Stay Classy, Pt. 2

An English friend of mine once defined the British class system to me early on during my extended stay in England.  She said that one needed to possess two out of the following three qualities: beauty, brains, and breeding.  An American will quickly notice that money does not feature.  Certainly, money can help, but it is not a defining factor.  The top example of this is the former Catherine Middleton.  Her family had the money to buy her the best education they could.  These schools exposed her to the right element, and she was able to learn about the upper classes by moving among them and used her natural intelligence to assimilate.  In fact, I think that at this stage of her marriage, she is unquestionably more savvy than her late mother-in-law.  She also has the right type of beauty, not too aggressive.  I don’t think anyone would argue that Kate Moss ought to worry about being supplanted.  She has the look that fits in with the class that she wanted to join. 


The one thing that Cathy Cambridge did not have was breeding.  As the daughter of an airline pilot and a flight attendant, she was teased mercilessly in the tabloid press.  Even some of Will’s own coterie thought her background was a detriment.  However, she persevered, and is now married to the second in line to the British throne.  For comparison’s sake, one can look at the daughter of the head of Formula One, Petra Ecclestone.  She certainly has money; she recently bought Candi Spelling’s mansion (the one with the fabled rooms devoted to gift-wrapping) and has an equally sumptuous pad in London.  Despite her wealth, and the impeccable grooming that her money gives her, she is not a member of the upper class.  She is simply too gauche, too showy, which might be why she has a residence on this side of the pond, as she will fit right in. 

I think that the class system is probably driven by the all too human need to feel connected to one’s compatriots.  During a trip to Normandy that was organized by my supervisor, I got a chance to see this play out.  On one of the interminable coach rides from a mysterious Romanesque church located in the middle of nowhere to the Bayeux Tapestry, I overheard a conservation.  It was between one young man from my college who was extremely well-connected.  He was talking with a young woman from another college, and I could hear them dancing around one another.  What caught my attention was that this was not one of those pre-shag chats, the stakes were much higher, although the urgency was somewhat diminished.  They were talking about the schools they had attended, the people they knew in common, and places around London that they had frequented.  The entire thing had the same feel as two dogs sniffing one another.  It struck me then that the class system, instead of merely being an elitist conspiracy, also had a practical element.  For the most part, people simply get on better with those from similar backgrounds.  This revelation is not a radical thing, but perhaps makes the class system less mysterious.