19 The small shopkeeper, and especially the pub landlord, particularly if he possesses the virtues of sociability which are pan of his professional requisites, suffers no statutory hostility from the workers (contrary to what is usually supposed by intellectuals and the petite bourgeoisie with cultural capital, who arc separated from them by a real cultural barrier). He often enjoys a certain symbolic authority - which may be exercised on the political level, although the subject is tacitly taboo in cafe conversations * because of the ease and self-confidence w hich he owes, among other things, to his comfortable economic circumstances.
20 One would have to check to see whether - apart from cafd owners -shopkeepers, and particularly those hawkers and travelling salesmen at fairs and markets specializing in patter and back chai, but also butchers and, in a different style and with correspondingly different structures of interaction, hairdressers, do not all contribute more than workers, mere
21 This representation assigns a social nature to the masculine figure - that of the man ‘who can take it’ and who ‘hangs in there’, who gives nothing away and rejects feeling and sentimentality, who is solid and complete, ‘ail there', faithful and true, who you can count on\ etc. - a nature which the harsh conditions of his existence would impose on him anyway, but which he feels duty bound to choose, because it is defined in opposition to the feminine ’nature1, which is weak, gentle, docile, submissive, fragile, changeable, sensitive, sensual (effeminate and so ‘contrary to nature*). This principle of di-vision operates not only in its specific field of application, he. in the domain of the relations between the sexes, but in a more general way, by imposing on men a strict, rigid and, in a word, esseniialist vision of their identity and, more generally, of other social identities, and thus of the whole social order.
22 It goes without saying that these dealings tend to vary according to the wife's level of education and perhaps particularly according to the disparity in educational attainment between the spouses.
23 One can see that, according to this logic, women are always in the wrong, i.e, in their (misconceived) nature. One could quote examples
24 The intention of inflicting a symbolic stain (for example, through insult, malicious gossip or erotic provocation) on what is perceived as inaccessible implies the most awful admission of the recognition of superiority. Thus, as Jean Starobinski aptly notes, ‘coarse gossip, far from closing the gap between the social ranks, preserves and exacerbates it;
parading as irreverence and freedom, it abounds in the sense of degradation and is the self-confirmation of inferiority*. This refers to the gossip of the servants concerning Mademoiselle de Bred (cf. J. J. Rousseau,
Introduction to Part II
I On the linguistic discussion of insults, see N. RuweL
3 Authorized Language: The Social Conditions for the Effectiveness of Ritual Discourse
1 See E. Benveniste,
2 J. L. Austin,
3 The magical act extends to nature the action through words which, under certain conditions, is exercised on people. The equivalent, in the sphere of social action, is the attempt to act through words beyond the limits of delegated authority (speaking in the wilderness, outside one's parish).
4 Austin.
5 R P. Lelong,
6 The specifically religious rite is simply a particular case of the social rituals whose magic docs not reside in the discourses and convictions which accompany them (in this case, religious representations and beliefs) bui in the system of social relations which constitute ritual itself, which make it possible and socially operative (among other things, in the representations of the beliefs it implies).
4 Rites of Institution