Is Bridgerton losing the plot? Part 1: Primogeniture, Property and Threesomes

Regency romps still need rules

Love … and property

Like a lot of people, I fell in love with the first Bridgerton season. It was a surprise, because as a long time Jane Austen nut, my usual experience of Regency dramatisations¹ was disappointment for me and annoyance for my companions as I inevitably protested and picked holes. “Mr Darcy would never have done that!” Those dramatisations were usually of Austen novels though, and Netflix’s Bridgerton was sufficiently different that it did not set off my Regency-alarm monitor. It was frothier, sillier, and somehow delightful, and cast no shade over the legacy of the Great Goddess Jane.

I later learned that the model for Bridgerton – as with the entire Regency romance genre, of which Julia Quinn’s novels are part – is not really Jane Austen but Georgette Heyer, the prolific mid-twentieth century novelist. When I first read a Heyer romance, lent by a great friend who is a Heyer obsessive, I didn’t really get it. Why would you read this when you could read Austen? I eventually realised that Heyer is not sub-Austen, but a species of its own: a lighter, frothier set of stories set in the aristocratic “ton”, featuring rakes and dandies and assorted young misses, and chock full of Regency slang, fashion, snuff, foodstuffs, interiors and impeccably-researched detail of the kind that Austen never bothered about but Heyer fans adore. Even granted that it’s set in a different milieu (the aristocracy, rather than the squirearchy) Heyer’s world does not seem authentically historical in its values to me, but more a creation of her own; at the same time, some of those values can still make the modern reader wince (the massive age gaps for one). But the point isn’t really whether it’s genuinely early nineteenth century England or not, or has approved latter day values or not: the point is it is a consistent, detailed and rich “Georgette Heyer world” which has spoken to a multitude of fans, shaped their expectations of fiction set in that period, and provided the model for legions of romantic heroes (it was only on reading Heyer that I realised where Diana Wynne Jones’ Wizard Howl, or K.M. Peyton’s Lord Ironminster originated).

Quinn’s Bridgerton novels follow in Heyer’s tradition

So. Bridgerton is set in this universe. There’s an abundance of Dukes, Earls, Marquesses and other titles; there’s hunting, ballooning, prize-fighting, duelling, bizarre leisure pursuits (anyone for Pall Mall?) and Society papers to read as well as a balls to attend; the heroes (very much unlike Austen) are often found in drinking dens or consorting with ladies of the night; and almost nobody has a regular job (no clergymen, naval officers or governesses here). There is still a marriage market though, and the plot, however complicated, still revolves around young things coming together at the marriage altar, driven by a mixture of romantic love, lust, financial prudence, family pressure, dynastic honour and so forth.

In the first television Bridgerton, famously a huge lockdown hit, Miss Daphne Bridgerton, of a large aristocratic family, ends up in a love match with the Duke of Hastings, pulled together by passion, but kept apart by a series of obstacles, including his vow to thwart his own father’s dynastic ambitions. This season also reveals to the audience the identity of the notorious gossip columnist Lady Whistledown, who has been spreading rumours anonymously through her Society Papers. The next season follows the story of Daphne’s older brother, Viscount Bridgerton, and the third and most recent that of Colin Bridgerton and Penelope Featherington – who happens to have a rather important secret. There’s also a spin-off called Queen Charlotte, about the young Charlotte and George III.

I’ve enjoyed all the Bridgertons but do think there’s been a decline over the seasons, particularly evident in the most recent Season 3. Why is this? I wasn’t especially in love with the Duke so it’s not that, in fact Anthony (Season 2) is my favourite male lead, and I love Penelope (Season 3).

I think the key reason lies in the world of Bridgerton. As I’ve said, Georgette Heyer world – which provides the starting point – is not necessarily true to all the values of the time, and Bridgerton is even less so, and that is fine. The soundtrack to the series – with the string quartets playing twenty first century hits – cleverly points up that a certain amount of anachronism is being embraced. Just as no character in a period drama series is likely to have bad teeth, it’s also OK for the whole set to look lighter, brighter, and more colour coordinated than the original. And the first Bridgerton did look truly delightful in a hybrid way. There was also the issue of the colour blind casting, which I thought worked just fine (less so when they tried to provide a back story, which I felt made no sense, but never mind).

