Jane Austen: Love and Money

The Jane Austen 10 pound note was introduced in 2017

It's quite fitting that Jane Austen graces British money. Money was, after all, as much a major theme in her novels as love. That is what accounts for Auden's account of why he finds the novelist too intimidating a writer to write to:

 

Extracts from WH Auden's "Letter to Lord Byron"

There is one other author in my pack:

For some time I debated which to write to.

Which would be least likely to send my letter back?

But I decided I'd give a fright to

Jane Austen if I wrote when I had no right to,

and share in her contempt the dreadful fates

Of Crawford, Musgrave, and Mr. Yates.

You could not shock her more than she shocks me;

Besides her Joyce seems innocent as grass.

It makes me uncomfortable to see

An English spinster of the middle class

Describe the amorous effects of `brass',

Reveal so frankly and with such sobriety

The economic basis of society.

Jane Austen wallet 

Readers (and viewers) of Pride and Prejudice can't help but be struck by how everyone seems to know a person's net worth. Even before we encounter Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy directly, we know that the former has 4,000 pounds a year, less than half of the 10,000 a year ascribed to the master of Pemberley.  But it is in Sense and Sensibility that Austen is at her most incisive about the role money plays in people's lives and mocks those who say they disdain "wealth" while assuming a large sum as a bare minimum.

In chapter 17, the two sisters discuss wealth versus competence, starting with Marianne's question:

“What have wealth or grandeur to do with happiness?”

“Grandeur has but little,” said Elinor, “but wealth has much to do with it.”

“Elinor, for shame!” said Marianne, “money can only give happiness where there is nothing else to give it. Beyond a competence, it can afford no real satisfaction, as far as mere self is concerned.”

“Perhaps,” said Elinor, smiling, “we may come to the same point. Your competence and my wealth are very much alike, I dare say; and without them, as the world goes now, we shall both agree that every kind of external comfort must be wanting. Your ideas are only more noble than mine. Come, what is your competence?”

“About eighteen hundred or two thousand a year; not more than that.”

Elinor laughed. “Two thousand a year! One is my wealth! I guessed how it would end.”

“And yet two thousand a-year is a very moderate income,” said Marianne. “A family cannot well be maintained on a smaller. I am sure I am not extravagant in my demands. A proper establishment of servants, a carriage, perhaps two, and hunters, cannot be supported on less.”

Gold-plated necklace

Marrying for money does work out for some 

Marianne is correct in her estimate of the minimal income requires to maintain Willoughby's lifestyle. He does enjoy the good life and hunting, which is exactly why he ends up marrying Miss Sophia  Grey who has 50,000 pounds of her own. 

That level of wealth certainly makes up for her being not as much to his taste as Marianne is, particularly when he is disinherited by Mrs. Smith for having impregnated Eliza and refusing to marry her. Austen makes a point of saying that the wicked aren't punished in her novel, and Willoughby does enjoy his lifestyle. 

The final chapter of the book assures us that even if he regretted the loss of Marianne,  we should not assume Willoughby's life was one of suffering:

But that he was for ever inconsolable, that he fled from society, or contracted an habitual gloom of temper, or died of a broken heart, must not be depended on—for he did neither. He lived to exert, and frequently to enjoy himself. His wife was not always out of humour, nor his home always uncomfortable; and in his breed of horses and dogs, and in sporting of every kind, he found no inconsiderable degree of domestic felicity.

Similarly, Lucy Steele enjoys her advancement in jilting Edward Ferrars for his brother once their mother conferred the income that should have gone to the eldest on Robert:

The whole of Lucy’s behaviour in the affair, and the prosperity which crowned it, therefore, may be held forth as a most encouraging instance of what an earnest, an unceasing attention to self-interest, however its progress may be apparently obstructed, will do in securing every advantage of fortune, with no other sacrifice than that of time and conscience.  

Where does one draw the line between mercenary and prudent? 

Both Lucy Steele and Willoughby are clearly not models of behavior. That they achieve happiness of their own sort, Austen assures us, is due to the world not always living up to out expectations of fairness. However, the treatment of marrying for money is treated with more nuance in Pride and Prejudice.

Wickham, a character very much like Willoughby amuses himself with flirting with various women, including Elizabeth, until he shifts his attention to King, whose chief attraction is her 10,000 pounds. Elizabeth doesn't resent Willoughby's defection. She discusses this with her aunt, Mrs. Gardiner:

“Pray, my dear aunt, what is the difference in matrimonial affairs, between the mercenary and the prudent motive? Where does discretion end, and avarice begin? Last Christmas you were afraid of his marrying me, because it would be imprudent; and now, because he is trying to get a girl with only ten thousand pounds, you want to find out that he is mercenary.” 

