Do we know whether class strata stay static over time?
Post date: 2019-11-20 10:08:03
Views: 184
I was idly reading today's featured Wikipedia article about a guy I'd never heard of, Odaenathus, born in 220 CE and described as "born into an aristocratic Palmyrene family."
So I found myself wondering: would a family that was aristocratic then, be more likely to be in a socially superior position now? I've read that there are families in Italy who can claim descent from prominent Roman aristocracy, for example, and some aristocracy in Japan may also have ancient claims, but I don't know all that much about either.
The other side of this coin is "shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations" and that's seen often enough, but how static are our social strata, do we know?