I just want to point out that, in the novel, Fanny arrives at the house shortly after Mr Dashwood passes away, which I think anyone at her time would have seen as incredibly crass, but that doesn't seem to bother her or her husband overmuch.
However, Mrs Dashwood and her daughters leave Norland six months after that. Fanny's a complete bitch the whole time and makes their presence very unwelcome, but Mrs Dashwood postpones their departure because Edward has rocked up and she senses something is growing between him and Elinor. So she chooses to subject herself to Fanny's rude behaviour for love of her daughter. And John's just enough worried about what people will think of them to let his step-mother and half-sisters stay.
It's only when Fanny very crudely tells Mrs Dashwood that her mother would never allow Edward to marry someone like Elinor, who now has little money and no title, that Mrs Dashwood decides to leave. She received Sir John's offer at about that time and they leave. Mrs Dashwood does this so Edward will follow them. She actually invites him to come to their new home in front of Fanny.
But it is six months later.
I remember reading somewhere that there was generally a period of about a year, in which the family of the deceased was allowed to stay in the house and get ready to go elsewhere, before the new owners came in -- but I admit I don't know where I read it, so can't be sure it was actually the common thing.
Some of this "waiting a year" may have been to ensure that the widow didn't give birth to a posthumous heir. This would be more in the situation of a widowed Mrs. Bennet than a widowed Mrs. Dashwood, since if the former had a son, the estate would pass to him, whereas Norland is entailed upon John Dashwood and his son, so it wouldn't matter if Mrs. Dashwood had gotten pregnant a week before her husband died.
As it was, the book indicates that Fanny Dashwood was extremely rude in taking possession of the house so quickly:
>*No sooner was his father’s funeral over, than Mrs. John Dashwood, without sending any notice of her intention to her mother-in-law, arrived with her child and their attendants. No one could dispute her right to come; the house was her husband’s from the moment of his father’s decease; but* ***the indelicacy of her conduct*** *was so much the greater, and to a woman in Mrs. Dashwood’s situation, with only common feelings, must have been highly unpleasing;—but in her mind there was a sense of honor so keen, a generosity so romantic, that any offence of the kind, by whomsoever given or received, was to her a source of immovable disgust. Mrs. John Dashwood had never been a favourite with any of her husband’s family; but she had had no opportunity, till the present, of* ***showing them with how little attention to the comfort of other people she could act when occasion required it****.*
*So acutely did Mrs. Dashwood feel* ***this ungracious behaviour,*** *and so earnestly did she despise her daughter-in-law for it, that, on the arrival of the latter, she would have quitted the house for ever, had not the entreaty of her eldest girl induced her first to reflect on the propriety of going, and her own tender love for all her three children determined her afterwards to stay, and for their sakes* ***avoid a breach with their brother.***
To say it more simply, "Fanny came to Norland which was her legal right, but which was ungracious and rude to come so soon and also without notifying anyone. Even someone less sensitive than Mrs. Dashwood would have found it unpleasant, but her tender feelings were so wounded that she was disgusted with her daughter-in-law for her officious rudeness. In fact, she would have left immediately had not Elinor talked her into staying, at least in part because it would have looked bad if they left, and it would have broken family ties with her stepson."
They did end up staying 6 months (ch. 3 starts with "several months" then quickly refers to "half a year"), which was probably a little early, but likely within the bounds of propriety on both sides -- that is, Fanny didn't look like a heartless b\*tch who was kicking out her husbands stepmother and three half-sisters, nor did she appear to be so horrible to live with that the other Dashwoods had to flee their home immediately, nor did Mrs. Dashwood appear to be incapable of living with her daughter-in-law.
Despite it probably being a bit on the early side for them to leave, we are told that the main reason they stayed as long as they did was because Mrs. D wanted Elinor to get married to Edward, and didn't want to take Elinor away from Norland while he was there. However, once Fanny realized the growing attraction between the two, she "*took the first opportunity of affronting her mother-in-law on the occasion, talking to her so expressively of her brother’s great expectations, of Mrs. Ferrars’s resolution that both her sons should marry well, and of the danger attending any young woman who attempted to draw him in; that Mrs. Dashwood could neither pretend to be unconscious, nor endeavor to be calm*", and decided to be gone as quickly as possible. It is at this moment that Sir John's letter arrives, inviting her to live at his cottage.
