(Pride and) Prejudice against women
MUCH muttering that the proposed changes to the line of succession in the Royal Family may impact on the aristocracy, with first-born women inheriting their father’s dukedom rather than second-born sons.
About time too.
One person who would agree with this is the 10th Baron Braybrooke, who has eight daughters but no sons.
He is appalled by the fact that his title and possibly his property will pass to a distant cousin, even though one daughter is running the estate.
This is the exact set-up faced by the Bennet sisters in Pride And Prejudice.
When their father dies they will lose their home as it is entailed, in default of male heirs, on a distant relation.
In all other respects our world is as different from Jane Austen’s as the sun is from the moon, except in this: women are discriminated against in inheritance terms.
A change in the law can’t come a moment too soon.