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Poor and middle class society tend to both have a lot of material about them. For the poor, life is about entertainment and having fun, while the middle class tend to be far more focused on being highly educated and making a great living. The wealthy, on the other hand, tend to be more concerned with how things appear and how things will relate to their family’s future.
With wealth comes a lot of emotional repression, and it tends to have a resounding impact on how the members relate to one another. While there does tend to be the warmth one usually finds between family members, there is also a sort of coldness that one typically finds among business associates. Wealthy families are about business, not about being close to one another. Appearances are extremely important, as is keeping the mythos of one’s family supported and protected. As many a wealthy person would say, noblesse oblige.
Ultimately, the tendency of the wealthy to be highly interested in keeping up great appearances is self-destructive to their individual abilities to connect with other people. Traditionally many wealthy people haven’t even been allowed to marry for love. Typically a marriage between wealthy people is more about connections and eugenics than it is about any particular feelings between the couple themselves. For a lot of people this simply wouldn’t be acceptable, but it’s a lifestyle. As time has gone on some of these types of traditions have evaporated to an extent — but they still exist.
