1. Stone, Lawrence, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500–1800 (London, 1977) 10Google Scholar.

2. See reviews of Stone's book: Keith Thomas, Times Literary Supplement 21 October 1977, 1226; Joan Thirsk, Times Higher Education Supplement 28 October 1977, 16; Hill, Christopher, ‘Sex, Marriage, and the Family in England,’ Economic History Review, 2d ser., xxxi (1978) 450–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Outhwaite, R.B., ‘Population Change, Family Structure and the Good of Counting,’ Historical Journal 22 (1979) 229–37CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Slack, Paul, English Historical Review xciv (1979) 124–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. Macfarlane, Alan, History & Theory xviii (1979) 103–26Google Scholar.

4. E.P. Thompson, New Society 18 September 1977, 499–501.

5. Ibid. 500.

6. Ibid. 501.

7. Ibid. 500.

8. Stone, Lawrence, The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558–1641 (Oxford, 1965) 617Google Scholar.

9. For a brief sketch, see Bonfield, Lloyd, Marriage Settlements, 1601–1740: the Adoption of the Strict Settlement (Cambridge, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar Chapter 1.

10. Ibid. Chapters 3–5.

11. Historians who have discussed marriage settlements in the abstract assume that fathers survive to the marriage of their male heir and therefore direct hereditary transmission upon that event. See, e.g., Habakkuk, H. J., ‘Marriage Settlements in the Eighteenth Century,’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th ser., xxxii (1950) 15–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy, supra note 8, 549–60. Those who have investigated particular families appreciate that demographic reality (limited life expectancy and high age of marriage) left heirs in control of their estates. See, e.g., Clay, Christopher, ‘Property Settlements, Financial Provision for the Family, and the Sale of Land by the Greater Landowners, 1660–1790,’ Journal of British Studies xxi (1981) 18–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. The family studies in Finch, Mary E., The Wealth of Five Northamptonshire Families, 1540–1640, Northamptonshire Records Society xix (Oxford, 1956)Google Scholar and Cooper, J.P., ‘Patterns of Inheritance and Settlement by Great Landowners from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries,’ in Goody, Jack, Thirsk, Joan and Thompson, E.P., eds., Family and Inheritance (Cambridge, 1976) 192–233Google Scholar, have been relied upon to fashion an Elizabethan pattern of transmission.

13. For a fuller explanation of the settlement habits of the peerage and gentry, see Bonfield, Marriage Settlements, supra note 9, Chapter 3.

14. The following table is based upon Hollingworth's, T.H. ‘The Demography of the British Peerage,’ supplement to Population Studies xviii, no. 2 (1964)Google Scholar and ‘Mortality in the British Peerage Families since 1600,’ Population xxxii (1977) 323–49Google Scholar.

Table I. Model for Resettlement in the British Peerage, c. 1600–1740

15. For an explanation of the reasons why and the means by which alienation could be accomplished see Megarry, R.E. and Wade, H.W.R., The Law of Real Property, 4th ed. (London, 1975) 192–95Google Scholar.

16. See Bonfield, Marriage Settlements, supra note 9, 33–34 for a discussion of this question.

17. Habakkuk, ‘Marriage Settlements,’ supra note 11, 16–18.

18. Land acquired by father after settlement could be disposed of at his discretion.

19. Stone, , Family, Sex and Marriage, supra note 1, (Penguin edition, 1979) 25Google Scholar.

20. Thompson, New Society, supra note 4, 500.

21. Stone, Family, Sex and Marriage, supra note 1, 4–9.

22. Ibid. 7.

23. Ibid. 178–91, 244. If landed society passed from an open-lineage form to patriarchy, one would expect settlement forms to have been modified in the sixteenth century. One might argue that the entail was ‘lineage’ oriented because before around 1500 it could not be barred. Entailed land passed to remote male relations rather than daughters or a selected male heir (like a son-in-law) in a prescribed manner. Such was legal theory, but what of the facts? Regrettably few studies have been done on estate transmission in the fifteenth and early sixteenth century.

24. Ibid. 7.

25. The strict settlement limited an entail to the eldest son produced by the marriage in each generation. For an example of the legal form, see Bridgeman's Conveyances, 2d ed. (London, 1690) 92–97Google Scholar.

26. Stone, Family, Sex and Marriage, supra note 1, 157.

27. Admittedly, Stone does not adopt this view arguing that the strict settlement ‘preserved a highly inegalitarian distribution of family resources.’ Ibid. 244. Stone appears to take this position because he believes that the property arrangements in the eighteenth century were directed towards preserving estate intact. Ibid. 44. Mortgages, however, enabled adequate provision for younger sons and daughters to be raised without selling off land. Moreover, an incoming portion from the wife of the male heir might compensate for outgoing portions to surplus children. Bonfield, Marriage Settlements, supra note 9, 115–18. Given the increase in the size of portions of brides which occurred during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it is difficult to understand how daughters who were not heiresses could have received large portions if there were not increased generosity.

