more on entails
Posted by Kathi on August 14, 1998 at 20:40:48:
In response to He had no choice..., written by JennG on August 14, 1998 at 16:36:39
]
] ] Then why would Mr. Bennet entail to Mr. Collins leaving his family potentially homeless?
JennG is right in her explanation, and I'll add just a bit to it. (If you are interested, you might also do a search of the archives, because there was a good explanation of entails just a few weeks ago.) An entail would be established in a will, that is, some ancestor of Mr. Bennet wrote a will specifying in the case of one of his descendents dying without male heirs, who would be next in line to inherit the estate, to prevent it from being broken up. Without an entail, all five of the Bennet daughters would have inherited an equal share.
I understand that entails still exist in modern British law. There is a very funny book called The Shortest Way to Hades by Sarah Caudwell about the modern application of entails and efforts to break an entail. Since the author is a barrister, I presume she got at least the legal details right.
- entails Laura W 17:50:10 8/16/98
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