Georgette Heyer. Source: wikicommons

Nevertheless, a certain amount of consistency is required in any fictional universe. And if you are setting stories in a historical period, it’s probably the case that aspects of that historical period are important to that fictional world. So, in Bridgerton Season One, aspects included: a moral code whereby upperclass young women were chaperoned, and could be “ruined” by any hint of sexual contact with a man prior to marriage – or even just being found with a man unchaperoned (“I will be ruined!” Daphne kept declaring tragically, in various midnight gardens where she kept having unexpected encounters) and primogeniture, which meant that the head of the Bridgerton family and inheritor of the family wealth was the eldest son, Anthony, the Viscount, and that he was therefore very much the Boss of the rest of the family, including his brothers and widowed mother.

Both of these are fairly alien to many people living in the 21^st century western world, although remnants of both survive (as in, the current King Charles inheriting all the royal property and therefore having to be the one to edge out his lease-holding and disgraced brother, Prince Andrew). They aren’t just window-dressing in the Bridgerton world, however. They are probably two of the things that – however unappealing they may be to many contemporary viewers in theory – actually make this an enticingly romantic world.

Primogeniture: eldest son takes all

First take primogeniture. This is not a quirk but a key feature in British history – and it’s had repercussions far beyond the romantic novel. (Warning: an economic history digression coming up!) For example, primogeniture may well be the reason Britain hosted the original Industrial Revolution. With only one heir, large estates remain intact through the generations, unlike in more equal inheritance systems, where land holdings tend to fragment, as in France. These large estates made it worthwhile investing in new agricultural methods, because of the possibility of economies of scale. This also made possible practises such as enclosure (throwing tenants out and putting vast tracts of land under sheep). So there was an agricultural revolution which preceded the industrial revolution; land became more productive; it was easier to feed a surplus industrial population; and landowners had the profits to invest. Younger sons did not inherit but went into business or the professions, sometimes the City of London, so helping their older brothers find where and how to invest. Lower down the class system, the economically surplus rural population flocked to the urban areas, providing workers for factories.

So in Britain there was new money, and new rising classes, and a correspondingly early shift of power away from the monarchy, first to the landowners, and then to the business/monied classes who were intimately linked with them through family ties. In France, by contrast, land holdings were split, agricultural investment did not occur, the economy stagnated, and the monarchy retained its absolute power while becoming dangerously separate from what was actually going on in the rest of society. (Just look at those paintings of a care-free Marie Antoinette on her swing.) Until the lid was blown off the whole thing, there was a Revolution, a Terror, and instead of the Spinning Jenny the invention of the guillotine.

Which all seems a long way from the daft, daffy, delightful world of Bridgerton. But primogeniture is actually what makes a lot of it make (a vague kind of) sense. Anthony, the Viscount, takes responsibility for marrying off Daphne (and messes it up) because he’s the eldest son. He challenges the Duke to a duel for the same reason. Later he decides he must marry because he’s the eldest and the title-holder, even though with younger brothers the title is unlikely to die out. In this world, his mother can’t just give him a biff round the ear, even though she’d clearly like to at times. She’s got no formal power. And of course, virtually no young woman, however nobly born, has any money or power either. This means that the stakes are massively raised. The marriage market is not just an amusing game, it is often the only way of avoiding penury and dependence – and in the event the wrong choice is made, may mean an even worse form of dependence than having to rely on big brother. (For younger sons at least, unlike their sisters, there is the option of pursuing a profession, but even so they too are likely to have to think about fortune more than they would want in selecting a bride.)

