CLASS RULES

But rather than end'on that touching, encouraging note, I,m now going to talk about class. Again. surery yo., didn,t ,t irrt wed get through a whole chapter with just a couple of passing r.f.r.rces ro the class system? You can probably do this bit yourserf by now. c,mon, have ago: what are the main differences between a working-class funeral and a middle-class one? or the indicarors of amiddre-middle versus an uppermiddle wedding? Discuss with special reference ro marerial-culrure class indicators' sartorial class indicarors and class-anxiety signals. oh, all right' I'll do it - but don't expecr anything very surprising: y,ou can see, from what Jane Austen called 'rhe t.ll-trl. compression of the pages,, that we're nearly done here, and if we haven'r gtt rh. hang of E'glish class indicators and anxieties by now, we never will.
393

WATCHING THE ENGLISH

RITES OF PASSAGE

As you might expect, there is no such thing as a classless rite of passage among the English. Every detail of a wedding, Christmas, house-warming or funeral, from the vocabulary and dress of the participants to the number of peas on their forks, is determined, at least to some extent, by their social class.
Working-class Rites

As a general rule, working-class rites of passage are the most lavish (in terms of expenditure relative to income). A working-class wedding, for example, will nearly always be a big 'do', with a sit-down meal in a restaurant, pub 'function room' or hotel; a big fancy car to take the bride to the church; the full complement of rnatching bridesmaids in tight, revealing dresses; a huge, three-tiered cake; guests in glarnorous, brand-new, Sunday-best outfits and matching accessories; a specialist wedding-photographe r and a professional wedding-video firm; a big, noisy evening party with dancing and free-flowing booze; a honeymoon somewhere hot. No expense spared. 'Nothing but the best for our
princess.'

Wbrking-class funerals (huge, elaborate wreaths; top-of-the-range

coffin), Christmases (expensive gifts; copious quantities of food and drink), children's birthdays (the latest high-tech toys, high-priced football strip and top-brand-name trainers) and other rites operate on much the same principles. Even if one is struggling financially, it is impor" tant to lctok- as though one has spent money and'pushed the boat out'. A day trip to Calais to boy large quantities of cheap drink (known as

If the working-class ideal is the glamorous celebrity weddirg, like Posh and Becks's, the lower-middle and middle-middle aspirarional benchmark is the royal wedditg - no themes or gimmicks, everyrhing 'traditional' and every detail dainty and effogtfully eleganr. These bourgeois or wannabe'bourgeois weddings are very contrived, carefully coordinated affairs. The 'serviettes' rnatch the flowers, which 'tone with' the place-cards, which in turn 'pick up' the dominant colour of the mother-of-the-bride's pastel two-piece suit. But no-one notices all this attention to detail until she draws their attenrion ro it. The food is bland and safe, with hotel-style mbnus of the kind thar call mash 'creamed potatoes'. The portions are not as generous as those at the working-class wedding, although they are more neatly presenred, ?nd 'garnished' with parsley and radishes carved into flower-shapes. The ofine wines' run out too soon, calculations of glasses-per-head having been somewhat miserly, but the Best Man still manages ro ger drunk and break his promise to keep his speech oclean'. The bride is mortified, her mother furious. Neither reprimands the offender, as rhey don't want ter spoil the d^y with an unseemly rorv, but they hiss indignandy to each other and to some aunts, and treat the Best Man with frosty tight-lipped disapproval for the rest of the afrernoon.
tJpper-middte Rifes

a,baazecruise')isafavouredmeansofachievingthis
Lower-middle and Middle-middle Rites

Upper-middle rites of passage are usually less anxiously contrived and overdone - at least among tho'se upper-middles who feel secure about their class status. Even among the anxious, an upper-middle wedding aims for an air of effartless elegance, quite different from the middlemiddles, who want you to notice how much hard work and thought

