Ascribed-status societies codified lifestyle privileges and justice by class tier through law.
Evidence
In past societies based on ascribed status, formal rules and proclamations regulated lifestyle conventions. Sumptuary laws codified which classes could wear which garments. Aztec warriors marked their status through embroidered cotton cloaks, lip plugs, turquoise and gold earrings, and bright feathers—all of which were forbidden to commoners. There were also different standards of justice by status tier. European aristocrats resolved disputes through duels with pistols. Whatever risks of fatality, bowing out of a duel was seen as dishonorable. Only the upper class, however, had the right to duel. When Voltaire—a commoner—challenged the nobleman Chevalier de Rohan to a duel, the Chevalier was so incensed that he hired roughnecks to pummel the writer while he watched from his carriage with glee. — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 147
Categorization
- ADDENDUM: Directly extends ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back,’ which already covers the Lex Oppia sumptuary law and Seneca on silk — this adds the Aztec and duel examples and Voltaire anecdote to that same lineage.
- XREF: connects to: Law functions to reconstruct society, not merely reflect it; States use law to shape a specific type of citizen and civilization — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 924; English sumptuary laws encoded social rank in clothing through state coercion. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 693 (+5 more)
Broader Connections
- English sumptuary laws encoded social rank in clothing through state coercion.
#exemplifies(0.95) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 693 - States use law to shape a specific type of citizen and civilization
#expands(0.80) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 924 - Justice is subsumed in law as the equation of guilt and atonement.
#expands(0.80) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 40 - Law functions to make the ruling group homogeneous and create social conformism
#expands(0.78) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 800 - Law functions to reconstruct society, not merely reflect it
#qualifies(0.75) - Civility functions as a form of class rule by privatizing social order
#expands(0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 232 - Religion functions as the enabling power behind a preferential legal system
#expands(0.72) — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 1014 - Formal legal equality coexists with justified second-class treatment for Muslims.
#exemplifies(0.70)