Mr. Darcy’s Ten Thousand a Year
August 1, 2019 2:47 PM Subscribe
“One thousand pounds in the 4 per cents, which will not be yours till after your mother’s decease, is all that you may ever be entitled to,” says Mr. Collins to Lizzy Bennet. But 4 per cent of what? Notes on Liberty explains bonds, Consols, yields and 18th century English financial planning through Pride and Prejudice.
Bonus: How Rich is Mr. Darcy?
Bonus: How Rich is Mr. Darcy?
As a reader of many regency romances that was fascinating.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:58 PM on August 1, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by jacquilynne at 6:58 PM on August 1, 2019 [1 favorite]
That "How Rich is Mr. Darcy" link is fascinating, except I so thoroughly disagree with its last sentences. The author writes, "All in all, in modern language Elizabeth Bennet should check her privilege. Pride & Prejudice, as literary critics have long argued, is a story of wealthy daughters marrying even wealthier men." That misunderstands the entire point of the book, which is that the Bennett girls, because of the entail, will lose every bit of their privilege the second Mr. Bennett dies. (See: Sense & Sensibility.) Their privilege is entirely temporary, and thus is a matter of grave concern.
posted by BlahLaLa at 7:38 PM on August 1, 2019 [12 favorites]
posted by BlahLaLa at 7:38 PM on August 1, 2019 [12 favorites]
This is technical, but I think the explanation here is a bit off, although I don't have easy access to the information I'd need to confirm what I'm thinking with 100% accuracy, so bear with me.
The UK government did indeed issue perpetual bonds. These were issued at various fixed interest rates over time (e.g., 2.5%, 3% [the rate in force at the time of P&P], 4%). Now it's correct that the effective interest rate on any such bond would vary based on the discount you bought it at, so that in a year when the fortunes of the government were low and bonds sold at half their face value, your effective interest rate would be double the amount denominated on the bond. However. The bonds would need to be identified by their nominal interest rate, not the effective interest rate--because there was no way to tell, simply by looking at the bond, what the effective rate was (which, remember, depends on the purchase price, and could, in theory, change with every purchaser). And when there was more than one series outstanding, with more than one nominal interest rate, as there was for a while prior to the creation of the consols (see next paragraph), the nominal interest rate would be the distinguishing factor a buyer would be interested in, just as today a company would distinguish amongst different series of bonds it issues based on the interest rate and the expected length of repayment.
But, praemunire, you say, you just said that government bonds paid at 3% at the time of P&P, yet Mrs. Bennet's marriage settlement was held in "the four percents." Well, assuming that it was indeed government, not private corporate, debt, being referred to there, there was a time earlier on when government bonds did have a 4% rate. What happened was that, starting in the mid-eighteenth century, the government would occasionally reset the interest rate. "Consols" are called "consols" because they consolidated all that type of debt then outstanding, regardless of its nominal interest rate, at one single new interest rate. This first happened in 1752. At that point, the holder of older debt had a choice: to accept the reduced interest rate or sell the bond back to the government for face value. But--and here's where I get a little speculative, because I don't have an academic library card right now to confirm what I seem to remember--if the holder retained the bond, the government was not about to expend the enormous effort required to replace every piece of paper that said "4%" with one that said "3%". Since, post-mid-eighteenth-century, there was only one effective rate for all such debt, set by statute, there was no particular risk of confusion by anyone as to what was actually owed to holders each quarter regardless of what was on the paper. You could easily have people who held bonds whose face indicated a payment of 4% or 3.5% who were actually only entitled to 3%. So I actually don't think their "5000 in the four percents" paid what we might think in a year--that is, basically 200 pounds. I think they were older bonds that appeared to be paid at four percent but were actually only paid at the then-prevailing rate for all such government debt: three, thus 150 pounds.
posted by praemunire at 7:49 PM on August 1, 2019 [4 favorites]
The UK government did indeed issue perpetual bonds. These were issued at various fixed interest rates over time (e.g., 2.5%, 3% [the rate in force at the time of P&P], 4%). Now it's correct that the effective interest rate on any such bond would vary based on the discount you bought it at, so that in a year when the fortunes of the government were low and bonds sold at half their face value, your effective interest rate would be double the amount denominated on the bond. However. The bonds would need to be identified by their nominal interest rate, not the effective interest rate--because there was no way to tell, simply by looking at the bond, what the effective rate was (which, remember, depends on the purchase price, and could, in theory, change with every purchaser). And when there was more than one series outstanding, with more than one nominal interest rate, as there was for a while prior to the creation of the consols (see next paragraph), the nominal interest rate would be the distinguishing factor a buyer would be interested in, just as today a company would distinguish amongst different series of bonds it issues based on the interest rate and the expected length of repayment.
