Egg Money
“Her home and her housekeeping, her parish and her poultry, and all their dependent concerns, had not yet lost their charms.” Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 38 by Jane AustenIn her book Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen repeatedly mentions how happy Charlotte Collins is with her chickens. We can guess that the birds were a wedding gift from her parents, by the way in which her mother enquires about them after Charlotte’s younger sister Maria returns home from a visit to the Collins parsonage.
“Lady Lucas was enquiring of Maria, across the table, after the welfare and poultry of her eldest daughter;” Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 39 by Jane AustenNot only will the chickens supplement meals, in Charlotte’s newly formed household, with eggs and meat, they will also provide Charlotte a small regular income from the sale of extra eggs at 1 shilling for 2 dozen eggs. She might also hatch some of the eggs to continuously replenish her flock of laying hens with younger birds and sell the capons for table use at 3 shillings each.

Written for the Jane Austen Online Magazine Sharon Wagoner, Curator of The Georgian Index. Visit this site for a historical tour through Regency London!
3 comments
At no point in Pride and Prejudice does Jane Austen ever talk about chickens in any way. The word “chicken” is used one time—they are eating it at dinner in Chapter 18. And the word “poultry” is used one time to refer to chickens, in Chapter 29 when Lady Catherine is giving Charlotte advice on how to care for her “cows and poultry,” and twice in a saying relating to the welfare of the household: “Her home and her housekeeping, her parish and her poultry, and all their dependent concerns, had not yet lost their charms.” (Chapter 38) and “Lady Lucas was inquiring of Maria, after the wel- fare and poultry of her eldest daughter;” (Chapter 39).
As an English farmers daughter I was raised to believe the term is ‘hen’ until it is meat and then it is chicken. The babies are chicks. Does Jane Austen refer to the live birds as chickens?
I think there is almost zero chance you have this right. It seems to me “parish and poultry” and “welfare and poultry” is rather obviously a metaphor, a homey saying of some kind. It seems to me to be simply silly to imagine Lady Lucas was ACTUALLY enquiring about Charlotte’s chickens. What a bizarrely out of place line of discussion that would be! She’s not a farmer, for god’s sake! At no point in Elizabeth’s entire visit with Charlotte did they discuss chickens.