What is Entailment in Pride and Prejudice?

In Jane Austen's 1813 masterpiece, property laws act as the unseen prison holding the characters captive. The most important legal constraint in the novel is the entailment (or fee tail). This law restricted the inheritance of a landed estate so that it could only pass to direct male heirs, keeping large family properties intact and undivided across generations.

The Bennet Family Dilemma

The Bennet family has five daughters and no sons. Because the Longbourn estate is entailed, none of the daughters can inherit the property or the £2,000 annual income. Upon Mr. Bennet's death, the entire estate automatically transfers to Mr. Collins, a distant cousin. This legal reality explains Mrs. Bennet's extreme anxiety to marry off her daughters to wealthy suitors before her husband dies.