Matriline versus Patriline: Social Mobility in England, 1754-2023

Their result would be stronger if every english book I've read (from the Brontë sisters to the Mitford sisters) didn't have exactly one reason not to practise assortative mating: pour redorer son blason.

(one Mitford novel has a character who "marries down" for exactly that reason, only in the book it turns out to be an advantage: her husband is innovative and —albeit with méthodes peu orthodoxes— gets things done, while the rest of her set has to content* themselves by aging alongside husbands who —as scions of the cream of society— are known mainly for being rich and thick)

* see Emma Magdalena Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála Orczy de Orci's best known character for an 20th-century-romance-genre lampshade of this situation...