The Mitford sisters, Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica and Deborah were born into a minor, but one of the oldest, aristocratic families in England. They could trace their heritage back to the time of the Norman Conquest, something they were not shy in exploiting. Their father, David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, was a cold and distant man who expected his children to be seen but not heard and to be raised by nannies. Such cold and unemotional detachment from your children was not unusual in upper-class households. Their mother, Sydney, however, was very different, an outspoken woman with extreme right-wing views she taught her daughters to think for themselves, and would support her children in whatever they did. As far as their father was concerned the sister’s were not to be educated but merely marry young and well. This the girls rebelled against provoking their father to say, ”why am I and my wife normal but my daughters increasingly mad?” He could hardly have imagined just how unusual they would be. 

The eldest of the sister’s, Nancy, was born on 28 November, 1924. She came out at a time when society was changing, and being one of the “bright young things” of the 1920’s, she was not afraid to cause a scandal. She could never be described as a wall-flower and embraced the decadent ”Roaring Twenties” with a vengeance. Always heavily made-up, as was the fashion of the day; she had her hair cut short, regularly wore trousers, and was frequently seen in the company of men, and it was not always the same man. But she was also a thoughtful, intelligent, and humorous woman who had ambitions to be a writer not a bride. 

Over the decades she was to document the lives of the upper-classes in her novels, the most famous of which were Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love. Politically left of centre she never embraced radicalism and steered clear of involvment in the extremes that dominated politics in the inter-war years.

Having achieved her ambitions and carved out a career for herself as a writer her private life was to prove less of a success. She fell in love with and got engaged to a Scottish aristocrat, Hamish St-Clair Erskine. He was the first great love of her life and the fact that he was homosexual appeared to trouble her little. She naively thought she could straighten him out. She couldn’t. Disappointed and disillusioned she married in 1933, on the rebound, to Peter Rodd. It was a loveless marriage and they were to separate soon after, though they did not actually divorce until 1958.

During the war she fell in love with a French soldier and politician Gaston Palewski. After the war she moved to Paris to be with him but Palewski was a serial philanderer for whom Nancy was just another affair. Not long after he deserted her. Nancy ploughed on regardless, however, establishing herself on the literary scene and becoming a doyenne of High Society and one of the leading socialites of her day. She never re-married and died of leukaemia on 30 June, 1973.

Pamela Mitford, known as the quiet one, was born on 25 November, 1907. Though she held strong pro-Nazi views she never engaged in politics and unlike most of her sister’s spurned High Society. Though not shy she chose to keep herself to herself and was very much a hands-on, practical, kind of woman. She preferred the mud and fresh air of the countryside to smoke-filled drawing rooms and the drug-fuelled extravagance of the Dance Hall. Never afraid to speak her mind she nevertheless remained devoted to her sister’s all of her life.

The poet, John Betjeman, certainly fell for the straight-talking, down-to-earth charms of the woman he referred to as the “Rural Mitford.” His love was not reciprocated, however. Instead, Pamela married the millionaire scientist David Jackson. It was not a particularly happy marriage if only because Pamela’s sexual predilections lay elsewhere. They were to divorce and Pamela was to set up home with the Italian horsewoman Giuditta Tommasi. She died on 12 April, 1994.

Diana, born on 10 June, 1910, was the darling of the Mitford Sister’s. Widely acknowledged to have been the most beautiful she was indeed considered to be one of the most glamorous women in Britain. Her character belied her more obvious feminine charms, however. She was strong-willed and single-minded. A committed fascist and admirer of Adolf Hitler (though, unlike her sister Unity, she was far too cynical to be ever in awe of the man) she was a vicious anti-Semite with a sharp tongue, acid wit, and a dark sense of humour.

Always a great catch, she was married aged just 19 to Bryan Guinness, the heir to the brewing fortune. Though they were to have two children the marriage always lacked passion and Diana very quickly tired of the endless round of society events – Henley, Wimbledon, Ascot. She was bored and wanted more. She had affairs, but one society man seemed much like another. In 1932, however, she was introduced to Oswald Mosley, the leader of the recently formed British Union of Fascists (B.U.F). Here was a man of passion, a man of power and self-belief. Though they were both married they began an affair almost immediately. Not long after Diana divorced Guinness, but Mosley refused to leave his wife, Cynthia.*

On 16, May, 1933, Cynthia Mosley died of peritonitis contracted following a botched operation. As a man who had barely bothered to disguise his many affairs from his wife it is difficult to know just how genuinely distraught he was at her. Even so, he refused to marry Diana until a decent period of mourning had passed.

