Real_Estate_in_the_Victorian_Era

During the Victorian Era, status was reflected in the size of a home. Status meant having large estates, manors and parsonages. Most of the estates were inherited, rather than sold. Property was a major indicator of wealth, in a time where wealth mattered more than anything else.

The Victorian Style House
The Victorian style house was a very simple structure made of wood. The floor plan was usually divided into a number of different shaped rooms, rather than a simple rectangle. The roof had many different shapes, angles, and planes. A Victorian house usually had a porch across the front of the house that wrapped around the corner and down one side. The floor of the porch and the first story were raised high off of the ground. Because of the Industrial Revolution, round porch columns and other materials became available for everyone for their home. [1] Victorian houses were often cluttered places. They usually had hardwood floors and throw rugs. The parlor contained secretaries, desks, tables, couches, parlor sets, pianos, paintings, and grandfather clocks.

The Victorian Home Serves as a "Haven"
The Victorian home was often regarded as a haven or refuge from the surrounding world of business and politics. It was also served as a shelter from the dirty world of the factory. Wealthy members of society created comfortable, domestic interiors, filled with plush fabrics, heavy curtains, and elegant furnishings. This successfully isolated the inhabitants from the busy outside world.[2] The above quote shows the immense size of the grounds. This manor was completely sheltered from the outside world, and kept these rich people away from the problems of business. Sometimes the houses were so big and were built so that the husband and wife were separated. This happened in the novel with Mr. and Mrs. Collins. They were only married because Mr. Collins and Ms. Lucas could get no one else. Therefore they married each other. The house they lived in was large and almost became two houses, one for her and one for him. It was set up so that she did not have to see him that much and she was happy with this.
 * "The park was very large, and contained great variety of ground. They entered it in one of its lowest points, and drove for some time through a beautiful wood, stretching over a wide extent" (Austen 158)**

Prosperity Shown in Home Interiors
As a result in the changes in industries and transports, a new type of prosperity was brought to society. It became customary to show-off one's wealth in the interior of their home. "The Victorians associated the clutter of ornamentation and ostentatious display with wealth." [3] As a result, homes were crammed with furniture. Pianos presented refinement and taste. Heavy "balloon-type" furniture became widely used in homes during the Victorian Era. Mahogany framed sofas were elegant and also widely adorned in homes. Beautiful carving highlighted the vast mahogany curves. French polished rooms were liked and sometimes rosewood was used as darker woods were fashionable. [3] Homes were often dark and included heavily-patterned wallpapers. From a picture rail hung oil paintings, etchings, engravings, silhouettes, water colours, stitched needlework samplers and hand embroidered reproductions of famous paintings. [3] Layers of blinds and velvet curtains prevented sunlight from entering the room. [3] In __Pride and Prejudice__, the larger homes had many different rooms, including parlors, dining rooms, and lounges. An example in the novel would be the Pemberley estate, in which everyone acted as if it was a treat to even visit the house. The Pemberley estate was Mr. Darcy's essential sign of wealth. In a time when someone could not show off through buying fancy cars or electronics, wealthy people like Mr. Darcy revealed their wealth through their lavish estates and manors. Pemberley was lavishly decorated and had many servants. It had a PLETHORA of luxurious items through which people could tell that Mr. Darcy was a man who had money. He had many reasons to show off this money. Property, estates, parsonages, and manors all made women want to marry the person who owned them. Bingley was wanted, not just because he was a handsome man, but because he was a man who had a great deal of property and wealth as is shown in the quote. What shows how important wealth and property is, is that Mrs. Bennet only mentions Bingley's wealth. The wealth and property was the singlemost important factor in obtaining a marriage.
 * "They followed her into the dining-parlour. It was a large, well-proportioned room, handsomely fitted up. As they passed into other rooms, these objects were taking different positions. The rooms were lofty and handsome, and their furniture suitable to the fortune of their proprietor" (Austen 240).**
 * "Oh! single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls" (Austen 3).**

Home Life Reflects Victorian Status
The more a home became overfilled with china, domed wax flowers, stuffed birds, trinket boxes, the more it showed its owner had arrived to the full Victorian lifestyle. [3] Status was reflected through the purchasing of items for the home. The size of the home also reflected status. The ability to hire and keep housekeepers and servants was also reflective of wealth. House parties where prosperity in homelife could be shown off to others also presented one's status. Home lifestyle was truly invented by wealthy Victorians.[3]media type="youtube" key="45tGTZlilsk&rel=1" height="355" width="425"

Property Inheritance
Entailed property is usually inherited by male primogeniture, in more or less the same way as are some [|titles of nobility] -- i.e. by the nearest male-line descendant (son of son etc.) of the original owner of the estate or title, whose ancestry in each generation goes through the eldest son who has left living male-line descendants (thus the male-line descendants of the second son of an owner will not have a chance to inherit until all the male-line descendants of the eldest son have died out) [4]. The idea of entailment also prevented a man from disinheriting his oldest son. An entail was a legal device used to stop property from being divided and/or from going into a female line. There were many other motivations for having an entail. Land was the most important thing in society. If one had a great amount of land, they were wealthy. Therefore, they wanted this land to go on through the family and not be divided a lot. If it were to be divided, the power of the land, and therefore the family, would decrease greatly. Throughout __Pride and Prejudice__, this idea of male property inheritance is present. For example, numerous times, Mrs. Bennet becomes angry because her husband's property is going to be passed down to Mr. Collins, not one of her daughters. This infuriates her because to her, money and property is everything. She also does not understand the concept of the entail. Mrs. Bennet needs to constantly be explained to about how the entail works and why they have it.
 * "...and she continued to rail bitterly against the cruelty of settling an estate away from a family of five daughters, in favour of a man whom nobody cared anything about" (Austen 42).**
 * "I never can be thankful, Mr. Bennet, for any thing about the entail. How any one could have the conscience to entail away an estate from one's own daughters I cannot understand"** **(Austen 130).**

Property Inheritance Chart
The following diagram may help illustrate the mysterious workings of such an entail; the original possessor of the estate is at the top of the diagram, males are denoted by "M", females by "F", the current (male) owner of the estate by "X", siblings are arranged left-to-right from eldest to youngest, and the potential heirs to the estate upon the death of "X" are numbered in the order of successsion (potential co-heiress-ships are shown by several women being given the same number): code M(dead) |                            +---+--+---+                             |           |          |       |                           M(dead)      F(12)      M(7)    M(9) |                     |         +++--+--+     M(8) |           |        |      |      |         X           M(1)    F(11)   M(5)   F(11) |           |               |     +--+      +-+           M(6) |     |      |     |    F(10)  F(10)  M(2)  M(4) |                 M(3)

code Note that the technical interpretation of this chart is that, given this family configuration, the individual numbered (1) is the immediate heir of the man labeled "X"; but if (1) died before "X", then (2) would be X's immediate heir; and if (1) and (2) died before "X", then (3) would be X's immediate heir, and so on down the line (i.e. if all individuals labelled with numbers (1)-(11) were to die before "X", then the individual numbered (12) would be X's immediate heir)[4].