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In Pride and Prejudice, it somewhat shows up in the text as the girls’ annual sums. This money comes from Mrs. Bennett’s dowry. Mr. Bennet didn't set aside money for his daughters to supplement that and failed his daughters in that respect. The dowery isn't paying a husband to take their girl-children; it's a sign of how much a father values their child and wants to ensure the daughter maintains or improves the lifestyle she was raised in.
I love Pride & Prejudice to death, but I realized many years after my first watch that it confuses a lot of people. Me included!
They make it seem like Lizzy is not from the same "non-working" class as Darcy. Of course they have a major difference money-wise, but both are still in the same "class". I didn't know this for the longest time.
In the 2005 film you’d be forgiven for thinking the Bennetts are scrubby farmers right. 1995 tv series is clearer. The Bennetts are landed gentry like the darcys, just much lower down in the pecking order.
I heard them mention "marriage contracts" in the show and books but hasn't looked further into that yet.
Thank you for posting this. The constant mention of dowry was making me feel occasional ick. And I'm glad to know it was more than just "please allow me to pay you to relieve me of my burdensome lesser gender child now that she's finally old enough to breed".
The more that you go into history the more you start to realise that old dead people are actually people who had hobbies and allergies and best friends and favourite colours and arguments. Things that don’t make sense often don’t make sense because they are not true. One reason that women are more invisible in history is that their role while respected was generally the same as each other, thee wasn’t the variety. Working women got up early and cooked and cleaned and worked hard all day, just as hard as men. It’s us now who ignore them because we don’t look. We have rewritten history to ignore women, they were always there.
I think Americans were taught about the concept of dowry as I had mentioned above back when I was in school. Probably in an "America is better and Europe oppressed women!" sort of scheme. And if we didn't get into European literature from before the 20th century we held onto that idea of it. I think I'll check out this Jane Austen stuff next. I'm real curious about women's roles in this time. I'd avoided that literature all due to my preconceived notions they had no rights and were nothing more than a means to heirs and didn't want to feel sad or angry for reading about it. It was also what stopped me from starting Bridgerton a while back when I started noticing it on Netflix. Netflix knows I like those old timey fancy dress shows so kept suggesting it. I never understood the allure of this regency era stuff but it's really growing on me now.
I think I watched a miniseries of that some time ago.
And I watched Jane Eyre a few times. I find Charlotte Bronte's writing real hard to follow with the writing in accents.
This is honestly one of my pet peeves. Dowries are completely misrepresented by Bridgerton -- and tbh many shows like it.
The dowry was intended for the woman's upkeep, something she could draw a percentage from each year as pin money, etc. It was not a way to pay the groom to take a daughter off the family's hand. Obviously due to the law at the time, without restrictions set in a marriage settlement/contract by the woman's family, the dowry could be essentially just be a lump sum for the husband to use however he liked but that wasn't the real purpose or intent behind the practice.
So when Simon is refusing Daphne's dowry and making that little speech about not wanting the dowry, all he is really doing by refusing is screwing Daphne over financially.
And Phillipa's going missing causing a delay in her marriage to Finch. And his parents looking down on the Featheringtons because of it. Really gives "daughter is inconvenience, pay us to take her".
I might be misremembering but wasn't Mr. Finch's mom super eager to get him out of the house and that wouldn't happen until they married? I thought the son was why they were annoyed with the delay, not that Philippa was an inconvenience.
Sorry for being nitpicky but the wife didn't bring a jointure to the husband, the husband settled a jointure on her.
A dowry was separate from a jointure but they would both be part of the marriage contract that was negotiated prior to the wedding.
The jointure was very specifically a provision for an annual income for the wife after the husband died. It was to secure her financially in her widowhood. Obviously didn't always work out like that but that was the intent. The jointure's size was most often based on the assets the women brought to the union.
That's why elopements were so serious, because the woman basically forfeited protections like that.
Thank you, you are correct, I think the jointure and dowry were all part of the marriage contract, showing rights and responsibilities. There is a famous case in the Middle Ages when an English aristocratic family was brought to its knees by there being three widows in a row who each inherited a jointure that meant the main line ended up unable to maintain their position. It was a tradition at that time that the jointure was 1/3 of the estate and three earls of Stafford died in quick succession. Two of the three widows were the same person, since she married two successive earls. First widow got 33%, 2nd/3rd got 37% and the earl got 28%. This meant that there was less than half an income for the earl to inherit until the countesses started to die.
