The plot in the novel tells us that in Britain at that time, daughters actually had the right to inherit property. For example, "Mrs. Bennet's father used to be a lawyer in Meryton and gave her a legacy of 4 thousand pounds."
Longbourn mentioned in the novel, which will be inherited, should be the product of long-term land law in Britain.
The British Norman dynasty declared that the king was the ultimate owner of the land, allowing private individuals to possess, use, benefit and dispose of it under certain restrictions. In the era of William I, there were more than 1400 nobles directly enfeoffed by the king. The reciprocal condition for them to keep their land is to serve the king: each fief must provide at least one fully armed knight to serve the king for 40 days every year,/Count Kloc-0/2 should provide 40 to 60 knights,/Baron Kloc-0/40 should provide 10 to 40 knights. The king also allowed every vassal to continue to enfeoffment his fief to the nobles and knights at the next level, but when he enfeoffment again, he must fulfill his obligations to the king. Many nobles gave two-thirds of their fiefs to their lower nobles or knights. At that time, as many as four levels of enfeoffment system had been created. 100 years later, most fiefs were divided into four or five sub-fiefs. Since 1085, William I has also carried out a detailed inventory of land assets in Britain, and registered all real estates, and at the same time registered the obligations to the king, thus effectively implementing the power of the king to every real estate in the country. 1086 completed the registration, and the British hated it. They called this cadastral book "doomsday book".
In the long historical evolution in the future, these fiefs and fiefs will inevitably be transferred and inherited, and the law allows them, but the obligations they undertake will also be transferred accordingly. When dividing each piece of land, we should also carefully explain the obligation burden after decomposition. For example, cavalry horses, saddles, weapons, armor and so on are broken down and attached to the land. Therefore, the land law in Britain has become the most complicated land law in the world.
Knowing the complicated land system in Britain, we can understand the inexplicable inheritance law in Pride and Prejudice. Because a lot of land is attached with feudal obligations, even in the novel writing of 19 th century, this is still the case. Other feudal obligations can be gradually replaced by cash, but it is stipulated that the property of active servicemen cannot be replaced by money, although in fact this service has long been abolished. Bennet's property is limited to the land that undertakes the obligation of serving men, so it can only be inherited by men. This is called limited inheritance of real estate, or "limited inheritance of real estate", which was indeed a very common phenomenon in Britain at that time.
The ancient land law in England did not change until long after the publication of Pride and Prejudice. 1925, the property law reform changed all property into general inheritable property, canceled the classification of limited inheritable property and lifelong property, unified property registration, and completely disappeared the embarrassing property inheritance phenomenon in Pride and Prejudice from British society.