Regency Reader Question
I apologize if you’ve addressed this before, but if a duke/duchess or anyone with a title and entailed estates could not have children, could they adopt? And would their adopted child (a boy) be able to inherit the title and estates? Thank you!
| Source of Question | Research |
Thanks for the question, Julie!
Fee tails or entails were established in Medieval England (and often into other countries within the UK) by the landed gentry to ensure social standing and wealth within the community continued indefinitely. This process essentially concentrated all a family’s wealth (the entail and, as relevant, title) into a single person’s possession. The standard in practice was for the entail or fee tail to pass from father to son, or if no son was available the next male in line. Failure of issue, or lack of an immediate male heir, meant families often kept meticulous records of family trees to ensure the right person inherited.
Entails disallowed illegitimate children from inheriting, and often left wives and children from any inheritance upon the death of the patriarchal head. Thus, the situation many in Austen’s novels face of being tossed out by male heirs once the father died (or at least, with Collins, the threat of this occurring).
There are cases where a fee tail or entail could be broken or converted to a fee simple, which would free up who was able to inherit but it typically involved a high level of legal maneuvering.
The peerage (titles) ran along the same primogeniture rules. In other words, eldest son gets everything. If he dies, it goes to the next son or next male relative. Peerage titles were generally hereditary, necessitating them to be passed within bloodlines. Daughters and others may receive courtesy titles (Lady, Lord, The Honourable).
So as for the fictional Duke and Duchess, who wished to entail their adopted son with their estate and title? Not likely, especially as the Ducal title was concerned. Adoption was not really a formal arrangement like it is today, so that it was muddy waters to establish inheritance or adopted parentage in the way we now understand adoption. Relationships were more like the ward/guardian we see in many historical romances (sometimes as a trope). What would’ve been more likely to occur in the case of our Duke and Duchess, was for them to foster and serve as guardians for the heir apparent (a nephew or cousin).
This article from 2018 shows how the inheritance of adopted and other children is still hotly debated today:https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6249361/Children-adopted-able-inherit-ancient-titles.html
I hope that info helps! Thanks again for being a Regency Reader and keep your Regency Reader Questions coming. You can do so easily here.
Read more:
https://prideandprejudicethennow.home.blog/1000-adaptations/blog/1000-annotations/inheritance-laws/
https://austenauthors.net/the-19th-century-entailment/
https://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/tag/british-inheritance-laws/
