What is Mr. Darcy’s net worth in today’s money?
In the Georgian era, love took a backseat to a mutually beneficial union.
Marriage is “a manoeuvring business”
I’ve always loved how Jane Austen’s novels depicted society, relationships, and British culture so deliciously, and yet I’ve always wondered about the economic realities of her time. It’s something most people have to contend with when reading her masterpieces. Time and again, we are made to realize that in the Georgian era, love was a luxury and took a backseat to a marriage that offered both parties financial security and social status. This unwritten rule was well articulated by Pride and Prejudice’s Charlotte Lucas who uttered, “Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.”
This situation, as you can imagine, can lead to dashed hopes and personal anguish. In Sense and Sensibility, for instance, the Dashwood sisters each get a yearly income of £50 a year from their individual inheritances of £1000. Because the amount is a pittance, Willoughby forsakes Marianne Dashwood in favor of a more profitable match (no doubt conscious of the fact that he’s only worth £600–700 a year). In Pride and Prejudice, meanwhile, the incomes of Charles Bingley and Fitzwilliam Darcy set Mrs. Bennet’s heart a-flutter. Imagine having two eligible bachelors with annual incomes of £4,000–5,000 and £10,000, respectively. How utterly swoon-worthy!!
But wait: what do these figures even mean? What can £50 buy? A cow? How about £600? Was that already a lot of money then? Does a guaranteed annual income of £4000 mean you’re set for life? How much are all those figures in today’s money? Why do these all matter so much??
Vulgar economy

As it turns out, there is no single definitive way to determine how much these amounts are worth in today’s money. Spending power is influenced by war, inflation, cost of goods, housing, and the neighborhoods in which the dwellings were located. If Mr. Darcy’s income were to be converted to 2013 rates, then his £10,000 equals £796,000 per year — nothing to snuff at, sure, but not enough to maintain his beautiful estate, Pemberley. If you were to take into account changes in the GDP per capita, however, as well as the relatively cheap costs of the trappings of aristocracy like having servants in the 1800s, then his figure would work out to be around a cool £12 million (or US $15.5 million) per year, enough to run three Pemberleys.
Mr. Bingley’s income also afforded a cushioned lifestyle, albeit at a lesser scale. The real value of his £4,000-£5,000 is £150,000 to 200,000 a year these days. The prestige value? Around £4,438,500 (or US $5.7 million) per year.
To amplify how much of a deviation these gentlemen’s fortunes were from the rest of British society then, note that English laborers earned only around £15–20 a year back in the early 1800s. Note also that an English gentleman like Mr. Frederick Bennet only needed around £300 per year per individual to live comfortably.
Looking at the various estimates presented, it’s easy to conclude that Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley were as eligible as they were dashing because they earned multiple times more than the average annual salary in Great Britain (pegged at £27,000 as of 2017) then and now.

Have you read any of Austen’s books? What are your thoughts about dowries and mutually convenient marriages?
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Sources:
http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol33no1/francus.html
https://www.incometaxcalculator.org.uk/average-salary-uk.php
P.S. Why don’t the last two sources convert into thumbnail descriptions like the first three? I need to know. :)


