The House and the Mother in 19th Century England

Holly P.

In his essay “Reflections on the Revolution in France,” included in our edition of Sense and Sensibility, Edmund Burke defends the British system of entailed inheritance, arguing that it connects the living with their ancestors and their progeny, creating a link between future and past, rendering the property timeless and it’s people immortal. He writes that through entailed inheritance, “the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged, or young, but in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied tenour of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression” (Johnson 282). As the people live and die, their property retains their identity. England is grounded in its properties. In Sense and Sensibility, houses themselves do seem to be endowed with this sense of broader societal importance. Within their walls, the substance of England is contained.

Chatsworth Marlow as painted by William Marlow

Austen’s novels interact with the system of entailed inheritance almost constantly. It is difficult to ascertain her position concerning the custom, because though her protagonists almost invariably suffer losses to it, they always ultimately enjoy its advantages. In no moment does Austen seem to contradict Burke’s implicit suggestion that the identity of England lies in its properties. Norwood, Barton Park Allenham, and Delaford figure so prominently as almost to be characters. People in the novel are constantly admiring furniture, rooms, décor. The idea seeps into Austen’s character descriptions as well. For example, after Mr. Willoughby has so unaccountably taken leave of Marianne, Mrs. Dashwood implores Elinor, “’Do not blame him, however, for departing from his character, where the deviation is necessary.”’ To Mrs. Dashwood, character is something stationary, something that can be departed from, rather like a house. Earlier, when Mrs. Dashwood mentions her plans to make improvements on her family’s little cottage, Willoughby passionately objects. “’Tell me that not only your house will remain the same,’” he says,  “’but that I shall ever find you and yours unchanged as your dwelling; and that you will always consider me with the kindness which has made everything belonging to you so dear to me.’” For him, the physical cottage is inseparable from its inhabitants, and its preservation is essential to the preservation of his relationship with them.

If this system of entailed inheritance is really so significant as to be the channel through which England passes along its very heritage, women find themselves in a marginal position given their inability to participate in it. Against this backdrop, motherhood stands out considerably as a succession inferior to the dominant, prevailing one. At some points in the novel, it is satirized completely. The more doating the women are, the more ruthless Austen becomes. Mrs. Jennings, Mrs. Palmer, and Lady Middleton are ridiculous in their maternal inclinations. Lady Middleton’s behavior toward her daughter when she pricks herself on a pin in particular is laughable. “The mother’s consternation was excessive; but it could not surpass the alarm of the Miss Steeles, and every thing was done by all three, in so critical an emergency, which affection could suggest as likely to assuage the agonies of the little sufferer” (88). In this system, it seems motherhood is so irrelevant as to be frivolous.