But, praemunire, you say, you just said that government bonds paid at 3% at the time of P&P, yet Mrs. Bennet's marriage settlement was held in "the four percents." Well, assuming that it was indeed government, not private corporate, debt, being referred to there, there was a time earlier on when government bonds did have a 4% rate. What happened was that, starting in the mid-eighteenth century, the government would occasionally reset the interest rate. "Consols" are called "consols" because they consolidated all that type of debt then outstanding, regardless of its nominal interest rate, at one single new interest rate. This first happened in 1752. At that point, the holder of older debt had a choice: to accept the reduced interest rate or sell the bond back to the government for face value. But--and here's where I get a little speculative, because I don't have an academic library card right now to confirm what I seem to remember--if the holder retained the bond, the government was not about to expend the enormous effort required to replace every piece of paper that said "4%" with one that said "3%". Since, post-mid-eighteenth-century, there was only one effective rate for all such debt, set by statute, there was no particular risk of confusion by anyone as to what was actually owed to holders each quarter regardless of what was on the paper. You could easily have people who held bonds whose face indicated a payment of 4% or 3.5% who were actually only entitled to 3%. So I actually don't think their "5000 in the four percents" paid what we might think in a year--that is, basically 200 pounds. I think they were older bonds that appeared to be paid at four percent but were actually only paid at the then-prevailing rate for all such government debt: three, thus 150 pounds.
posted by praemunire at 7:49 PM on August 1, 2019 [4 favorites]
will lose every bit of their privilege
A guaranteed even 30 pounds a year (see my prior comment) would still be, IIRC, several years' salary for most people in employment at the time. They'd call it "genteel misery" but that's a very specialized form of misery, which most of the population would have been very glad to trade their own misery for.
posted by praemunire at 7:51 PM on August 1, 2019 [7 favorites]
A guaranteed even 30 pounds a year (see my prior comment) would still be, IIRC, several years' salary for most people in employment at the time. They'd call it "genteel misery" but that's a very specialized form of misery, which most of the population would have been very glad to trade their own misery for.
posted by praemunire at 7:51 PM on August 1, 2019 [7 favorites]
Not really, it'd be about the wage for an agricultural laborer. More than underservants would be paid, but they'd also get room and board. And even that depended on their mother not running through all the money before it could be inherited by her daughters, and how likely do you think that would be?
They do have well-off relatives, so it's likely they could find some help there, but at best they'd be looking at tenuous futures of being governesses or spinster lady companions. They certainly would not be wealthy.
posted by tavella at 8:30 PM on August 1, 2019 [4 favorites]
They do have well-off relatives, so it's likely they could find some help there, but at best they'd be looking at tenuous futures of being governesses or spinster lady companions. They certainly would not be wealthy.
posted by tavella at 8:30 PM on August 1, 2019 [4 favorites]
By not working they would have a roughly average income. To think about this in the terms discussed above, it'd be like having a $40k/year annuity or maybe a half-million in cash today (give or take a lot.)
It's such an extreme drop-off it's insane, especially in that more hierarchical time. They are definitely dropping out the gentry. They'd marry people who work for a living and Elizabeth's daughter would not be able to tell Lady Catherine that she and Darcy were of the same rank.
The jobs you mention though are pretty good compared to the bulk that'd be available to women. It's not the privilege of the 1% but it's still privilege of a sort--they would not, for example, end up as bad off as the nearly invisible servants at Longburn.
posted by mark k at 8:55 PM on August 1, 2019 [3 favorites]
It's such an extreme drop-off it's insane, especially in that more hierarchical time. They are definitely dropping out the gentry. They'd marry people who work for a living and Elizabeth's daughter would not be able to tell Lady Catherine that she and Darcy were of the same rank.
The jobs you mention though are pretty good compared to the bulk that'd be available to women. It's not the privilege of the 1% but it's still privilege of a sort--they would not, for example, end up as bad off as the nearly invisible servants at Longburn.
posted by mark k at 8:55 PM on August 1, 2019 [3 favorites]
One of the advantages of having a rigidly hierarchical class system with lots of subdivisions is the vast number of opportunities for complete personal destruction it allows.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 9:00 PM on August 1, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by thatwhichfalls at 9:00 PM on August 1, 2019 [6 favorites]
They do have well-off relatives, so it's likely they could find some help there, but at best they'd be looking at tenuous futures of being governesses or spinster lady companions. They certainly would not be wealthy.
