I would classify them as middle class. I think I read somewhere that their income was 2000 pounds per annum, so definitely less then the Darcys and Bingleys, but still an OK income.

Yes. They are OK enough to have servants to cook for them. But in the 2005 movie, they are more like a farmer family and their house look dustier than the rather neet house in the 1995 BBC mini-serires. I imagine the 1995 version is closer to Austen's image of the Benette's.

Yes, a middle class :) in the version 2005 was really exaggeration with the pigs in a house

Miss_Bennete,
Actually, I also suspect that Mr. Darcy's house, in both the 1995 drama and the 2005 movie, might be a sort of exaggeration. Though Mr. Darcy is a wealthy gentleman and his aunt is a lady, he doesn't hold an aristocratic title. But the houses used in filming were all aristocrats' home.(In my knowledge, the 1995 drama used Lyme Park and Sudbury Hall; the 2005 movie used Chatsworth. Tell me if they were wrong.) I'm not sure if it was possible that a wealthy genry family possessed a mansion as grand as those of dukes, marquesses and arls. I imagine they could buy ones from bankrupted or extincted aristocrats.

The Bennet family are members of the uppper class. Most modern viewers seemed to think that only money determined the social position of someone in Regency England. This is not so. Mr. Bennet is a landowner and therefore, a member of the landed gentry and the upper class. It does not matter how much money he makes in a year. And all five daughters have inherited his social standing, despite his marriage to a woman from the middle class.

The Bingleys are members of the middle-class, despite being wealthier than the Bennets. Mr. Bingley is NOT a landowner. He had merely rented Netherfield for a period. And his family earned its money through trade, not the land. Despite their wealth, the Bingleys are members of the middle class.

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