Law and the middle class

This paper draws upon ethnographic evidence from a suburb of New York City to address the relationship between social class and the use of law. In the community studied, middle-class people are less likely than working-class people to complain to legal officials about the conduct of their personal associates such as relatives and neighbors. It appears that the greater transiency and atomization of middle-class people militate against their use of law by reducing the amount of negative information antagonists have about one another and by making avoidance a more attractive means of conflict management. Beyond this, the higher social status of middle-class people itself seems to result in a greater reluctance to use law in personal matters: Because they are generally equal or superior to legal officials in social standing, middle-class people are less willing than lower-status people to submit to their judgment. In light of this, it may be necessary to qualify the prevailing view that higher-status people have a greater propensity to use law as a means of conflict management. Where personal matters among themselves are concerned, the opposite may be the truth.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Law and Society Association, Madison, Wisconsin, June 1980. For commenting upon various aspects of the work presented here, I would like to thank Donald Black, Kai Erikson, Sally Engle Merry, Frank Romo, Susan S. Silbey, and Stanton Wheeler.