I think you may not quite be grasping the level of income inequality here. It would be mortifying to be some relative's spare aunt in the worst bedroom. It would represent a serious fall in status. It would still be substantially privileged relative to a domestic servant in a small household or an agricultural laborer--much less relative to some of the other subjects of the Empire.
posted by praemunire at 9:55 PM on August 1, 2019
I think you may not quite be grasping the level of income inequality here. It would be mortifying to be some relative's spare aunt in the worst bedroom. It would represent a serious fall in status. It would still be substantially privileged relative to a domestic servant in a small household or an agricultural laborer--much less relative to some of the other subjects of the Empire.
posted by praemunire at 9:55 PM on August 1, 2019
You claimed that it would be several years salary for most people in unemployment; I pointed out that was not correct, for jobs that did not include room and board. I also pointed out that they would not be wealthy, as was the claim above. Yes, there would be people worse off, but the fact that they would not instantly be reduced to begging in the street does not change the incorrectness of the claims.
And, of course, you are ignoring the fact that they would only inherit after their mother died, which means they couldn't rely on an inheritance at all, since there was the distinct chance that their mother would quickly run up debts give her financial fecklessness, which means there might not be any money left at all.
posted by tavella at 10:41 PM on August 1, 2019 [2 favorites]
And, of course, you are ignoring the fact that they would only inherit after their mother died, which means they couldn't rely on an inheritance at all, since there was the distinct chance that their mother would quickly run up debts give her financial fecklessness, which means there might not be any money left at all.
posted by tavella at 10:41 PM on August 1, 2019 [2 favorites]
Yes, I indicated that I couldn't remember the exact proportion of yearly wages to their income. But the statement made was this: the Bennett girls, because of the entail, will lose every bit of their privilege the second Mr. Bennett dies
That's just flat-out wrong and ahistorical. They would still be white, educated women with manners appropriate to the upper classes, connections within them, and enough income that they could not work (which of course they could not do without experiencing even more downward mobility) and yet not starve. You really have to have zero understanding of the material conditions of the lower classes at this time to think that would not constitute privilege. There's not a serving-girl in London who wouldn't have changed places with them--to say nothing of an Indian girl making cloth on a piecework system, or any human being whatsoever working on a sugar plantation. Even today, being guaranteed enough income to live in something other than near-destitution without doing a day's labor in a year would reflect more privilege than most of us have. My entire investment portfolio couldn't generate even $25K a year, and certainly not perpetually.
posted by praemunire at 12:09 AM on August 2, 2019 [4 favorites]
That's just flat-out wrong and ahistorical. They would still be white, educated women with manners appropriate to the upper classes, connections within them, and enough income that they could not work (which of course they could not do without experiencing even more downward mobility) and yet not starve. You really have to have zero understanding of the material conditions of the lower classes at this time to think that would not constitute privilege. There's not a serving-girl in London who wouldn't have changed places with them--to say nothing of an Indian girl making cloth on a piecework system, or any human being whatsoever working on a sugar plantation. Even today, being guaranteed enough income to live in something other than near-destitution without doing a day's labor in a year would reflect more privilege than most of us have. My entire investment portfolio couldn't generate even $25K a year, and certainly not perpetually.
posted by praemunire at 12:09 AM on August 2, 2019 [4 favorites]
(I think this is a point worth making because a lot of white women Regency readers [note: I don't know if you are one] really REALLY struggle with the fact that, although women were certainly oppressed in this time period, in fact the popular genteel/upper-class types of heroines were enormously privileged with respect to most of the population. It can make for a pretty ugly dynamic, one of the reasons I don't generally read historical romances, in fact.)
posted by praemunire at 12:17 AM on August 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 12:17 AM on August 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
white, educated women with manners appropriate to the upper classes
Every time I see this fight happen (and boy, it happens with regularity whenever somebody tries to bring basic social history and context to a Regency-adjacent literary discussion on the Internet, down to BUT YOU AREN'T CALCULATING THE VALUE OF ROOM AND BOARD and BUT THEY AREN'T WEALTHY COMPARED TO THEIR RELATIVES), I think about A Little Princess.
