How to Marry Up and Social Climb in Jane Austen's Regency Era

[Subtitulado en español] If you lived in Jane Austen's era, would you try to social climb and marry up? If so, how could you do it? In this video, we break down the four essential things you would need in order to move from the Regency Era middle class into the upper class. And we'll also address, what would happen if you tried to marry *too* far out of your sphere. We'll use example from Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen's Emma and Sense and Sensibility to learn more about what it really took to social climb in the early 19th century.

💕

Links may be affiliate links which means I'll receive a small commission from your purchase at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my channel.

📽 Other Videos to Watch

📚Books Mentioned in This Video

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Emma

Sense and Sensibility

🎨Favorite Classic Art Collections

🧐Learn More

Women and Marriage in Nineteenth-Century England. London: Routledge.

West, J. (1806).

Letters to a Young Lady: In which the Duties and Character of Women are Considered, Chiefly with a Reference to Prevailing Opinions. United Kingdom: O. Penniman and Company.


💻 YouTube Tools I Use

🕰 Watching Guide
00:00 How to Marry Up and social Climb in Jane Austen's Regency Era [Intro]
01:35 Money Earned from Trade and Manufacturing
04:17 Manners: Act like the Upper Class
06:19 Marriage: Make those Great Connections
08:52 Why does Miss Grey marry Willoughby? Sense and Sensibility
11:46 Manor: Buy Land to Move Up
12:35 Where does Mr Bingley's income come from? Pride and Prejudice
14:25 What if you're not in the upper middle class?

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

#janeausten #regencyera #prideandprejudice #mrbingley #janebennet #janeaustenemma

[springlady]

Ellie: if you owned a candle stick shop you’d be lower middle class
Me: feeling personally attacked as I own a small business candle company

[giovana]

"I'm sure every upper-class person in the Regency Era would have liked my videos"
Ma'am you're teaching social climbers to infiltrate the upper-class, I'm not so sure about that :P

[joydawg]

This reminds me of the Middletons. The Middletons were solidly middle class and then their business took off and they sent their children to the better boarding schools in England. The children started to become friends with aristocrats and then the daughters married into royalty and aristocracy. Of course Kate will eventually have the highest title of all!

[lucialp]

My grandmother married down. It was a love match, but the family struggled to make ends meet, at times they actually were hungry. Grandfather died young and worn out, grandmother lived to regret the marriage. Money isn't everything, but it's a damned lot.

[natpleo]

Me: already part of a long, stable, modern XXI century relationship
Also me: *taking notes and paying my undivided attention to this guide*

[perdidoatlantic]

My grandmother married down. Her wealthy father ensured all his daughters were educated. They were all school teachers (only thing girls could become). When she married a hog farmer against her father’s wishes he said it was her choice but she would not be welcome back if it didn’t go well for her.
It didn’t and she wasn’t.

[dinoxman]

How to marry rich :
Be pretty
Be witty
Don’t have embarrassing family
Don’t have shop keepers as family
Have a big house
Don’t have a small house
Go to party’s with rich single guys

[m.r.]

I must say that the first thing I thought was, "buy a piece of land and have a more beautiful house" as a first option. I personally would not seek to advance socially if I was in a good situation obviously. My father has a store or is a banker? I would look for someone from a similar social status, as long as I don't have to work, have entertainment and if possible servants to help me around the house I'll be fine.

[arielklay]

Interesting personal story about modern snobbery. My grandmother was an American raised in upper class family. Her father was a superior court judge, she was a debutante, went to a private university and traveled abroad after graduation. Her mother was mortified when she married someone she thought was beneath her daughter socially. Interestingly, the marriage didn't last after the children were grown. She said it was because he wasn't available emotionally, but I wonder if their class difference was a factor.

[charlesvanderhoog]

In social-psychology, the technique Ellie talks about is called "anticipatory socialisation". I find her talks highly educational, well-researched and to the point. Rare but wonderful stuff.

[Valentina-ehzf]

Jane Bennet (Jane Fairfax as well, educated, beautiful, talented, very elegant manners and intelligent) was a perfect exemple of a woman who could easily marry up in the regency era. She is a very beautiful young woman, classy, with gentle and calm spirit, pure of heart, decent and has very lady-like manners, of course with her beauty and personality trades she is admired wherever she goes. The problem was her embarrassing family (Mother and Lydia’s affair that brought serious shame to the family). I never could understand how Mr. Bennet raised such wonderful women as Jane and Lizzie and then the three younger daughters became so foolish. Maybe after he saw his third child wasn’t a male, he gave up on educating properly his daughters, like “whatever”. He was negligent and irresponsible, his major defect. I think Mrs. Bennet nerves attacks was anxiety cuz she knew that her daughters without a rentable marriage would be miserable and her husband did nothing to solve that so she was having panic attacks. She may be foolish and superficial but she at least thought very much of her daughters and was realistic about their situation.

