"There can be no occasion for your going so soon. Mrs. Bennet could certainly spare you for another fortnight."
"But my father cannot. He wrote last week to hurry my return."
"Oh! your father of course may spare you, if your mother can. Daughters are never of so much consequence to a father."
– Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 37. Elizabeth moves to depart the parsonage at Hunsford and Lady Catherine insists that she stay for another two weeks. When Elizabeth says her father cannot spare her, Lady Catherine dismisses this saying that that daughters are not important to fathers. It’s true that in Austen’s time daughters of landed gentry were regarded as "never of so much consequence" when it came to inheritence rights. The patriarchal system severely limited women’s access to legal ownership of property.