In October, 1936, Diana and Mosley travelled to Germany where they were married in the drawing room of Joseph Goebbels house just outside Berlin. Diana had earlier been introduced to the Fuhrer by Unity and Adolf Hitler was the special guest. He afterwards presented them with a silver-framed signed photograph of himself as a wedding gift.

By the time of his return to Britain Oswald Mosley’s political fortunes were already in sharp decline. The looming prospect of war with Germany brought a brief revival as he campaigned for a negotiated settlement. After war was declared, however, Britain’s very own Fuhrer became a hate figure. Diana stood by her new husband throughout defending him from criticism by both friend and foe alike.

On 22 May, 1940, the Government passed Defence Regulation 18B which allowed for imprisonment without trial of all those considered a danger to the State. The following day Mosley and Diana were arrested as potential traitors. A week later on 30 May the B.U.F was dissolved.

Their treatment in prison was far from harsh. Winston Churchill granted them permission to live in a small house in the grounds of Holloway Prison. They were even allowed to employ other prisoners as servants. In November, 1943, they were released into house arrest and went to live with Diana’s sister, Pamela. Their release caused outrage in a country that was still at war. Even Diana’s younger sister Jessica felt compelled to write, ” This is a direct betrayal of all those who have died in the cause of anti-fascism.” 

Following the end of the war the Mosley’s were no longer welcome in Britain. They emigrated to France where Mosley tried to revive his political career with the formation of the Union Movement which called for a single unitary European State. It made little progress and on the rare occasions when Mosley returned to the British political stage he was humiliated at the polls.

On 3 December, 1980, Sir Oswald Mosley died, but Diana was determined to keep his memory and political flame alive. She funded out of her own purse the political activities of the Union Movement and made numerous radio and television appearances in defence of her husband and his views.

In later life, Diana Mitford took up the pen and wrote regular columns and literary reviews for leading British newspapers. She also wrote her autobiography which was well-received if controversial. At no time did she try to excuse her life change or moderate her views and remained until her death on 11 August, 1993, an unrepentant Nazi. 

Unity Mitford, who was born on 8 August, 1914, had shown signs of disturbance from an early age. Never willing to listen to advice or take heed of an opinion that did not correspond to her own she was obstinate and argumentative to a degree. Some thought she was just plain stupid. She was certainly an insensitive, self-regarding and cloying young woman, and she adopted such airs and graces that it offended even those who purported to be her friends.  

At almost 6′ tall, Unity was ungainly and boyish in manner, and so unlike the other Mitford girls she does not appear to have amassed the same collection of panting admirers. Not that she would have cared because she only had eyes for one man, and that man was the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler.

Unity, always something of a dreamer, had been attracted to the Nazi’s from a very young age. What could have been dismissed as a childhood infatuation became in adulthood a dangerous obsession. Eager to put her fascist beliefs on show she joined the B.U.F in 1932, and was so keen was she to wear the blackshirt, give the Nazi salute, and heckle at Party rallies that even Oswald Mosley himself felt compelled to chide her for making an exhibition of herself.

In 1933, she travelled to Germany with her sister Diana to attend the first Nuremburg Rally. She found the whole occasion intoxicating and promised herself that she would return. The following year she did, but this time she was determined to meet Hitler. For months she dined at the same restaurant as the Fuhrer until finally he asked her to join him at his table. She was hopelessly smitten, especially when with great courtesy the Fuhrer picked up the bill. She wrote home to her father, ” I am so happy I wouldn’t mind a bit, dying. I suppose I am the luckiest girl alive. For me he is the greatest man in the world of all time.” In no time at all she was part of his inner-circle. She gave speeches and wrote articles praising Hitler and blaming the Jews for everything. Indeed, she insisted that her name appear on all her diatribes so that everyone would know that she was a Jew-hater.

Unity and Diana, enjoy themselves

There is little doubt that Hitler, the ill-educated son of a poorly paid civil servant, enjoyed having this aristocratic Englishwoman worshipping at his feet and drooling all over him. But Hitler, who would talk and expect people to listen, found Unity’s insistence on having her say and interrupting him in mid-sentence, disconcerting to say the least. The truth was she got on his nerves. This pleased his mistress Eva Braun, who had confided in her diary, ” She is known as Valkyrie and looks the part, especially her legs.”

