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Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen
page 52 of 368 (14%)
becomes massed in relatively fewer hands, the conventional
standard of wealth of the upper class rises. The same tendency to
exemption from handicraft, and in the course of time from menial
domestic employments, will then assert itself as regards the
other wives, if such there are, and also as regards other
servants in immediate attendance upon the person of their master.
The exemption comes more tardily the remoter the relation in
which the servant stands to the person of the master.

If the pecuniary situation of the master permits it, the
development of a special class of personal or body servants is
also furthered by the very grave importance which comes to attach
to this personal service. The master's person, being the
embodiment of worth and honour, is of the most serious
consequence. Both for his reputable standing in the community and
for his self-respect, it is a matter of moment that he should
have at his call efficient specialised servants, whose attendance
upon his person is not diverted from this their chief office by
any by-occupation. These specialised servants are useful more for
show than for service actually performed. In so far as they are
not kept for exhibition simply, they afford gratification to
their master chiefly in allowing scope to his propensity for
dominance. It is true, the care of the continually increasing
household apparatus may require added labour; but since the
apparatus is commonly increased in order to serve as a means of
good repute rather than as a means of comfort, this qualification
is not of great weight. All these lines of utility are better
served by a larger number of more highly specialised servants.
There results, therefore, a constantly increasing differentiation
and multiplication of domestic and body servants, along with a
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