In 1814,
Patrick Colquhoun, a Scottish merchant, statistician, magistrate, and founder
of the first Thames River Police, wrote a report entitled A Treatise on the Wealth, Power, and Resources of the British Empire in
which he constructed a table of Britain’s many classes:
Highest orders (first class): Royal family, the Lords
Spiritual and Temporal, great officers of state, and all above the degree of
baronet with their families (576 heads of family/2,880 persons comprising their
families.
Second class: Baronets, knights, country gentlemen,
and others having large incomes with their families (46,861/234,305)
Third Class: Dignified clergy, persons holding considerable
employments in the State, elevated situations in the law, eminent practitioners
in physic (doctors), considerable merchants, manufacturers upon a large scale, and
bankers of the first order with their families (12,200/61,000)
Fourth Class: Persons holding inferior situations in Church
and State, respectable clergymen of different persuasions, practitioners in law
and physic, teachers of youth of the superior order, respectable freeholders,
ship owners, merchants, and manufactures of the second class, warehousemen and
respectable shopkeepers, artists, respectable builders, mechanics, and persons
living on moderate incomes with their families (233,650/1,168,250)
Fifth Class: Lesser freeholders, shopkeepers of the second
order, innkeepers, publicans, and persons engaged in miscellaneous occupations
or living on moderate income with their families (564,799/2,798,475)
Sixth Class: Working mechanics, artisans, handicrafts,
agricultural laborers, and others who subsist by labor in various employements
with their families (2,126,095/8,792,800) and menial servants (1,279,923)
Seventh or lowest class: Paupers, vagrants, gypsies, rogues,
vagabonds, and idle and disorderly persons supported by criminal delinquency
(387,100/1,828,170)
Excluding the approximately 1,000,000 men serving in the Army and Navy, the total is 16,402,988.
Of that number, only 2,880 belonged to the highest order. That rank would have
included Darcy’s grandfather, an earl, and his children, Darcy’s mother, the
father of Colonel Fitzwilliam, and Lady Catherine.
The next
group, or second class, includes Fitzwilliam Darcy. Although not a member of
the aristocracy, he belongs to an elite group of only 46,861 heads of
household.
Mr. Collins,
as a rector, is in the third class.
According to
the annotated Jane Austen edited by Patricia Meyer Spacks (p. 47), the Bennets are in the fourth class as persons of moderate income
and, I assume, property owners.
When
Elizabeth tells Lady Catherine that “Mr. Darcy is a gentleman, and I am a
gentleman’s daughter; so far we are equal," it is a stretch. According to the laws of the United States, all men are equal under the law, but we know that some people are more
equal than others. This was the case with the Darcys and the Bennets.
The English
were extremely class conscious, and so it is understandable why Mr. Darcy thought
he needed to point out to Elizabeth at the time of his proposal how inferior
her connections were. In his own clumsy way, he was providing her with a
demonstration of the depth of his love, i.e., he was descending to her level. I think when Elizabeth sees Pemberley,
she realizes just how much Darcy was willing to put at risk by making her an offer.
What do you
think?