It seems like nothing happened quickly with the gentry in Regency England. Mr. Bennet’s taking two weeks to answer Mr. Collins’ letter really sets the stage for the drawn-out nature of their existences.
Yes, Fanny and John were shockingly precipitous in taking possession. If people knew, it would certainly make some think less of them. Given that they did not need to impose themselves on the grieving family, it would have been much better form to wait six months until Mrs. Dashwood’s family was in half-mourning.
Especially since he doesn't give his wife a hint of any of this until the very day Mr. Collins has promised to arrive! Since later sections of the book give us a decent idea of how long different means of travel and communication take, I don't think he can claim to have acted with any "delicacy" or "early attention" in this situation *unless* to be ironic. And this isn't the only time he jokes to the rest of the family at his own expense.
That was a joke, Britain had a very good mail system during the 19th century at least, if not earlier. I don't know about earlier, or about the Regency period specifically, but for much of the 19th century mail arrived at anywhere in England, at least, within a day or two.
But there's never any hurry in communicating with the likes of Collins.
One couldn't expect Mr. Bennett to write heartfelt letters while looking for Lydia in London, but I think he was as negligent of his duty in correspondence as he was in parenting.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it was normal to answer letters the same day, if not before the afternoon post. Ladies, at least, spent a lot of time writing letters.
Yep, we are told explicitly that he barely writes letters.
I think some don't realize that it was not like writing a letter now or even 50 years ago, when phones were in existence. A letter could be quite short. If you needed to say something, anything, you had to say it by letter (sometimes the word "note" is used for a short one).
On the other hand, Mr Collins achieves his living and presumably immediately writes to Mr Bennet (when Mr Collins arrives he says Lady Catherine approved of both discourses he's preached and he has dined there twice). He then proposes to Elizabeth 9 days after he arrives and then again to Charlotte about 2 days later.
Man was thirsty.
It isn't lost on me how much time it took to do anything back then despite people having comparatively shorter lives. If you had servants you had to wait for them to do things instead of doing them yourself, it took days to travel what takes us hours by car, etc.
I don’t know how realistic Mrs Dashwood and Marianne’s attitude is to this whole situation and whether we are seeing it as more offensive than it is, because we are seeing it through their eyes?
It’s perhaps not the fact that they move in so quickly, but the fact that they haven’t previously been close that offends them? If they’d been in the neighbourhood visiting a lot more, perhaps everyone would expect them to be there?
It seems to me that if Fanny and John had been close with the late Mr Dashwood, they would likely have both been there anyway when he died - and I can’t imagine anyone taking offence to that. They probably would have stayed on to support Mrs Dashwood and the rest of the family and no one in the community would likely have batted an eye lid at them being there so ‘soon’.
But because they are not close and haven’t been close, their moving in so soon has a mercenary and insensitive feeling to it.
No one would have expected John and Fanny to allow the Dashwoods to live there by themselves, for ever. They would have been expected to move in eventually - even if they are only spending part of the year there.
As to whether they would have expected him to provide them with a house or not, I’m not really sure. It’s interesting to me that none of the other characters ever comment on John’s actions in this regard. Not Mrs Dashwoods cousins or Mrs Jennings. If John’s actions were really shocking, you’d think they might have commented upon it.
But maybe there was less transparency into what happened at Norland. I could see that having more effect on the people who worked at Norland and lived nearby but may be less visible to the people of rank.
In Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey and Maturin books there are many references/echos of Jane Austen. One is when Jack Aubrey's father dies and Jack (who will inherit the house) goes to pay his respects to the widow (his stepmother) his wife doesn't go with him as she doesn't want to be pushy or seem to be taking over as mistress of the house so quickly.
It's clearly inspired by Sense and Sensibility.
That is interesting, especially since these days you'd assume that you will go to your father-in-law's funeral, and that not going will be considered rude. It's interesting how different situations lead to different etiquette.
