Something you didn’t know about me is that I have structured my household along a strict classical model. The hierachy of my household proceeds thus: I am of course first. As paterfamilias, I have dominion over all creatures in my care. Second are firstborn sons, who will inherit my wealth, and all other sons by order of birth are third; wives and concubines, who bear my children, come fourth; daughters, household pets, and slaves are of a kind; and service livestock; and beneath them all other miscellaneous animals. Such anyway is the ideal hierarchy. My household is yet small, however, with neither sons, nor daughters, nor slaves, nor livestock, nor miscellaneous creatures. So it is that my wife and my pets take their places knowing full well that they fit into a much larger order. Knowing their places makes them happy. Knowing their places also supplies them their duties. My wife, for example, works tirelessly to bear me a son to be my heir. In addition, because we have neither slaves nor daughters, she maintains the household’s everyday activities: not only does she maintain the shrine of our household god but also she satiates my every appetite. Likewise my pets exist to please me, as Mr. Bingley, who is curled softly in my lap, does now.

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