{"id":5329,"date":"2025-07-22T14:32:48","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T14:32:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/lawbulletin\/?p=5329"},"modified":"2025-07-22T15:50:38","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T15:50:38","slug":"jane-austens-legal-world-reflections-from-the-law-and-humanities-roundtable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/lawbulletin\/2025\/07\/22\/jane-austens-legal-world-reflections-from-the-law-and-humanities-roundtable\/","title":{"rendered":"Jane Austen’s Legal World: Reflections from the Law and Humanities roundtable"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On 11 July 2025 the University of Exeter\u2019s Bracton Centre for Legal History Research<\/a> hosted the annual Law and Humanities<\/strong> roundtable at Reed Hall. This year the theme was \u2018Jane Austen\u2019s Legal World\u2019, commemorating the 250th<\/sup> anniversary of the author\u2019s birth in 1775.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Law and Humanities <\/em><\/a>editor David Gurnham and Bracton Centre director Rebecca Probert welcomed attendees. Over the course of the day, the papers presented underscored the depth and accuracy of Austen\u2019s legal knowledge in a range of areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anne Bottomley (Kent) examined three of Austen\u2019s female characters: Fanny Price, on the margins of the family in Mansfield Park<\/em>; Harriet Smith in Emma<\/em>, described as a child of \u2018some-one\u2019 but legally a child of \u2018no-one\u2019; and Miss Lambe in the unfinished Sanditon<\/em>, an heiress of Anglo-Antigan mixed heritage \u2013 linking the latter to the \u2018reputed children\u2019 of plantation owners (like Sir Thomas in Mansfield Park<\/em>). Nichola McNulty (Bath Spa) explored Austen\u2019s portrayal of women\u2019s rights in the family home through the lens of feminist jurisprudence. She noted Austen\u2019s subtle but persistent feminist battle cry, advocating for women\u2019s rights in the family home through the voice of her heroines and often through their mothers \u2013 including Mrs Bennet, all too often dismissed as simply silly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Avery Jones examined how a knowledge of ecclesiastical law can increase one\u2019s understanding of Austen\u2019s novels \u2013 in particular the law of simony, underpinning the frequent sales of presentations to a living, and the minimum age for ordination, providing evidence of people\u2019s ages. He also set Austen\u2019s own will in the context of the contemporary rules on probate and legacy duty. Rebecca Probert (Exeter) then showed how Austen expected her readers to know the law on weddings, separations, and divorce \u2013 and why Elizabeth and Darcy did not get married by special licence, despite Mrs Bennet\u2019s hopes. She also posited that the depiction of the relationship between Edmund and Fanny in Mansfield Park<\/em> was designed to raise questions about cousin marriage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After lunch, Elena Cooper, the Arts Reviews Editor for Law and Humanities, gave a presentation on the journal\u2019s Arts Reviews section. The final three papers all addressed different aspects of property and inheritance in Austen\u2019s novels. Marco Mazzocca (Pavol Jozef \u0160af\u00e1rik University in Ko\u0161ice), discussed how Pride and Prejudice<\/em> and Sense and Sensibility<\/em> offer a literary examination of property law and its role in perpetuating gendered inequalities under the guise of rational order, with law in Austen\u2019s world being not merely a set of rules but a cultural narrative. Pauline Marshall (Sorbonne) focused on the representation of inheritance and more particularly the system of \u2018entail\u2019 in Pride & Prejudice<\/em>, noting that Austen\u2019s female characters spend far more time discussing entails than her male characters, and how the entail is the central force driving the plot as the Bennet daughters\u2019 inability to inherit their father\u2019s estate forces them to seek financially secure marriages to avoid poverty. Jolene Zigarovich (University of Northern Iowa) concluded the day with a more positive discussion of female economic power, discussing female-to-female bequests in wills. She identified women who inherit, distribute, or are gifted money and property from other women in Austen\u2019s fiction (Sanditon<\/em>, Sense and Sensibility<\/em>) or who are heiresses in their own right (Emma<\/em>).  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Commemorating the 250th anniversary of the author\u2019s birth in 1775<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":263,"featured_media":4161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJane Austen's Legal World: Reflections from the Law and Humanities roundtable - Exeter Law School<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/lawbulletin\/2025\/07\/22\/jane-austens-legal-world-reflections-from-the-law-and-humanities-roundtable\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jane Austen's Legal World: Reflections from the Law and Humanities roundtable - Exeter Law School\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Commemorating the 250th anniversary of the author\u2019s birth in 1775\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/lawbulletin\/2025\/07\/22\/jane-austens-legal-world-reflections-from-the-law-and-humanities-roundtable\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Exeter Law School\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-07-22T14:32:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-07-22T15:50:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/lawbulletin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/11\/Jane-Austen-930x500-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"930\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"The Law School\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"The Law School\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/lawbulletin\/2025\/07\/22\/jane-austens-legal-world-reflections-from-the-law-and-humanities-roundtable\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/lawbulletin\/2025\/07\/22\/jane-austens-legal-world-reflections-from-the-law-and-humanities-roundtable\/\",\"name\":\"Jane Austen's Legal World: Reflections from the Law and Humanities roundtable - Exeter Law School\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/lawbulletin\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/lawbulletin\/2025\/07\/22\/jane-austens-legal-world-reflections-from-the-law-and-humanities-roundtable\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/lawbulletin\/2025\/07\/22\/jane-austens-legal-world-reflections-from-the-law-and-humanities-roundtable\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/lawbulletin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/11\/Jane-Austen-930x500-1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-07-22T14:32:48+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-07-22T15:50:38+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/lawbulletin\/#\/schema\/person\/ae1bed489f384f447748a4eff91e78b9\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/lawbulletin\/2025\/07\/22\/jane-austens-legal-world-reflections-from-the-law-and-humanities-roundtable\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/lawbulletin\/2025\/07\/22\/jane-austens-legal-world-reflections-from-the-law-and-humanities-roundtable\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/lawbulletin\/2025\/07\/22\/jane-austens-legal-world-reflections-from-the-law-and-humanities-roundtable\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/lawbulletin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/11\/Jane-Austen-930x500-1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/lawbulletin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/11\/Jane-Austen-930x500-1.jpg\",\"width\":930,\"height\":500,\"caption\":\"a pencil drawing image of the writer Jane Austen from the image of a bank note. 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