Combine this with a strict code of feminine virtue, and the stakes are very high indeed. Young Regency misses are walking a tightrope: at one end, a happy lifelong partnership, wealth and respectability. But below lie all manner of perils: ruin of reputation, ostracism, loneliness. And sex is tied into all of this: until marriage, it is (at least for upper class women) taboo. Being forbidden of course makes every hint of it more titillating. In one memorable scene, the Duke and Daphne cause palpitations among viewers by touching hands in a picture gallery.

Photo by Shayna Douglas on Unsplash

These codes are also found in Jane Austen. Not only do elder sons, however unworthy, take all, there is the additional issue of the entail – which often forbids wives and daughters from inheriting land, even when there is no son (it all goes to the nearest male relative). In Pride and Prejudice the Bennetts are caught in this trap, which makes it even more imperative that the daughters marry well, for they will inherit almost nothing. Younger sons aren’t immune from the effects either – as Colonel Fitzwilliam points out to Elizabeth. And attempting to disregard the rules, as Lydia Bennett does, risks complete disaster: a disaster that will not, in a such a close-knit, suffocating society be confined to the individual, but will likely besmirch and ruin the whole family.

Even for those at the apex of the hierarchy, the constraints of such a strong social order are real. In Season 1 of Bridgerton, Anthony is in love with an opera singer (a profession for those of “easy virtue”). But she will never be accepted by society, and eventually he has to give her up: despite all his power, wealth and status. This only really makes sense if you accept that there is an underlying order to this society – one which is not pure snobbery. Meanwhile Miss Marina Thompson, who has fallen pregnant outside marriage, has to be accept a suitor she does not love. Her suitor can make this decision through kindness as the heir to property; she must accept it, because her only other options within her society – this society of primogeniture and female virtue – are disgrace and likely poverty.

The later Bridgerton seasons though, do not seem to take these constraints so seriously. There is an increasing sense of “anything goes” – and when that happens, the world itself starts to crumble. So, in Season Three: Anthony disappears to India with his bride, with no regard for his duties as eldest son. Colin, a younger brother, is free to marry where he chooses and has plenty of money to do so. The rules of property and inheritance seem increasingly arbitrary: a former prize-fighter and bar-owner suddenly becomes an aristocrat, for example, while the Crown can remove the title of another aristocratic family (the Featheringtons) at will or lay down conditions through flunkeys about how their title and property will be reallocated (to the first newborn son of the three married daughters). Women are no longer so constrained by double standards either: Penelope Featherington is often to be found charging around London unchaperoned, and does not seem particularly worried about being caught in a clinch with Colin in a carriage, or jumping the gun when they get engaged. Queen Charlotte (a fabulous character by the way) seems to have gone from mercurial, to turning up as a Deus Ex Machina whenever required. Maybe it’s no coincidence that costumes for this season look increasingly ahistorical and sometimes almost pantomime-like.

The sexual and romantic behaviour of the characters reflects this. In Season One the rules provided tension and high stakes. But in Season Three, Benedict not only falls for a married woman, but gets involved in a threesome with her male lover. This is liberating, apparently. But it’s not very romantic. Indeed the woman herself indicates she’s begun to find this kind of thing, well, rather boring. Rakish behaviour – for the male leads, anyhow – is in the Heyer tradition, but how far you can push this without compromising the central romantic relationship? In Season 3, Penelope reads Colin’s diary with its accounts of his sexual adventures abroad, apparently enjoys them, and tells him not to cut these passages from the published version. Really? Is this how a young woman in love behaves?

Bridgerton successfully showed that you can change some of the rules in a Regency romp. I still enjoyed Season 3. But you can’t entirely undo status, convention, hierarchy, sexual taboos, for these are intrinsic to the genre. Subverting them is fun. Unpicking some of them possible – if done carefully and consistently. But “anything goes” does not work. Do that and you end up with a bunch of privileged people who seem to be doing whatever they want. And that’s … not romantic at all.

1. Admittedly I first fell in love with Austen after seeing a TV dramatization of Pride and Prejudice. And the film versions of Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion are pretty good.