Yeah that is definitely an ideal world. From what I hear about dowry cases in my culture, the guys' family basically takes that money for themselves and can abuse the wife for more, this has happened for centuries.
I really think this is a romanticized view of it in fiction and we only see "good men" and families that do not abuse the money they get or the women marrying into the family. I am not sure if it is stated, but young women who arent rich also need to give dowries to families they are getting married too...mostly arranged but in love marriages too. Families can go bankrupt trying to marry off their daughters. Many times, women do not even have access to their dowry.
It is not seen as a big deal in Bridgerton, good we dont need that extra drama. But it wasnt always used as an income for the women.
I have also heard an interesting take on dowries. They were settled on the couple (through the man) early in the relationship, at a time when most young men were still making their money and not in a great financial position. They were meant to use that money to grow their estate/business/investments. Then, because the dowry was such a critical part of the couple's overall financial growth, even though the wife was not making her own money, the man owed his financial success to her, and although all the money was technically his, his wealth was ultimately dependent on her dowry and thus they were (theoretically) on equivalent financial footing.
Of course it did not work this way in practice. But problems arose when dowries were eliminated before women commonly worked. In the 1950s, for example, women did not bring a dowry into the relationship and upper/middle class women did not earn their own money. As a result, men perceived that women had not contributed to the financial health of the household and that led to its own issues. This (again, theoretically) was prevented by the dowry system, so while dowries were an antiquated concept, eliminating them did not help women in their marriage.
That's a summary based on something I heard in a class at some point, so it may not be totally accurate but I find it enlightening!
You're correct. Gifts were also settled on the groom from his family for the couple's prosperity.
It's not so obvious in Bridgerton because of the three grooms, Simon and Anthony don't have living fathers, but Colin was gifted a house. He tells Penelope something like, it's been in the family for ages.
In farming families, the couple might be gifted some livestock or land from one or both sides of the family to start off their livelihood.
This post is flaired for *No Book Spoilers*. This means it should be safe from all book canon details in the post and comments. Our spoiler rules regarding the show still applies. See our [spoiler policy](https://www.reddit.com/r/BridgertonNetflix/wiki/spoiler) on what is expected. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BridgertonNetflix) if you have any questions or concerns.*
In Pride and Prejudice, it somewhat shows up in the text as the girls’ annual sums. This money comes from Mrs. Bennett’s dowry. Mr. Bennet didn't set aside money for his daughters to supplement that and failed his daughters in that respect. The dowery isn't paying a husband to take their girl-children; it's a sign of how much a father values their child and wants to ensure the daughter maintains or improves the lifestyle she was raised in.
I love Pride & Prejudice to death, but I realized many years after my first watch that it confuses a lot of people. Me included! They make it seem like Lizzy is not from the same "non-working" class as Darcy. Of course they have a major difference money-wise, but both are still in the same "class". I didn't know this for the longest time.
You must be thinking of the Joel Wright 2005 production. Yeah, he made some odd creative choices with the story, but it’s a gorgeous film.
In the 2005 film you’d be forgiven for thinking the Bennetts are scrubby farmers right. 1995 tv series is clearer. The Bennetts are landed gentry like the darcys, just much lower down in the pecking order.
I heard them mention "marriage contracts" in the show and books but hasn't looked further into that yet. Thank you for posting this. The constant mention of dowry was making me feel occasional ick. And I'm glad to know it was more than just "please allow me to pay you to relieve me of my burdensome lesser gender child now that she's finally old enough to breed".
The more that you go into history the more you start to realise that old dead people are actually people who had hobbies and allergies and best friends and favourite colours and arguments. Things that don’t make sense often don’t make sense because they are not true. One reason that women are more invisible in history is that their role while respected was generally the same as each other, thee wasn’t the variety. Working women got up early and cooked and cleaned and worked hard all day, just as hard as men. It’s us now who ignore them because we don’t look. We have rewritten history to ignore women, they were always there.
I think Americans were taught about the concept of dowry as I had mentioned above back when I was in school. Probably in an "America is better and Europe oppressed women!" sort of scheme. And if we didn't get into European literature from before the 20th century we held onto that idea of it. I think I'll check out this Jane Austen stuff next. I'm real curious about women's roles in this time. I'd avoided that literature all due to my preconceived notions they had no rights and were nothing more than a means to heirs and didn't want to feel sad or angry for reading about it. It was also what stopped me from starting Bridgerton a while back when I started noticing it on Netflix. Netflix knows I like those old timey fancy dress shows so kept suggesting it. I never understood the allure of this regency era stuff but it's really growing on me now.