Lower-middle and middle-middle rites of passage tend to be smaller and somewhat more prudent. To stick with the wedding example: lowerand middle-middle parents will be anxious to help the couple with a mortgage down-payrnent rather than irresponsibly 'blowing it all on a trig wedding'.: There is stiil great concern, h.owever, that everything should be done'properly' and 'tastefully' (these are the classes for whom wedding-etiquette books are written), and considerable stress and anxiety ov'er relatives whcl might lower the tone or bring disgrace by getting druhk and 'making an exhibition of themselves'.
394

has gone into

it. Like 'natural-look'

make-up, rhe upper-middle

wedding's appearance of casual, un-fussy stylishness can take a grear deal of thought, effort and expense ro achieve. For class-anxious upper-middles, especially the urban, educated, 'chattering' class, concern is focused not so much on doing things

correctly as on doing them distinctiuely. Desperate ro distinguish and distance themselves from the middle-middles, they strive nor only ro avoid twee fussiness, but also to escape from the 'traditional'. They can't have the 'sarne old conventional T$(/edding March' nr the 'same old boring hymns' as the mock-Tudor middle-middles or, God forbid, the
395

WATCHING THE ENGLISH inhabitants of serni-detached Pardonia. They choose obscure music for the bride's entrance, which no-one recognizes, so the guests are still chattering as the bride makes her way up the aisle - and little-known, difficult hymns that nobody can sing. The same principle often extends to the food, which is 'different' and imaginative but not necessarily easy or pleasant to eat, and the clothes, which may be the latest quirky, avanrgarde fashions, but are not always easy to wear or to look at. Older couples - and the upper-middles tend to marry later - will often have a register-office wedding (in some cases under the misapprehension that belief in God is required for a church ceremony) or even an 'alternative' secular ceremony at which they exchange vows they have written themselves. Curiously, the gist of these is usually much the same as the traditional church marriage-vows, only rather more longwinded and less well expressed.
IJ pper-class

RITES OF PASSAGE

R ites

Upper-class weddings tend to be more traditionaln although not in the studied, textbook-traditional manner of the lower- and middle-middles.

The upper classes are accustomed to big parties - charity balls, hunt balls, large private parties and the big events of The Season ate a normal part of their social round -_ so they don't get as flustered about weddings and other rites of passage as the rest of us. An upper-class wedding is

most pitiful business!' Lower- and middle-middles can use the same modesty principle to good effect by calling the exrravagant celebrations they secre4y envy 'wasteful' and 'silly', and talking disparagingly about people with .more money than sense'. The 'respectable' upper-working .1"r, sometimes use this iine as well: it emphasises their prudenr respegability and makes them sound rnore middle-class than the more common working-class approach, which is to express sniffy conrempr for the'sruck-up, 'showing off ' of big, 'fancy' celebrations. 'She had to have a big port do in a hotel,' said one of my informants, referring to a neighbour,s silver wedding anniversary. 'This ftheir iocal pub, where our conversation took placeJ wasn'r good enough for her. stuck-up cow.,

of wealth, serves the impecunious higher echelons well: anyrhing rhey cannot afford, can be dismissed as 'flashy' or 'vulgar'. Big, glamorous weddings are regarded as decidedly 'naff', as Jane Austen pointedly reminds us by describing her upper-class heroine Emma Woodhouse,s wedding as a small, quiet one in which 'the parries have no tasre for finery or parade', and having the ghastly pr.i.rrrious, jurnped-up Mrs Elton exhibit typically middle-class poor rasre when she complains that the proceedings involved 'Very little white sarin, very few lace veils; a

often a quite muted, simple affair. They do not all rush out to b,ry special new 'outfits' as they have plenty of suitable clothes already. The rnen all have their own morning suits and, as far as the women are concerned, Ascot may require something a bit special but, 'One goes to so many weddings - can't be expected to keep ringing the changes every time,' as one very grand lady told me.
The Sour-grapes Rule

