In addition to the soap operatic melodrama and the grandeur of Downton Abbey that intrigues and fascinates, there is much of interest going on in this British TV series begun in 2010. There are, of course, forces of good and evil manifest in innocent and sinister characters. And, the show mirrors a classism so well ingrained that aristocrats hardly need give orders to servants, for classes know their places both among and inside the well-defined strata of society. Basically, servants do the labor and aristocrats worry about maintaining control of property and money.
Downton Abbey prominently displays how sexism has determined that a male inherits property and wealth even if the latter originated in a woman’s dowry. At Downton Abbey no daughter is to inherit the fortune the mother brought to her marriage, due to a deceased grandfather's legally binding the dowry to Downton Abbey, which itself cannot be inherited by a daughter. This is the central plot line through and around which this series' parade of characters and events marches.
Indeed, the Abbey itself and its attendant wealth carry an importance of monstrous dimensions to which both classes are glued like flies. It is sad, is it not, that servants need eavesdrop on aristocrats and--why, so do TV voyeurs--er, viewers. Of course, servants must monitor the affairs of those to whose financial disposition they have linked their livelihoods, but eerily it does also often seem servants are dependent on the upper class for fulfillment (rather like a public enslaved to TV?).
Servants depend in a plethora of ways on the established hierarchy, though the butler and housekeeper at Downton might well manage whole companies of people. The progeny of aristocracy loyal to their forebears’ designs seem equally doomed, though they more likely have the wherewithal to at least save themselves. The women are, of course, beholden to males, and may be treated well, if they keep their places, behaving as they should. There is a lot going on in Downton Abbey alright, on as many levels as on the once thought to be almighty Titanic.
I certainly do admire the writers, researchers, producers, cast and crew and ad infinitum for building this show's complex story, its many characters whose personal lives intertwine to create intrigue, humor, foreboding, and a sense of possibility now and then. It is all that, especially possibility amidst a dark undercurrent, that suggests the promise of a brighter future. As Mary tells her mother, times are changing. To which her mother replies, but not fast enough for you, Mary. And in this her mother may well be right. In real life social change that would bring equal rights resulting in redistribution of wealth and therefore power has still not arrived a century later.
Downton Abbey—I don’t know as I have watched only a few episodes of the first season—may well sink as surely as did the Titanic. And it does not necessarily follow that right reorganization will take its place. It is one thing to build a successful TV series and quite another to build a right society.
