IvanOpinion answers “How do the people in this novel acquire...”

Gold Dust asked this question about Sense and Sensibility:

How do the people in this novel acquire income/money? They never seem to work. But they talk as if just living on a property gives them income. And why are characters given their money (like inheritance) in annual increments instead of all at once?

IvanOpinion Sheila is right about how inherited assets would generate income. But that just raises a new question: how did the families first gain these assets?

I …moreSheila is right about how inherited assets would generate income. But that just raises a new question: how did the families first gain these assets?

I suspect that if you trace right back several centuries, the answer is that their ancestors were what we would today call warlords, who seized land by force. Or, they were granted the land by kings or lords who had themselves seized the land.

I love Austen's books, but I am always staggered by the sense of entitlement of the section of society about which she writes. That's not a criticism of her writing; just an observation about how she and her peers took something for granted.(less)

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Christine Headley The Dissolution of the Monasteries allowed Henry VIII to give land to a lot of people who didn't have any. All land was perceived to be owned by the k ...more
Nov 23, 2020 12:30PM · flag

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Sense and Sensibility

by Jane Austen

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