Literature in Its Context™
Literature in Its Context™
Category: Class | Type: Historical | Title: Mansfield Park (in Context) | Author: | Ch: Chapter I
That Lady Bertram's uncle was apparently a country lawyer suggests the middle class into which she was born. Country lawyers, as opposed to London barristers, were not so esteemed as most were to become by mid-century when the professions in general acquired greater respectability. Lawyers, especially country ones, were regarded as high-grade tradesmen who were paid for writing wills, vetting deeds, handling tenant leases, etc.
We get a sense of the gap between a lawyer and a baronet in P., where the lawyer is deferential to the point of obsequious.