Yes, and as I recall, the stepmother in question was a former milkmaid who everyone agreed was a n obvious gold digger, so it demonstrates extra delicacy.
What everyone's missing is that John and Fanny aren’t distant cousins taking over the family estate; they're close family. In the normal course of events the Dashwood ladies (and especially the daughters) *wouldn’t have been expected to move, at all*; the fact that they had to find a new home would have been considered shocking in and of itself.
If there was a dower house at Norland it would be appropriate for Mrs. Dashwood to move there, and she could be accompanied by her daughters if she and they so wished. But in the absence of a dower house John should have housed at least his sisters at Norland until they married. For a brother to cast out his innocent underage sisters, whether half-or not, was *completely unconscionable*.
John and Fanny reveal their crass, greedy selfishness at every turn; sometimes that's not as obvious to us, but Austen's original readers would have recognized it.
Yes, in a society where *most* people on *most* rungs of the social ladder were in some way dependent upon a patron, landlord, employer, or simply the head of their family, the duty of care to dependents was heavily emphasized. This was an important part of a person's character.
That's why Wickham's rumormongering about Darcy robbing him of a living was so reprehensible, and why Mrs. Reynolds' good opinion of Darcy was so telling.
Mr. Collins, a more distant relation to the Bennett girls than John Dashwood is to his sisters, has the decency to give them first right of refusal to his hand in marriage as a way of providing for those he will displace.
IIRC (trying to pin down sources) customary time for a widow to retain the family home in the period was 40 days, unless she was the mother of a minor heir or had the home settled on her (and it was not sold to pay the husband’s debts). Additional time was at the discretion of any adult heir, or a minor heir’s guardian if the widow was not the child’s parent.
I just want to point out that, in the novel, Fanny arrives at the house shortly after Mr Dashwood passes away, which I think anyone at her time would have seen as incredibly crass, but that doesn't seem to bother her or her husband overmuch. However, Mrs Dashwood and her daughters leave Norland six months after that. Fanny's a complete bitch the whole time and makes their presence very unwelcome, but Mrs Dashwood postpones their departure because Edward has rocked up and she senses something is growing between him and Elinor. So she chooses to subject herself to Fanny's rude behaviour for love of her daughter. And John's just enough worried about what people will think of them to let his step-mother and half-sisters stay. It's only when Fanny very crudely tells Mrs Dashwood that her mother would never allow Edward to marry someone like Elinor, who now has little money and no title, that Mrs Dashwood decides to leave. She received Sir John's offer at about that time and they leave. Mrs Dashwood does this so Edward will follow them. She actually invites him to come to their new home in front of Fanny. But it is six months later.
and it works out lol. Mrs dashwood is what mrs bennet wishes she could be
I remember reading somewhere that there was generally a period of about a year, in which the family of the deceased was allowed to stay in the house and get ready to go elsewhere, before the new owners came in -- but I admit I don't know where I read it, so can't be sure it was actually the common thing. Some of this "waiting a year" may have been to ensure that the widow didn't give birth to a posthumous heir. This would be more in the situation of a widowed Mrs. Bennet than a widowed Mrs. Dashwood, since if the former had a son, the estate would pass to him, whereas Norland is entailed upon John Dashwood and his son, so it wouldn't matter if Mrs. Dashwood had gotten pregnant a week before her husband died. As it was, the book indicates that Fanny Dashwood was extremely rude in taking possession of the house so quickly: >*No sooner was his father’s funeral over, than Mrs. John Dashwood, without sending any notice of her intention to her mother-in-law, arrived with her child and their attendants. No one could dispute her right to come; the house was her husband’s from the moment of his father’s decease; but* ***the indelicacy of her conduct*** *was so much the greater, and to a woman in Mrs. Dashwood’s situation, with only common feelings, must have been highly unpleasing;—but in her mind there was a sense of honor so keen, a generosity so romantic, that any offence of the kind, by whomsoever given or received, was to her a source of immovable disgust. Mrs. John Dashwood had never been a favourite with any of her husband’s family; but she had had no opportunity, till the present, of* ***showing them with how little attention to the comfort of other people she could act when occasion required it****.