RITES OF PASSAGE AND ENGLISHNESS

Poring over the rules in this chapter, trying to figure our what each one tells us about Englishness and scribbling my verdicts in the margins, I was struck by how often I found myself scribbling the word .moderahas featured significantly rhroughout the book,

tion'' This characteristic

If

they cannot afford a big wedding (or funeral, Christmas, birthday,

our carnivals, festivals, parties and other celebrations, its predominance is perhaps a little surprisi*g. Or maybe not. We are talking about the English, after all' By 'moderation', I don't only mean the English
ance

but in a chapter focusing specifically on our 'high d*y, and holidays,,

anniversary) the upper-middles and upper classes will often make a rather sour-grapey virtue of this, saying that they 'don't want a big, flashy production, just a simple little family party with a few close friends', rather than running up credit-card debts like the working classes, or dipping reluctantly into savings like the lower- and middle-middles. The English modesty rule, with its associated distaste for ostentatious displays
396

of balance- our need for moderation is closely related to our concern with fair play. our tendency to compromise, for example, is a product of both fait play and moderation, as are a number of other English habits, s,ch as apathg woolliness and conservatism. Our benignly indifferent, fence-sitting, toleranr approach to religion
397

of extremes and excess and intensity, but also the need fo, a se'se

avoid-

WATCHING THE ENGLISH

is a product of moderation * fair play, with a dash of courtesy, a dollop a pinch or two of empiricism. (Oh dear, I seem to have slipped from 'equation' to 'recipe' in rnid-sentence. This does not

RITES OF PASSAGE

of humour, possibly

bode well for the final diagram.) The other principal themes emerging from this chapter are pretty much the usual suspects, but we can now see even more clearly how many of the unwritten rules governing our behaviour involve a combination of two or more defining characteristics. The one-downmanship rules of kid-talk, for example, are clearly a product of modesty and hypocrisy (these two seem to go together a lot - in fact, we very rarely find modesty without an element of hypocrisy) with a generous slosh of humour.

The invisible-puberty rule is a more straightforward example of

English social dis-ease. Pubescents and adolescents are essentially in an acute phase of this dis-ease (triggered or exacerbated by raging hormones). Our reluctance, as a society, to acknowledge the onset of

of social dis-ease medicated with alcohol and ritual, 'f'he Christmas rnoan-fest and bah-humbug rule combine Eeyorishness with courtesy and hypocrisy, while the Christmas-present rules blencl courtesy and hypocrisy again. The New Year's Eve orderly-disorder rule ir about moderation again, and its close relation fair play, as well as the now very familiar attempts to control social dis-eas. ,y-ptoms with alcohol and ritual - also evident in most of the minor calendricals. Holidays involve more of the sanre, and highlight our nee,C ro limir excess and indulgence - our need for moderation. The class rules governing our rites of passage are about class-. consciousness, of course, but also involve the usual close relation of this trait, hypocrisy - and in particular that. special English blend of modesty and hypocrisy, T'hich all the social classes seem ro exhibir in
example
The intimate, private traRsitional rites represent one of our very few genuine escapes from our debilitating social dis-ease. (The other main escape is sex, also a private matter.) Our fanatical obsession with privacy may be a symptom of our social dis-ease, but we also value privacy because it allows us some relief-from this affliction. At home, among close family, friends and lovers, we can be warrn and spontaneous and really quite remarkably human. This is the side of us thar many visitors to this country never see, or only catch rare glimpses of. You have to be patient to witness it - like waiting for giant pandas ro mare.

puberry is a form of 'denial' - ostrichy behaviour that is in itself a reflecdon of our own social dis-ease. Social dis-ease can be 'medicated' to some extent with ritual, but our pubescents are denied any official rites of passag, and so invent their own. (The Gap-Year ordeal provides ritual medication, in the form of appropriate initiation rites, but rather late, and only for a privileged minority.) The Freshers' 'Week rules involve a combination of social dis-ease medicated with both ritual and alcohol - and that distinctively English brand of 'orderly disorder', a reflection of our need for moderation. The exam and graduation rules combine modesty with (as usual) an equal quantity of hypocrisy, with the addition of a large dollop of Eeyorishness, seasoned with humour and a hint of moderation. Our rnatching rites seem to trigg er a rash of social dis-ease symptoms. The money-talk taboo is social dis-ease * modesty + hypocrisy with class variations. At weddings, we find again that the symptoms of social dis-ease can be effectively alleviated with humour, and the painful 'natural experiment' of funerals shows us how bad the dis-ease symptoms can get without this medication, as well as highlighting our penchant for moderation again. The tear quotas involve a combination of moderation, courtesy and fair play. The celebration excuse and its associated magical beliefs are another
398

399