# "A poor person today is richer than a rich person of the past" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 21, 2009, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poor-person-today-is-richer-than-a-rich-person-of-the-past/500448 "2009-06-21T03:31:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poor-person-today-is-richer-than-a-rich-person-of-the-past/500448/101 "2009-06-23T16:08:56Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > You’re wrong; at least about the hunting. Historically, hunting was always one of the chief joys of the rich. You can still see today tomb paintings of [Egyptian nobles](http://historylink101.net/images/hunting_boomrang_fish_spear.jpg) enjoying themselves on the hunt, for example. Check out [this page](http://ilaria.veltri.tripod.com/sidesaddle.html) for images of European nobles, women in particular, hunting. > WRT wife-beating, I’d say that the wealthy practiced it. It’s ludicrous to assume they had servants do it for them. The social gulf was so wide between servants and masters that it would have been perceived as an incredible obscenity for one of the servant class to lay hands on one of the aristocracy, even at the direction of another aristocrat. > Read up on duelling sometime. One of the interesting insights it will give you is just how enormous the gulf was between the gentry and the rabble. Oh gee. Someone forgot to put his sarcasm detector in his lunchpail today. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poor-person-today-is-richer-than-a-rich-person-of-the-past/500448/102 "2009-06-23T16:09:53Z")
In fact, I’d say that hunting would be another one of those things that (in the US at least) shows how far the ‘poor’ have come. Depending on the historical period we are talking about, hunting was the exclusive right of the upper elite aristocracy and nobility. In Europe only the wealthiest could afford to hunt, because only they had the right too keep private hunting reserves. Many ancient cultures and societies also had hunting as the exclusive right of the elite. At a guess, if you told some of the minor nobles, merchant class or minor nobility that they would get longer life, better medicine and health care for their kids, all the food they could eat, entertainment, etc etc, and then mentioned that they could also hunt if they wished (and own a fire arm, if they lived in the US or in a country where it’s allowed), that would probably be the clencher. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poor-person-today-is-richer-than-a-rich-person-of-the-past/500448/103 "2009-06-23T17:10:38Z")
> [@Rumor\_Watkins](#): > > Oh gee. Someone forgot to put his sarcasm detector in his lunchpail today. Yeah, the old dependable “I was being sarcastic!” response when one gets caught talking out his ass. It never lets us down. Xtisme makes an excellent point with regard to possession of weapons. In a good many times and places, a commoner in caught possession of any kind of weapon could expect to be killed forthwith. The Okinawans developed martial arts techniques utilizing agricultural tools for exactly that reason. Today, in most of the US, anybody with a clean criminal record can buy a rifle, pistol, or shotgun easily. ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poor-person-today-is-richer-than-a-rich-person-of-the-past/500448/104 "2009-06-23T17:28:19Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > Yeah, the old dependable “I was being sarcastic!” response when one gets caught talking out his ass. It never lets us down. > > Xtisme makes an excellent point with regard to possession of weapons. In a good many times and places, a commoner in caught possession of any kind of weapon could expect to be killed forthwith. The Okinawans developed martial arts techniques utilizing agricultural tools for exactly that reason. > Today, in most of the US, anybody with a clean criminal record can buy a rifle, pistol, or shotgun easily. Getting a slave to beat your wife defeats the purpose of beating your wife, namely showing her who is boss. Cripes, was that not obviously sarcasm? Do I henceforth need to inoculate all of my inane postings about royals beating their wives with some proviso so as to insure against hyper-literal dolts from misconstruing me? But as for hunting, it wasn’t done to feed themselves. So if they do it for sport, then it’s not really better or worse than watching monday night football on the boob tube. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poor-person-today-is-richer-than-a-rich-person-of-the-past/500448.md?page=5)