28. The data set for this study consists of 226 marriage settlements executed by the peerage and gentry in Kent and Northamptonshire during the period 1601 to 1740. For an explanation of methodology employed to ascertain patterns, see Bonfield, Marriage Settlements, supra note 9, Introduction. Only the following settlements record the capital value of the estate: Kent Archives Office U120 T175 (1706), U791 T248 (1708), U1007 E134 (1719), U1175 T65 (1729), and Northamptonshire Records Office C(A) 62 (1726). In the families studied by Finch, fathers appear to be less generous unless they could raise the portions out of income. One might, however, attribute this to the lack of credit facilities rather than to emotional ties. Five Northamptonshire Families, supra note 12.

29. Of 107 strict settlements, twenty four (22.4%) direct that daughters take in preference to collateral male heirs.

30. Stone, Family, Sex and Marriage, supra note 1, 221. Mrs. Bennett of Pride and Prejudice renown did indeed have cause to feel aggrieved because her daughters' dilemma appears to have been untypical. Having no brothers, the Bennett girls should have either received large portions or else divided the estate amongst themselves. Perhaps her anger should have been directed towards her own father who seems to have negotiated a bad bargain. I owe this observation to Professor Wrigley.

31. Habakkuk, H.J., ‘English Landownership, 1680–1740,’ Economic History Review x (1939–1940) 13Google Scholar; Mingay, G.E., English Landed Society in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1963) 52Google Scholar; Jones, E.J., ‘Agriculture and Economic Growth in England, 1660–1750: Agricultural Change,’ in Jones, E.J., ed., Agricultural and Economic Growth in England, 1660–1815 (London, 1967) 152–71Google Scholar. Beckett, J.V., however, suggests regional variation, ‘Regional Variation and the Agricultural Depression, 1730–50,’ Economic History Review 2d ser., xxxv (1982) 35–51Google Scholar.

32. See, e.g., Henry, L., Anciennes Familles Genevoises (Paris, 1956)Google Scholar. Hollingsworth concludes that the peerage was practicing family limitation as early as 1650. ‘Demography of the British Peerage,’ supra note 14, 51.

33. Macfarlane, History & Theory, supra note 3, 107.

34. Stone, Family, Sex and Marriage, supra note 1, 4.

35. Historians have been busily engaged in accusing each other of depicting life in premodern England in these terms without sufficient evidence and denying that they themselves adopt such a morbid picture of English society. I searched in vain for this precise characterization in Stone, so I cite Hobbes, who unhappily burdened us with the phrase. Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan, ed. Walter, A.R. (Cambridge, 1935) 84Google Scholar.

36. Stone, Family, Sex and Marriage, supra note 1, 4.

37. Ibid.

38. Ibid. 81.

39. Primogeniture is a custom of inheritance in which the eldest son succeeds to all lands and tenements. Because land could be (and was) transmitted inter vivos and disposed of by will to other children, the custom applied only to lands which were not under settlement or devise.

40. The controversy over the causes of population growth during the course of the eighteenth century has been resolved in favor of increased levels of fertility due to a decline in the age of marriage of women. Wrigley, E. A., ‘The Growth of Population in Eighteenth Century England: A Conundrum Resolved,’ Past and Present 98 (1983) 121–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a of short term fluctuation, see Wrigley, E.A. and Schofield, R.S., The Population History of England: A Reconstruction (London, 1981) 109–10, 332–42Google Scholar.

41. Bonfield, Lloyd, ‘Marriage Settlements and the ‘Rise of Great Estates’: the Demographic Aspect,’ Economic History Review, 2d ser., xxxii (1979) 483–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42. See table, supra note 14.

43. Although his parents’ marriage settlement did not provide income for him, it is likely that he could raise small amounts of capital by personal bond. Mingay, English Landed Society in the Eighteenth Century, supra note 31, 37.

44. Habakkuk, ‘Marriage Settlements’ supra note 11, 20.

45. Hollingsworth, ‘Demography of the British Peerage,’ supra note 14, 32–33.

46. Hollingsworth, ‘Mortality in the British Peerage Families,’ supra note 14, 326–27 (Tables 1 and 2), 347.

47. In 1682 Sir Robert Filmer, Baronet, settled his estate upon the marriage of his eldest son with Elizabeth Beversham, employing a trust to raise portions even if his son produced a male child. K.A.O. U120 T173. William Courthope, Esquire, did likewise. K.A.O. U806 T80/B5.

48. Bonfield, Marriage Settlements, supra note 9, 25–45.

49. Given the notoriety of the strict settlement, one might expect the mechanics to have been a technical revolution. In fact, it was not. A trust was limited to take effect if an attempt was made by the life tenant to destroy the contingent remainder in tail. Trusts had been used for other purposes in the sixteenth century. For a discussion of the innovation in legal mechanics and judicial acceptance, see ibid. 58–81.

50. In The Crisis of the Aristocracy, supra note 8, 632, Stone suggests that the increased complexity of marriage arrangements in the late sixteenth century may be attributed to professional avarice. In a recent book on the professions in late seventeenth-century and early eighteenth-century England (that appeared after this article was written), Professor Geoffrey Holmes stresses the profitability of conveyancing and moneylending to landed families by county attorneys. Holmes, Geoffrey, Augustan England: professions, state and society, 1680–1730 (London, 1982)Google Scholar. For a definitive study of early modern lawyers, we await the publication of C.W. Brook's 1978 University of Oxford D. Phil, thesis.

51. Thompson, New Society, supra note 4, 501.