Everyone wants to marry for love, but shouldn’t money be a factor as well? Where does romance end and practicality begin? And should they be mutually exclusive?

Courtney and Jane, the time-swapping heroines of SEX AND THE AUSTEN GIRL, explore an issue that hasn’t changed all that much since Jane Austen’s time.

Love and money was a huge issue in Austen’s novels. In her day you were expected to marry someone with money—even if you were rich. Nevertheless, Jane Austen looked down on men and women who were purely mercenary in their search for a spouse—either for themselves or for their children. But at the same time she acknowledged that poverty could be a serious romance-killer.

That’s still true today. As is the fact that it’s not only women who are looking for a good provider.

“Plenty of men are looking for a rich lady,” says Courtney.

“Yes,” says Jane, “a dowry is something that is highly desirable. Unless you find a gentleman like Darcy, who has Pemberley House.”

Ah, yes. We still dream of the man who will not only sweep us off our feet, but pay off all our credit cards and make us the mistress of his stately home. The married mistress, that is.

Yes, some things haven’t changed at all.

Watch Episode 12, “Love, Money, & Pemberley.” Only on Babelgum..

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Guest blogger Laurie Viera Rigler is the author of the time-swapping novels RUDE AWAKENINGS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT and CONFESSIONS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT (available from Plume/Penguin Books and Bloomsbury), which inspired the Babelgum original comedy series SEX AND THE AUSTEN GIRL.