As war between Britain and Germany loomed ever larger Unity became increasingly distraught. She believed that any conflict would result in her being repatriated to England. She was right. 

Following Britain’s declaration of war on Germany on 1 September, 1939, Unity, and her sister Diana, who was with her in Germany at the time, were told by Joseph Goebbels that they could no longer remain in the country. Diana packed up her things and returned home, but Unity refused to go. If she could no longer remain at the Fuhrer’s side then life was no longer worth living. On 3 September, she went alone to the English Garden in Munich, took out a pearl-handled revolver that had been presented to her by Hitler for her own protection, and shot herself in the head.  

Unity survived and was hospitalised in Munich, Hitler paid her medical bills. She was desperately ill and had been lucky to survive. The bullet that had lodged in her brain was inoperable. She had lost a great deal of weight, was drawn, haggard, and very, very weak. Hitler, and many other leading Nazi’s visited her in hospital which cheered her up, but it was said by those who met her that she was never the same woman.

Unity was later transferred to a hospital in neutral Switzerland from where her mother and youngest sister Deborah brought her home. Arriving back in England in January, 1940, she remarked, ” I’m glad to be back in England, but I’m not on your side.”

Placed under police surveillance, Unity lived with relatives. After a long period of convalescence she embarked on a series of affairs, for reasons of distraction rather than love. People who had known her for a long time said how sad she seemed. The spark appeared to have gone out of her life and she was often quiet and introspective. 

On 28 May, 1948, Unity Mitford died of a meningitis directed related to the injuries she sustained in her suicide attempt. She was 33 years old

The Mitford’s were a family of political extremes. Whereas, most of her family paid homage to the far right, Jessica Mitford was a committed Communist and Marxist. Four years younger than Unity she relates how when they shared a room as children a chalk line was drawn down the middle of the floor; on one side hanged pictures of the Swastika and the Fuhrer, on the other posters of Marx and the Hammer and Sickle. At night they would sometimes discuss how if one side won would either of the sisters be willing to shoot the other? Those games that children play can turn deadly earnest in later life.

Jessica, was born on 11 September, 1917. Bookish and academic, she was always more level-headed and unemotional than Unity, even if her actions would appear to belie this fact. For aged just 19 she ran away from home with her cousin Esmond Romilly, who had just returned home following a stint fighting for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. Jessica soon fell hopelessly in love. They married, despite some legal difficulties and in the face of opposition from Jessica’s family, and returned to Spain where Esmond worked as a war reporter and she as a photographer and nurse. They both returned to London when Jessica got pregnant. Disowned by her parents Jessica shunned society and set up home in the slums of the East End. On 20 December, 1937, she gave birth to a daughter she named Julia. Not long after the baby died. Jessica was devastated at this the first great tragedy of her life, and she rarely, if ever, spoke about it,  not even mentioning it in her autobiography.

On the eve of war in 1939, Jessica and Esmond emigrated to the United States. Esmond, a committed anti-fascist was determined to fight and immediately enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Though she now rarely saw her husband they did at least share the joy of Jessica giving birth to a healthy baby girl, Constantia on 9 February, 1941. The child would never know her father, however. Ten months later, on 30 November, Esmond was killed when his plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on its return journey from a bombing mission over Germany. His death tore Jessica apart and for many months she refused to accept that he would not one day return.

Though she loved her children, Jessica was not a good mother. Rarely affectionate she could be cold and distant and threw herself into her work rather than focus on the responsibility of raising a family. In 1943, she met and married the civi rights lawyer Robert Treuhaft. They settled in California where Jessica gave birth to two more children.

Throughout her time in America, Jessica involved herself in radical left-wing politics. At one point she was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, she refused, and instead openly condemned the McCarthyite witchunt.

In 1960, she published her autobiography “Hons and Rebs” about her life growing up in the Mitford household. By 1961, she was working as a journalist for Esquire magazine and became embroiled in the violence surrounding the civil rights movement in Alabama.

