Content Warning: This section reproduces an outdated, offensive racial slur via a quotation.

The antebellum South was quite different from other parts of America in its emphasis on social rank. At one point, Rhett alludes to European feudalism as the social model that created this precedent. A feudalistic social stratification completely dictates the behavior of the planter class, the ruling elite of the region. In one sense, the desire to uphold and dictate a social hierarchy is an extension of the hierarchy of enslavement, and the presentation of more acceptable social stratification that is based on reputation, family legacy, and other factors not linked to racist belief serves as a stand-in for the unspoken desire to maintain an economic system based on chattel slavery. Throughout the novel, Mitchell frames the hypocrisy of the Old Guard through the lens of white hierarchies, not through their relationship to the institution of slavery.

In the Southeast depicted in the novel, a person’s ancestry matters as much, if not more, than the amount of cotton that a plantation produces annually. Ancestry is linked to good breeding, and good breeding is an indicator of one’s quality as an individual. For this reason, reputation receives an inordinate amount of emphasis in determining social status.