It's set a good bit later, and I loved it as a kid, but when I turn back to it as an adult, I get stuck on how Sara Crewe might be reduced to the same level as poor Becky in the next garret over, but she still has her manners. She still stands out with the way she talks. She still impresses people with how polite and educated she sounds, not like your average scullery girl. The baker wants to save her because she is so polite and well-spoken. She walks to the Carmichael house, isn't turned away at the door, and is permitted to bring the monkey back herself, meaning that she can talk to Carrisford in her "pretty voice."
And there's the part where the gentleman-across-the way has Ram Dass bring Sara down pillows and mattresses. And where do her old cast-offs go? Over to Becky, so that Becky has two mattresses, and two blankets, thus supplying "supply her in un-heard of comfort."
30 pounds is roughly what a strong, able-bodied (white) man in England could earn with hard, unskilled labor in a year in the 1830's. An able-bodied (white) woman laborer could only expect to make 10 pounds a year.
A genteel woman relying on 30 pounds a year would collect three times that, just for being born to the right people. She'd be financially constrained compared to other people in her class, but let's not pretend that 30 pounds a year wouldn't be a significant, livable-for-a-single-person-who-is-careful sum to the majority of people in England in Austen-times, and an inconceivable amount to the vast majority of people living under the Empire.
posted by joyceanmachine at 7:29 AM on August 2, 2019 [2 favorites]
Every time I see this fight happen (and boy, it happens with regularity whenever somebody tries to bring basic social history and context to a Regency-adjacent literary discussion on the Internet, down to BUT YOU AREN'T CALCULATING THE VALUE OF ROOM AND BOARD and BUT THEY AREN'T WEALTHY COMPARED TO THEIR RELATIVES), I think about A Little Princess.
It's set a good bit later, and I loved it as a kid, but when I turn back to it as an adult, I get stuck on how Sara Crewe might be reduced to the same level as poor Becky in the next garret over, but she still has her manners. She still stands out with the way she talks. She still impresses people with how polite and educated she sounds, not like your average scullery girl. The baker wants to save her because she is so polite and well-spoken. She walks to the Carmichael house, isn't turned away at the door, and is permitted to bring the monkey back herself, meaning that she can talk to Carrisford in her "pretty voice."
And there's the part where the gentleman-across-the way has Ram Dass bring Sara down pillows and mattresses. And where do her old cast-offs go? Over to Becky, so that Becky has two mattresses, and two blankets, thus supplying "supply her in un-heard of comfort."
30 pounds is roughly what a strong, able-bodied (white) man in England could earn with hard, unskilled labor in a year in the 1830's. An able-bodied (white) woman laborer could only expect to make 10 pounds a year.
A genteel woman relying on 30 pounds a year would collect three times that, just for being born to the right people. She'd be financially constrained compared to other people in her class, but let's not pretend that 30 pounds a year wouldn't be a significant, livable-for-a-single-person-who-is-careful sum to the majority of people in England in Austen-times, and an inconceivable amount to the vast majority of people living under the Empire.
posted by joyceanmachine at 7:29 AM on August 2, 2019 [2 favorites]
Another note on privilege and whitewashing of the shitty bits of Empire, is that there is one mention of slavery in that article, almost as an aside. A lot of women who knew their yearly income with that level of exactitude did so because they were absentee slave owners, not because they had government bonds. It was common enough that when slavery was abolished in the 1830s, "Compensation proponents, for example, tweaked the national conscience by highlighting the plight of “widows and orphans” in danger of destitution because of their dependence on slave-derived incomes." (from a review of The Price of Emancipation: Slave-Ownership, Compensation and British Society at the End of Slavery)
In the 1830s women wrote to the Slavery Compensation Commission with an in-depth knowledge of how their finances related to slavery; Dorothy Little complained to the Commission that people who owned slaves but no land (ie they owned slaves and got income via their slaves' labour, but did not own any stake in the plantation which their slaves worked on) were compensated at the same rate as plantation owners, when the plantation owners would be in a more secure financial position:
"An intimate knowledge of her own finances is clear: she explains that she has been receiving £80 sterling a year for “eight working negroes” for the last twenty years, although “in consequence of a change in the ownership of the Estate [to which they were hired] and the late rebellion” the rental was reduced to £57 sterling... Thus, far from being an “unconscious stipendiary of a wicked system” as abolitionists tended to argue widows were, Dorothy Little was aware that emancipation would have severe personal financial implications."