Mrs. Gardiner had also warned Elizabeth not to get her hopes up for Col. Fitzwilliam. As a younger son, he admitted, he would be looking to ally himself with wealth, and Elizabeth, with no more than a thousand pounds to be settled on her, would also need to make a more advantageous match from a material point of view.

Charlotte Lucas offers yet another example of the difficulty in pinning down where discretion ends and avarice begins. Her marriage to Mr. Collins is completely motivated by material concerns. Though it gets subsumed under the main plot, one of the subplots of the novel is Elizabeth's coming to terms with her best friend's decision. She does turn away from her from a while but does comes to realize that Charlotte does make the best of things and is not unhappy.

Jane Austen novels on a wallet from Totally_Jane_Austen

The value of beauty in hard currency

Charlotte recognizes that she has less appeal on the marriage market because of her lack of beauty, which is why, as a plain woman of 27 with no fortune of her own, she believes that this 25 year-old clergyman who stands to inherit Longbourn is really the best deal to which she can aspire. This calculus of what a woman's looks entitle her to expect is made explicit in Sense and Sensibility.

In Chapter 33, John Dashwood observes to Elinor how Marianne loss of beauty (at 17) will mar her marriage prospects:

 At her time of life, any thing of an illness destroys the bloom for ever! Hers has been a very short one! She was as handsome a girl last September, as I ever saw; and as likely to attract the man. There was something in her style of beauty, to please them particularly. I remember Fanny used to say that she would marry sooner and better than you did; not but what she is exceedingly fond of you, but so it happened to strike her. She will be mistaken, however. I question whether Marianne now, will marry a man worth more than five or six hundred a-year, at the utmost, and I am very much deceived if you do not do better. 

Related

Jane Austen and Autism

Jane Austen's Heroines

 Observations on Jane Austen's Emma

Love and Limerence in Jane Austen

Jane Austen at the Morgan

Three Janes, Two Governesses, and the Abolitionist Movement

Pride and Prejudice in Job Applications

Jane Austen and Capability Brown

Prices rise, but not evenly.

I've notice the rise in prices of groceries and gas in the last several years. But I'm not old enough to know exactly how they compare to decades ago. I got curious about it after seeing a supermarket scene in a movie from the very early 60s. Eggs were advertised at 49 cents. Granted that's cheaper than what they sell for today, but not so much cheaper as one may expect. Eggs are generally priced anywhere between $1.50 and $1.99 a dozen, and I even managed to pick up some on sale for 99 cents this past year -- something that was far more common a few years ago.

It seemed to me, that given the rate of inflation, 49 cents would have been not so cheap back then. I looked up some price on http://www.1960sflashback.com/1960/economy.asp. Perhaps the 49 cents was some kind of special because, according to that, the price in the 60s would have been 57 cents, higher than the cost of a gallon of milk, which it puts at 49 cents. Currently, in my area, milk gallon prices range from $3.49-$4.99, with an average of about $4, depending on the store, the brand, and whatever other factors come into play.  That would mean that while milk prices have risen about 10x, the cost of eggs have only risen 3 to 4 times their cost then. Oh, and the cost of gallon of gas was 31 cents, so that has actually gone up more than 10x. Interesting, though, that the postage stamp then was only 4 cents, which would have made it cheaper than a local call in a payphone. A new home is said to cost $16,500.

If you jump ahead a decade to http://www.1970sflashback.com/1970/economy.asp, you find  moderate increases in prices. The stamp now costs 6 cents, still less than call.  The gallon of gas is 36 cents. The dozen eggs are up to 62 cents. But the gallon of milk has more than doubled in price to $1.15.  The median household income is given as $8,734 (no comparable figure appeared for 1960). A house would have proved to be a good investment (as you can't hold milk for 10 years) because the new home price is $26,600.

By the time you get to 1980, home prices would have tripled over the decade to$76,499, though the median income would have only about doubled to $17,710. Other prices are as follows:

Cost of a first-class stamp:  $0.15  Cost of a gallon of regular gas:  $1.25  Cost of a dozen eggs:  $0.91  Cost of a gallon of Milk:  $2.16

The cost of a home would have doubled again by 1990 to  149,800. Other indexes include:

Median Household Income:  $29,943.00  Cost of a first-class stamp:  $0.25  Cost of a gallon of regular gas:  $1.16  Cost of a dozen eggs:  $1.00  Cost of a gallon of Milk:  $2.78

For the rate of inflation applied to British products and prices, see http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-1633409/Historic-inflation-calculator-value-money-changed-1900.html Eggs are a lot more expensive over the Atlantic than they are over here.