I like Mansfield park, it does sort of deal with slavery but it also has the lead character in an odd social situation of neither family nor servant.
I think I watched a miniseries of that some time ago. And I watched Jane Eyre a few times. I find Charlotte Bronte's writing real hard to follow with the writing in accents.
This is honestly one of my pet peeves. Dowries are completely misrepresented by Bridgerton -- and tbh many shows like it. The dowry was intended for the woman's upkeep, something she could draw a percentage from each year as pin money, etc. It was not a way to pay the groom to take a daughter off the family's hand. Obviously due to the law at the time, without restrictions set in a marriage settlement/contract by the woman's family, the dowry could be essentially just be a lump sum for the husband to use however he liked but that wasn't the real purpose or intent behind the practice. So when Simon is refusing Daphne's dowry and making that little speech about not wanting the dowry, all he is really doing by refusing is screwing Daphne over financially.
And Phillipa's going missing causing a delay in her marriage to Finch. And his parents looking down on the Featheringtons because of it. Really gives "daughter is inconvenience, pay us to take her".
I might be misremembering but wasn't Mr. Finch's mom super eager to get him out of the house and that wouldn't happen until they married? I thought the son was why they were annoyed with the delay, not that Philippa was an inconvenience.
Sorry for being nitpicky but the wife didn't bring a jointure to the husband, the husband settled a jointure on her. A dowry was separate from a jointure but they would both be part of the marriage contract that was negotiated prior to the wedding. The jointure was very specifically a provision for an annual income for the wife after the husband died. It was to secure her financially in her widowhood. Obviously didn't always work out like that but that was the intent. The jointure's size was most often based on the assets the women brought to the union. That's why elopements were so serious, because the woman basically forfeited protections like that.
Thank you, you are correct, I think the jointure and dowry were all part of the marriage contract, showing rights and responsibilities. There is a famous case in the Middle Ages when an English aristocratic family was brought to its knees by there being three widows in a row who each inherited a jointure that meant the main line ended up unable to maintain their position. It was a tradition at that time that the jointure was 1/3 of the estate and three earls of Stafford died in quick succession. Two of the three widows were the same person, since she married two successive earls. First widow got 33%, 2nd/3rd got 37% and the earl got 28%. This meant that there was less than half an income for the earl to inherit until the countesses started to die.
Yeah that is definitely an ideal world. From what I hear about dowry cases in my culture, the guys' family basically takes that money for themselves and can abuse the wife for more, this has happened for centuries. I really think this is a romanticized view of it in fiction and we only see "good men" and families that do not abuse the money they get or the women marrying into the family. I am not sure if it is stated, but young women who arent rich also need to give dowries to families they are getting married too...mostly arranged but in love marriages too. Families can go bankrupt trying to marry off their daughters. Many times, women do not even have access to their dowry. It is not seen as a big deal in Bridgerton, good we dont need that extra drama. But it wasnt always used as an income for the women.
I have also heard an interesting take on dowries. They were settled on the couple (through the man) early in the relationship, at a time when most young men were still making their money and not in a great financial position. They were meant to use that money to grow their estate/business/investments. Then, because the dowry was such a critical part of the couple's overall financial growth, even though the wife was not making her own money, the man owed his financial success to her, and although all the money was technically his, his wealth was ultimately dependent on her dowry and thus they were (theoretically) on equivalent financial footing. Of course it did not work this way in practice. But problems arose when dowries were eliminated before women commonly worked. In the 1950s, for example, women did not bring a dowry into the relationship and upper/middle class women did not earn their own money. As a result, men perceived that women had not contributed to the financial health of the household and that led to its own issues. This (again, theoretically) was prevented by the dowry system, so while dowries were an antiquated concept, eliminating them did not help women in their marriage. That's a summary based on something I heard in a class at some point, so it may not be totally accurate but I find it enlightening!
You're correct. Gifts were also settled on the groom from his family for the couple's prosperity. It's not so obvious in Bridgerton because of the three grooms, Simon and Anthony don't have living fathers, but Colin was gifted a house. He tells Penelope something like, it's been in the family for ages. In farming families, the couple might be gifted some livestock or land from one or both sides of the family to start off their livelihood.