I only wish to clear up a possible confusion between a woman's "dowry" and "fortune". In England, prior to the Married Women's Act of 1882, the whole of a woman's fortune became her dowry and would legally belong to her husband, every penny of it, unless it was protected by a marriage settlement. The marriage settlement could provide that the couple would have the income of it for life, and that it would be settled on her children. In S&S, Mr Dashwood's first wife, who was John's mother, had some fortune, and the settlement provided that her husband would have a life interest on half of it, but the whole capital would be inherited by her child after the death of both parents. Col Brandon's father forced his rich niece and ward to marry his eldest son and heir because he wanted her fortune to clear the encumbrances of his estate, so he did not protect it by marriage settlement. If Georgina eloped without a marriage settlement, her whole fortune would belong to her husband. A responsible guardian would certainly negotiate a marriage settlement to protect his ward's interest so that her husband could not waste away her fortune, but he was not obliged to add to it. So I do not regard Darcy as having an even more enormous fortune, and Georgina only a very small proportion of it, with their father trusting to Darcy to add to his sister's dowry out of personal generosity. Georgina's fortune was in at least fairly reasonable in proportion to Darcy's as we are told in the text, only slightly less proportionately to the Bingley sisters compared to their brother's, and to MP's Crawford brother and sister (sister having 20,000 capital, brother having income of 4,000 or between 4,000 to 5,000 a year).
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