Women, slavery compensation and gender relations in the 1830s (pdf)
To gloss over this is just crass. A lot of upper-middle-class women in Britain in Austen's time knew exactly what their income was BECAUSE THEY OWNED OTHER HUMAN BEINGS AS PROPERTY. Sorry for caps lock, but continuing to ignore this while the information is out there is downright wilful; yes, your nice little essay is mainly about government bonds, but it makes out that this was 'the' reason that women knew their income so exactly. In the Legacies of British Slave-Ownership database you can search by gender, and if you'll do you'll find over 18,000 entries for women (incidentally including an Elizabeth Bennet who was awarded £36 for her three Dominican slaves).
In searching for references for this I also found that Historic England have made available for free a pdf of the book of essays Slavery and the British Country House, which I couldn't work out a way to work in a reference to above, but is most certainly relevant to this discussion.
posted by Vortisaur at 7:44 AM on August 2, 2019 [7 favorites]
In the 1830s women wrote to the Slavery Compensation Commission with an in-depth knowledge of how their finances related to slavery; Dorothy Little complained to the Commission that people who owned slaves but no land (ie they owned slaves and got income via their slaves' labour, but did not own any stake in the plantation which their slaves worked on) were compensated at the same rate as plantation owners, when the plantation owners would be in a more secure financial position:
"An intimate knowledge of her own finances is clear: she explains that she has been receiving £80 sterling a year for “eight working negroes” for the last twenty years, although “in consequence of a change in the ownership of the Estate [to which they were hired] and the late rebellion” the rental was reduced to £57 sterling... Thus, far from being an “unconscious stipendiary of a wicked system” as abolitionists tended to argue widows were, Dorothy Little was aware that emancipation would have severe personal financial implications."
Women, slavery compensation and gender relations in the 1830s (pdf)
To gloss over this is just crass. A lot of upper-middle-class women in Britain in Austen's time knew exactly what their income was BECAUSE THEY OWNED OTHER HUMAN BEINGS AS PROPERTY. Sorry for caps lock, but continuing to ignore this while the information is out there is downright wilful; yes, your nice little essay is mainly about government bonds, but it makes out that this was 'the' reason that women knew their income so exactly. In the Legacies of British Slave-Ownership database you can search by gender, and if you'll do you'll find over 18,000 entries for women (incidentally including an Elizabeth Bennet who was awarded £36 for her three Dominican slaves).
In searching for references for this I also found that Historic England have made available for free a pdf of the book of essays Slavery and the British Country House, which I couldn't work out a way to work in a reference to above, but is most certainly relevant to this discussion.
posted by Vortisaur at 7:44 AM on August 2, 2019 [7 favorites]
They would still be white, educated women with manners appropriate to the upper classes, connections within them, and enough income that they could not work (which of course they could not do without experiencing even more downward mobility) and yet not starve.
Miss Bates in Emma illustrates this. She and her mother live in genteel poverty with no prospect of improvement, but she still is invited to all the good parties.
posted by ALeaflikeStructure at 7:59 AM on August 2, 2019
Miss Bates in Emma illustrates this. She and her mother live in genteel poverty with no prospect of improvement, but she still is invited to all the good parties.
posted by ALeaflikeStructure at 7:59 AM on August 2, 2019
Loosely related, 19th century character trope generator
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:18 PM on August 2, 2019
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:18 PM on August 2, 2019
Vortisaur: " Sorry for caps lock, but continuing to ignore this while the information is out there is downright wilful; yes, your nice little essay is mainly about government bonds, but it makes out that this was 'the' reason that women knew their income so exactly. "
In fairness, the slave trade is mentioned in the essay.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:03 AM on August 5, 2019
In fairness, the slave trade is mentioned in the essay.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:03 AM on August 5, 2019
Not an original example, but Mansfield Park does an unintentionally great job of connecting slavery to privilege. Fanny is the poor relative with nothing, living on the kindness of relatives. The head of the household leaves, quite explicitly to see to his struggling West Indies estate, where an especially brutal brand of slave labor supports the lifestyle we're reading about. In his absence out heroine is left behind to struggle with the ethical dilemma: Is it proper to perform in a play?
(BTW I adore Jane Austen, including Mansfield Park.)
posted by mark k at 11:04 PM on August 5, 2019 [2 favorites]
(BTW I adore Jane Austen, including Mansfield Park.)
posted by mark k at 11:04 PM on August 5, 2019 [2 favorites]
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