[christinaMattsson]

18:00 Im from a working class family and I honestly found it hard to fit into the middle class people at the university i studied. There are so many small things that I just didn't know. Nobody was mean to me about it dough

[wednesdayschild]

The Medici were pharmacists outside of Florence. They invented double entry bookkeeping and the did branch banking. They married up. The English Stuart were Medici.

[clwest]

I would never have thought about marrying 'up' or at all (I never did) ... however, my mother always thought of that. She was beautiful and smart! She was actually a 'hair' model in the 50s. She married rotten money first time around - divorced (drinking and all that entails) ... second, she married a young officer in the military (my dad). She always stressed good manners and education to her children. We were taught proper table manners - I would not be intimidated attending a 'regency' dinner - our holiday dinners actually look a lot like the ones displayed on the shows; she would say, who knows who you will be dining with when you grow up so learn it now; be as comfortable with a crystal glass of wine or a bottle of beer. If there were no social functions, dinner was at 6:30 every night with fully set table - conversation was current events complete with 'word of the day' .... We read many classics and learned 'old' games (chess, cribbage, backgammon and cards) oh, and we learned needle / thread work - even my brothers can sew and one was remarkable at counted cross stitch.
Growing up, I thought everyone lived like we did ... I was in for a rude awakening as an adult! We used to kid my mom that she should start a school for ladies because we had fun learning it all - and now I know that type of thinking is in line with Austen's era.
Have been enjoying your videos!

[sr]

So that explains the Bingley family really well. Obviously their dad made the money in trade, put his son and daughters in the best schools, married the elder daughter off to a layabout drunkard younger son of the aristocracy and then died leaving his son to find and purchase a manor.

[Layla]

Reminds me of Winston Churchill's parents - his father was a member of the aristocracy and his mother was a rich American heiress. A perfect match for both :)

[introgirl]

What I've always wondered is how Darcy became friends with Bingley in the first place? If Bingley comes from a trade background and Darcy is super wealthy, how would they even meet and why would Darcy bother with him? We all know Bingley is agreeable but is that enough to solidify friendship with a Darcy?

[elisebunny]

Unfortunately, it’s true even today, although we have class climbing today, it’s incredibly uncomfortable to be in a class too high for your level of manners and disposition. Just attend a black tie event and you will suffer the exact embarrassment described if you weren’t brought up to understand the customs.

[anieth]

Interesting to think of Carolyn Bingley and Lizzie where Carolyn must have been wildly envious because she spent all this time and effort trying to be in Lizzie's class and still failed in the eyes of Darcy. What's even more interesting is that we have this in the States. Middle class behavior is so, well, obvious. My parents were highly educated but both of them were from the upper lower class and could not adjust to middle class values (like cocktail hour and golf). They preferred beer and camping out. But being so educated put them out of the blue collar realm in which they were comfortable. We both went to good schools or worked places where middle class people engaged in that cutting behavior in which Carolyn Bingley excelled and despised it. I worked with the extremely rich, and got along with them very well because we both had no middle class values! The only differences in our behavior were money, and not manners at all. I went to high school in England and also found this to be the case. Because I was eccentric and an artist, I was acceptable to the upper classes and not to the middle, where manners and appearance were the driving factors. My sister married up and faced constant criticism and was somewhat miserable at having to watch her every move, even in the US. Good video!

[sarasolomon]

I loved this video! It really reminds me of the "Dollar Princesses"; the daughters of extremely wealthy American business moguls who married financially strapped European aristocracy. Of course this happened about 100 years after Jane Austen's time, but it was scandalous none the less.

A lot of people know of poor Consuelo Vanderbilt, forced to marry the ninth Duke of Marlborough, with a dowry of $2.5 million in railroad stocks (over $75 million in today's money), but another fascinating story is the Mary Leiter, who married George Curzon. It didn't seem that exciting when they married (he was a member of Parliament, and a gentleman, but definitely not a duke), BUT George ended up becoming the viceroy of India in 1898, arguably the most powerful position in the English government, below Queen Victoria herself. Lady Mary Curzon became the Vicereine of India, and for all intents and purposes, lived the life of a queen. Another positive note is that Mary and George had a loving and supportive marriage. 😊