Later in the 1960’s she published a book that exposed unscrupulous practices in the American funeral industry that became a bestseller and led to hearings in Congress. Jessica had carved out a successful career for herself as a campaigning journalist but at the same time she had become estranged from her family back in England. She could never really reconcile herself to their fascist sympathies and support for Nazism, which she perceived to be one of the greatest evils in human history. Though she did write to and meet her sisters from time to time there is little doubt that she felt embarrassed at and ashamed of their activities.

In later life she became disillusioned with communism and began to see all political extremes as absurd to the point of satire. Perhaps, in her own commitment to the far-left she could understand the attraction of far-right certainties to her siblings in a world that was in a state of flux.

Jessica Mitford died on ? aged 78. She insisted on the most basic and inexpensive funeral available, and that no fuss be made, and no obituaries posted.

Deborah, was the youngest of the Mitford girls. Born on 31 March, 1920, she grew up in the family home at a time when her sisters were already causing scandal and were the talk of High Society, but she never followed their path. Known to the family as Debo, she was the genuinely quiet Mitford sister. Though she knew Oswald Mosley well and once dined with Adolf Hitler she always steered clear of politics. Instead she remained devoted to her family and to her sisters. She did what her father had always wished all his daughters had done and married well, to the future Duke of Devonshire. She has since devoted most of her life to the maintenance and upkeep of the family estate at Chatsworth. She is the only one of the Mitford sisters still alive. 

The cultural part of the habitus basically refers to the culture we acquire during our life span. For example, museum visits, or going to the opera adds to our cultural stigma. Economic and cultural habitus are linked; meaning the acquirement of cultural goods is usually only possible with the use of money. One may also say, very simplified, that our social surroundings and family already define a person’s habitus. A farmer will most likely not enjoy having a tea party with the bourgeoisie, nor will the opposite ever occur.

Having shortly introduced you to the “habitus”, stated by Bourdieu, it is time for the main topic for this short essay. The economic and cultural habitus, as declared before, are linked in the utmost manner. In today’s society even more so. Simplified: our society is dominated by economic values. Materialism and capitalism rule our world like never before. Never before has the act of owning luxurious goods been as dominant.

A short example, which involves the small telephone we call “cell phone”.

This little gadget is a miniature, portable telephone, which ought to enable us, the consumers, to be able to communicate with everyone contained in our social network. I do not want to criticize this feat in any way whatsoever, for it can be a very useful tool. It can be life saving, as well as a documentary tool (audio/video/photographic), yet it is predominantly used for communicational purposes, as well as information seeking purposes. Nothing against that.

So, you may ask, what am I striving at? The thing is, as mentioned before, our society has been invoked with a materialistic mentality. Many people, in the “middle class society” and “high society” mostly, have the economic means to buy a new cell phone every day. Of course that is absurd. No one in his or her right mind would do that. It takes about a week to understand how these little things actually WORK. So, of course no one does that. Even if they could, they wouldn’t. A lot of people do buy a cell phone every year, or whenever they feel like their present possession may not be at the highest standard. “Highest standard”, what does that mean? Most widgets possible? Easiest way to be handled? Most secure against accidents?

Basically, it would mean that the latest technologies have been used in these little machines. So basically, the concept of these machineries is totally put in question. Communicational requirements are no longer top priority. Health, security, safety, and guarantee (of over one year) are no longer issues. The better the machines, the more fragile they seem to get, and of course, the more widgets it has, the longer it takes to understand them, the longer the person is exposed to it, which leads to, you guessed it, health issues. The University of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania, United States of America) stated that cell phones, when under extreme exposure, may lead to certain health factors, meaning consequential diseases or illnesses. 

Disregarding the fact that the health factor is partly scary, the main critique is not the high technology invoked in these machines. It is the mass consumption and materialistic mentalities of the majority of the people in our society. Is it, in fact, a replacement to a certain emotion called “happiness”, or something else? Do people try to stack as many luxurious goods in their home to replace something? Goods that are not existentially necessary?

It is a fact that our society does not have to question existentiality, nor even think about it. Our society is a luxury society, where materialism replaces certain “holes”.

To cut things short, the shimmering light of “money”, concerning their work, the materialistic mentality, and of course the consumerism, blinds people. When someone would come up to me and tell me about a job offer they have received, the first thing said is the amount of money they’d get, not what the job is specifically about. And that depresses the hell out of me. Certain values do not have the correct priority anymore. That is the way our present society runs.