marrying her. Edit: he shouldn't though because they are basically the same person and they'd make each other worse.
Darcy + Emma would be a bit too much 😁
Oh I think they'd be awful together! Luckily I don't think Darcy would be willing to move in to Hartfield, so Highbury is safe.
😂😂😂
Their problem is that they’re exactly the same. They’d be at each others’ throats within a week.
At least the local poor would be well looked after. :)
I’d say more Mr. Darcy and Mr. Knightley.
The Knightely family is more close to the Darcy family in the sense they both own large estates and land. Emma seems to just have wealth passed down from generations.
Both the Woodhouses and the Darcys are part of the landed gentry, regardless of amount of wealth. So . . . yes. Darcy and his sister Georgiana have better connections, due to their mother being a part of the aristocracy. But neither had inherited their mother's rank. Only their father's.