{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.012170385395537525, 'fraction_numerical': 0.008113590263691683, 'mean_word_length': 4.945783132530121, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
All in the Family: Consanguinity, Marriage, and Property

This chapter argues that the plots and characters of eighteenth-century English fiction can be illuminated by an awareness of property law and the customary disposition of property within families. That material greed as well as rivalries and competitions springing from even more primitive sources should be represented as occurring within families in the fiction of the day should surprise no one who has ever lived in a family. What is noteworthy are the excesses of innocence on the one hand and of rapaciousness on the other. One finds good characters who seek nothing for themselves and are generous to a fault, and bad characters whom nothing can touch but their ruthless desire for material wealth. Ultimately, in the fiction from 1750 to 1820, one can still read the human responses to material inequities that tore families apart and made them accomplices of an economic system that put property before family loyalty.