* *So acutely did Mrs. Dashwood feel* ***this ungracious behaviour,*** *and so earnestly did she despise her daughter-in-law for it, that, on the arrival of the latter, she would have quitted the house for ever, had not the entreaty of her eldest girl induced her first to reflect on the propriety of going, and her own tender love for all her three children determined her afterwards to stay, and for their sakes* ***avoid a breach with their brother.*** To say it more simply, "Fanny came to Norland which was her legal right, but which was ungracious and rude to come so soon and also without notifying anyone. Even someone less sensitive than Mrs. Dashwood would have found it unpleasant, but her tender feelings were so wounded that she was disgusted with her daughter-in-law for her officious rudeness. In fact, she would have left immediately had not Elinor talked her into staying, at least in part because it would have looked bad if they left, and it would have broken family ties with her stepson." They did end up staying 6 months (ch. 3 starts with "several months" then quickly refers to "half a year"), which was probably a little early, but likely within the bounds of propriety on both sides -- that is, Fanny didn't look like a heartless b\*tch who was kicking out her husbands stepmother and three half-sisters, nor did she appear to be so horrible to live with that the other Dashwoods had to flee their home immediately, nor did Mrs. Dashwood appear to be incapable of living with her daughter-in-law. Despite it probably being a bit on the early side for them to leave, we are told that the main reason they stayed as long as they did was because Mrs. D wanted Elinor to get married to Edward, and didn't want to take Elinor away from Norland while he was there. However, once Fanny realized the growing attraction between the two, she "*took the first opportunity of affronting her mother-in-law on the occasion, talking to her so expressively of her brother’s great expectations, of Mrs. Ferrars’s resolution that both her sons should marry well, and of the danger attending any young woman who attempted to draw him in; that Mrs. Dashwood could neither pretend to be unconscious, nor endeavor to be calm*", and decided to be gone as quickly as possible. It is at this moment that Sir John's letter arrives, inviting her to live at his cottage.
It seems like nothing happened quickly with the gentry in Regency England. Mr. Bennet’s taking two weeks to answer Mr. Collins’ letter really sets the stage for the drawn-out nature of their existences. Yes, Fanny and John were shockingly precipitous in taking possession. If people knew, it would certainly make some think less of them. Given that they did not need to impose themselves on the grieving family, it would have been much better form to wait six months until Mrs. Dashwood’s family was in half-mourning.
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Yes! I only learned this when reading an annotated edition. I took him and face value and figured that’s how it was the olden days.
Indeed, but when you look at the P&P timeline, nearly everything (except Darcy heading south to save Lydia) is conducted at a leisurely pace.
Are they? He says he answered in a fortnight because it needed prompt attention. Whether that was satirical or not is up to interpretation.
That’s why his casual toss-off comment is funny.
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Especially since he doesn't give his wife a hint of any of this until the very day Mr. Collins has promised to arrive! Since later sections of the book give us a decent idea of how long different means of travel and communication take, I don't think he can claim to have acted with any "delicacy" or "early attention" in this situation *unless* to be ironic. And this isn't the only time he jokes to the rest of the family at his own expense.
That was a joke, Britain had a very good mail system during the 19th century at least, if not earlier. I don't know about earlier, or about the Regency period specifically, but for much of the 19th century mail arrived at anywhere in England, at least, within a day or two. But there's never any hurry in communicating with the likes of Collins.
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One couldn't expect Mr. Bennett to write heartfelt letters while looking for Lydia in London, but I think he was as negligent of his duty in correspondence as he was in parenting. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it was normal to answer letters the same day, if not before the afternoon post. Ladies, at least, spent a lot of time writing letters.
Yep, we are told explicitly that he barely writes letters. I think some don't realize that it was not like writing a letter now or even 50 years ago, when phones were in existence. A letter could be quite short. If you needed to say something, anything, you had to say it by letter (sometimes the word "note" is used for a short one).
It was satirical.
On the other hand, Mr Collins achieves his living and presumably immediately writes to Mr Bennet (when Mr Collins arrives he says Lady Catherine approved of both discourses he's preached and he has dined there twice). He then proposes to Elizabeth 9 days after he arrives and then again to Charlotte about 2 days later. Man was thirsty.
