But she still quite unmistakably remains his chattel
in theory; for the habitual rendering of vicarious leisure and
consumption is the abiding mark of the unfree servant.
This vicarious consumption practiced by the household of the
middle and lower classes can not be counted as a direct
expression of the leisure-class scheme of life, since the
household of this pecuniary grade does not belong within the
leisure class. It is rather that the leisure-class scheme of life
here comes to an expression at the second remove. The leisure
class stands at the head of the social structure in point of
reputability; and its manner of life and its standards of worth
therefore afford the norm of reputability for the community. The
observance of these standards, in some degree of approximation,
becomes incumbent upon all classes lower in the scale. In modern
civilized communities the lines of demarcation between social
classes have grown vague and transient, and wherever this happens
the norm of reputability imposed by the upper class extends its
coercive influence with but slight hindrance down through the
social structure to the lowest strata. The result is that the
members of each stratum accept as their ideal of decency the
scheme of life in vogue in the next higher stratum, and bend
their energies to live up to that ideal.
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