College-educated women ... have a 78 per cent chance of their first marriage lasting at least 20 years, while women with a high-school education have only about half that chance

In our more individualized times, where we are less connected to extended families, affluent nuclear families can buy support that helps keep families together, from childcare to couples counselling. Less well-off families are on their own, and the impact is startling: in the US, college-educated women aged between 22 and 44 have a 78 per cent chance of their first marriage lasting at least 20 years, while women with a high-school education have only about half that chance.

...

But in the end, stability matters, and it tends to be greater in married households, despite claims that long-term cohabitation is equivalent. Children in France, for example, are 66 per cent more likely to see their parents break up if they are cohabiting rather than married.

B. Duffy, The Generation Divide (2023), loc. 2,517 & 2,528

A quarter of all the women who died in Paris were maids

Statisticians were foxed by their observation that the highest death rates in the French capital were recorded in the wealthiest neighbourhoods, until they realised who was dying there. The ones coughing behind the grand Haussmannian facades weren’t the owners on the étage noble, but the servants in the chambres de bonne. As Theresa McBride explained in her book, The Domestic Revolution, ‘Close enough to their employers’ apartments on the floors below, the servants were segregated into a society of their own where they need not be seen but could be easily summoned.’ They worked fifteen-to-eighteen-hour days and often had to share their sleeping spaces with other servants. ‘The servant’s room was generally small, with sloping ceilings, dark, poorly ventilated, unheated, dirty, lacking privacy or even safety,’ wrote McBride. The flu may have been democratic, as one French historian pointed out, but the society it struck was not: a quarter of all the women who died in Paris were maids.

L. Spinney, Pale Rider (2017), loc.2,892

The currents were sorting the fat, rich bodies from the poor, lean, ones

On the other side of the world, on the Ka'u coast of Hawaii, there was once a strange and macabre tradition for those who had lost loved ones at sea. The locals would search two different stretches of beach, depending on the social status of the person who had drowned. This was not part of some religious or superstitious practice, but because the rich and poor genuinely did wash up on different beaches ... The currents were sorting the fat, rich bodies from the poor, lean, ones.

T. Gooley, How to read water (2016), 248-9

Independently educated pupils gaining an extra 0.64 of a grade for each of their GCSE examinations

Private school pupils are on average two years ahead academically of their counterparts in state schools by the age f 176, even taking into account the social background and prior attainment of children. This equates to independently educated pupils gaining an extra 0.64 of a grade for each of their GCSE examinations at age 16.

L.E. Major and S. Machin, Social mobility and its enemies (2018), 141

The unfortunate tendency to revert to the idea of the 'Establishment' as a central feature of British society and government

In the early twenty-first century, the old aristocratic, landed, upper class is a thing of the past. We need to insist on this, given the unfortunate tendency to revert to the idea of the 'Establishment' as a central feature of British society and governance.

M. Savage, Social Class in the 21st Century (2015), 307

An independent education is particularly effective in social reproduction

However, an independent education is particularly effective in social reproduction, because those with senior managerial or traditional professional parents, but with no degree, are as likely to enter the elite, at least among our respondents, as working class, comprehensive-educated, Oxford graduates.

M. Savage, Social Class in the 21st Century (2015), 247

'Ah, Morton-Sims,' said the captain deferentially, 'would you care to bat at number three?'

One of the many stories told about him referred to his teenage years on the ground staff at Lord's. Occasionally these youngsters would be included in MCC out-matches against schools and clubs. In his first match, smartly dressed in blazer and tie, he was asked his name by the captain. 'Sims,' he said; 'Jim Sims.' 'OK Sims,' said the captain, 'you can bat at number ten.' Next match, he again turned up early, impeccably dressed. The captain asked him his name. 'Morton-Sims, sir; James Morton-Sims.' 'Ah, Morton-Sims,' said the captain deferentially, 'would you care to bat at number three?'

M. Brearley, On cricket (2018), 13

The acceptable home address was: name of large house; village it was quite near; county.

The acceptable home address was: name of large house; village it was quite near; county. It was not done to live at any kind of obscure urban address, such as 24 Whitfield road, Haslemere. Only one girl on the whole list did live at that kind of address and I pity her, because its stands out. If you did have an urban address it had to be a London one, and ideally Cadogan, Belgrave or Eaton something

Y. Maxtone Graham, Terms and conditions: life in girls' boarding schools 1939 - 1979 (2016), 125