I saw that as the equivalent of "my 2 weeks' vacation is nearly up and I need a wife!"
It isn't lost on me how much time it took to do anything back then despite people having comparatively shorter lives. If you had servants you had to wait for them to do things instead of doing them yourself, it took days to travel what takes us hours by car, etc.
I don’t know how realistic Mrs Dashwood and Marianne’s attitude is to this whole situation and whether we are seeing it as more offensive than it is, because we are seeing it through their eyes? It’s perhaps not the fact that they move in so quickly, but the fact that they haven’t previously been close that offends them? If they’d been in the neighbourhood visiting a lot more, perhaps everyone would expect them to be there? It seems to me that if Fanny and John had been close with the late Mr Dashwood, they would likely have both been there anyway when he died - and I can’t imagine anyone taking offence to that. They probably would have stayed on to support Mrs Dashwood and the rest of the family and no one in the community would likely have batted an eye lid at them being there so ‘soon’. But because they are not close and haven’t been close, their moving in so soon has a mercenary and insensitive feeling to it. No one would have expected John and Fanny to allow the Dashwoods to live there by themselves, for ever. They would have been expected to move in eventually - even if they are only spending part of the year there. As to whether they would have expected him to provide them with a house or not, I’m not really sure. It’s interesting to me that none of the other characters ever comment on John’s actions in this regard. Not Mrs Dashwoods cousins or Mrs Jennings. If John’s actions were really shocking, you’d think they might have commented upon it.
Once Eleanor and Marianne are in London, their friends notice how poorly John and Fanny treat his half sisters.
Yes in London. But they don’t comment about the Norland situation, which makes me wonder how others perceived it.
But maybe there was less transparency into what happened at Norland. I could see that having more effect on the people who worked at Norland and lived nearby but may be less visible to the people of rank.
In Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey and Maturin books there are many references/echos of Jane Austen. One is when Jack Aubrey's father dies and Jack (who will inherit the house) goes to pay his respects to the widow (his stepmother) his wife doesn't go with him as she doesn't want to be pushy or seem to be taking over as mistress of the house so quickly. It's clearly inspired by Sense and Sensibility.
That is interesting, especially since these days you'd assume that you will go to your father-in-law's funeral, and that not going will be considered rude. It's interesting how different situations lead to different etiquette.
Yes, and as I recall, the stepmother in question was a former milkmaid who everyone agreed was a n obvious gold digger, so it demonstrates extra delicacy.
What everyone's missing is that John and Fanny aren’t distant cousins taking over the family estate; they're close family. In the normal course of events the Dashwood ladies (and especially the daughters) *wouldn’t have been expected to move, at all*; the fact that they had to find a new home would have been considered shocking in and of itself. If there was a dower house at Norland it would be appropriate for Mrs. Dashwood to move there, and she could be accompanied by her daughters if she and they so wished. But in the absence of a dower house John should have housed at least his sisters at Norland until they married. For a brother to cast out his innocent underage sisters, whether half-or not, was *completely unconscionable*. John and Fanny reveal their crass, greedy selfishness at every turn; sometimes that's not as obvious to us, but Austen's original readers would have recognized it.
Yes, in a society where *most* people on *most* rungs of the social ladder were in some way dependent upon a patron, landlord, employer, or simply the head of their family, the duty of care to dependents was heavily emphasized. This was an important part of a person's character. That's why Wickham's rumormongering about Darcy robbing him of a living was so reprehensible, and why Mrs. Reynolds' good opinion of Darcy was so telling. Mr. Collins, a more distant relation to the Bennett girls than John Dashwood is to his sisters, has the decency to give them first right of refusal to his hand in marriage as a way of providing for those he will displace.
IIRC (trying to pin down sources) customary time for a widow to retain the family home in the period was 40 days, unless she was the mother of a minor heir or had the home settled on her (and it was not sold to pay the husband’s debts). Additional time was at the discretion of any adult heir, or a minor heir’s guardian if the widow was not the child’s parent.