The Boston Brahmin

As I mentioned in my last post, the birth of our son has turned our life topsy-topsy, in a good way and just the other day, it occured to me that he would be a brahmin who was born in Boston, so would it qualify him to called a Boston brahmin? That made me think about where exactly did the term originate.

Apparently, the term was coined by physician and writer Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (father of the famous Supreme Court justice). Dr. Holmes used it both in a novel and in an 1860 Atlantic Monthly article called "The Brahmin Caste of New England" to describe the region's upper crust. The words caste and Brahmin indicate where Holmes got the idea. Of course, the origin of the term comes from India where Brahmins made up the highest caste that prided itself in priestly duties and high educational standards. By applying the term to his native Boston, Holmes was describing a more secular but equally powerful group—the city's entrenched WASP elite, or what he called its "harmless, inoffensive, untitled aristocracy."

Holmes counted himself a Boston Brahmin. In large part, he used the term to refer to families who produced generation after generation of scholars at institutions like Harvard. (He contrasted this "race of scholars," whose aptitude for learning was "congenital and hereditary," with what he called "the common country boy, whose race has been bred to bodily labor." However, Holmes also thought there was room in elite circles for hearty country boys who had gained an education—their better health could be useful in certain cases: "A man's breathing and digestive apparatus [one is tempted to add muscular] are just as important to him on the floor of the Senate as his thinking organs.")

The term Boston Brahmin quickly came to connote great wealth, political influence, old New England roots, and often all of the above. These Brahmins frequently intermarried, founded and patronized Boston cultural institutions, and had some connection with nearby Harvard. Dr. Holmes himself was dean of the Harvard Medical School.
"A Boston Toast," the famous poem by John Collins Bossidy, neatly sums up the Brahmin culture:
And this is good old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots
And the Cabots talk only to God.

Personally, I was born a Brahmin, married a non-brahmin, have seldom indulged in traditional priestly class activities, but have prided myself in a strong work ethic, strong commitment to values, excellence in academics and that is what I would interpret the secular notion of the term brahmin to mean. The traditional brahmin has a certain social exclusivity that is neither desired nor wanted in the modern inclusive world.

Being in Boston has indeed made me revisit the notion of being a brahmin and I am sure the views will continue to evolve over time. The birth of our son has indeed made me think a little differently!!