Pride and Prejudice to elope with Georgiana Darcy, and Colonel Fitzwilliam. Marrying a woman of a rich family also ensured a linkage to a high family, as is visible in the desires of Bingley's sisters to have their brother married to Georgiana Darcy. Mrs. Bennet is frequently seen encouraging her daughters to marry a wealthy man of high social class. In chapter 1, when Mr. Bingley arrives, she declares "I am thinking of his marrying one of them." Inheritance was by descent, but could be further restricted by entailment, which would restrict inheritance to male heirs only. In the case of the Bennet
Mr. Darcy Mr. Darcy reflects this trend. When Mr. Bingley suggests that he might like to one day build an estate like Pemberley, he is informed by Mr. Darcy that it is not the estate itself, but rather what it contains, its cultural heritage like the family library that makes Pemberley special as Mr. Bingley cannot be the heir to a family library built up over generations like the one Mr. Darcy is the heir to. In this way, Austen suggests that there is more to Mr. Darcy than the proud and sneering man at the Meryton assembly, that there is a